Hello and welcome to Coffee House Shots, the Spectator's Daily Politics Podcasts.

My name's Megan McElroy, and I'm joined today by James Heel, our deputy political editor and Luke Trill, UK director of More in Common.

James, you've been at and about this morning. You've been with the Lib Dems. Tell us what they've told you. Right. So this is an analogy I've been sitting on for a bit of a while. But brace yourselves. It's about one of my favourite TV shows, The Sopranos. And the creator of that TV show is David Chase. And he says that before the Sopranos, there was this meeting once with a TV executive who explained to him the idea of least defensive programming, LOP. And the idea being that in sort of the TV of the 1990s, people like Seinfeld or Friends, you want to create the most likable, most tolerable, most palatable person for all different people to watch, to get the kind of maximum view at base. What Sopranos did was come in and do the anti-hero, and people end up cheering that and that to a whole breakaway. What the Liberal Dem strategy seems to be is create least

offensive programming for political parties. So what they do is they go after these causes that

clearly are seen as most palatable or favourable to Middle England taste, hence why

you've seen them do the different stunts in the cricket whites of a village green, hence why

today, a Davy's big announcement was about the A&E crisis.

But, of course, what he was proposing was spending less than 1% of the NHS budget in additional fundraising.

And of course, when impressed about that, he said it, well, it needs to be kind of credible and affordable.

And this ultimately is the test for the Liberal Democrats is they want to be the least offensive and therefore they want to increase spending a bit but not too much. They don't want to, they want to be improved things. They want to end the crisis, but not too radical like the Greens. And differentiate themselves a bit from Labour and a bit from the Conservatives. And so least offensive programming also fits in needy with how they're going after reform,

who in their view, I think, would be the Sopranos in their kind of slick suits and sort of horrible, amoral, immoral ways. And very much of the opposite in terms of the press conference, how this dynamic worked. Because Nigel Farage there, if it had a hostile question, would have gone after them and said, what, you know, etc. Whereas Ed Davey, it was a little bit more kind of soporific, a few jibes at the journalist for not reading his book on the NHS. I'm not sure how many of the press officers read his book on the NHS. But really was just an attempt to be, you know, serious, incredible and try and win over those voters who are looking around thinking, I'm disappointed with Keir-Stama. Benok hasn't won me over. I don't like the look and sound of reform.

And that is probably why. win over those voters who are looking around thinking, I'm disappointed with Keir-Stama,

Baynock hasn't won me over, I don't like the look and sound of reform. And that is probably why, under the kind of great barrage, to mix our metaphors for a second, of Reform UK, where they're sort of sending over these kind of World War I, because obviously, you know, Farage is a big amateur military historian buff, almost a professional level, sending of these big bertha shells,

you know, shelling up the landscape. Under that barrage of fire, the Liberal Democrats are creeping forward and making lots and lots of gains across the south of England. And that's why,

of course, they won slightly more by-elections at a local level since May last year.

Luke, I think Ed Davies come under a bit of criticism lately

because the Lib Dems haven't been performing that well in the polls.

Is this the sort of thing that can get them on the move again?

The Lib Dem thing, I think, is one of the most interesting conundrums in politics at the moment

because on the one hand, it's hard to fault their strategy. You know, they've got a record

number of MPs, as James was saying, they're creeping forward in local by-elections,

they'll probably do quite well again in May. And we know that once Liberal Democrats get in,

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