Lib Dems ask openly for tactical votes

The Liberal Democrats yesterday broke two election campaigning taboos by openly encouraging tactical voting and acknowledging that the party does not believe it can form the next government.

In a deliberate tactic which strategists believe will be respected by voters hungry for openness and honesty, the Lib Dem leader, Charles Kennedy, painted a dream scenario for his party which would see it secure 200 seats - less than needed to take power.

A Mori poll for the party suggested the increase from its current 47 seats was possible if every voter who supported the Lib Dems voted for them, rather than resisting on the basis that the party could not win.

Mr Kennedy, with his "flying start" tour to every British region, is aiming to encourage the view that the Lib Dems are a valid option in all areas of the country, without arousing voter scepticism by claiming he will be prime minister on June 8.

The party is using the same arguments to encourage Conservative and Labour voters in two-way marginals where their party is trailing in third place to vote tactically for the Lib Dems.

In an interview with the politics website ePolitix yesterday, Mr Kennedy suggested there was room for "a significant realignment of British politics".

But he suggested pro-Europe Conservatives, as well as the Lib Dems and Labour, could be involved in a post-election joint cabinet committee examining the issue of the euro in the run-up to a referendum.

The party's home affairs spokesman, Simon Hughes, yesterday suggested that the prospect of Conservative "meltdown" in the election could leave the way open for the Lib Dems to escape the role of third party in a two-party system in which they had been trapped for more than half a century.

He told BBC Radio 4: "We could well be in the position where the old presumption that has lasted since the war, that the Labour and Tory parties were the big parties and we were always in third place, could be broken."

He appealed to potential tactical voters to give their support to the Liberal Democrats in seats where their preferred party did not stand a chance. "Don't throw your vote away on another party if you know they can't win and if you broadly support our policies on investment in public services and honesty in taxation. You will be surprised at how well we can do."

A senior party source suggested that voters were keener to vote Lib Dem "if they feel they are not the only one".

He added: "[Previous leaders] Ashdown and Steel maintained the fiction that we could form a government - Charles is not saying that, but he is saying that if people vote as they believe we could make big gains and that would fundamentally change the nature of the House of Commons."

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