THE Liberal Democrats need to sharpen their policies and replace Charles Kennedy as leader in the long term if they are to look like a credible alternative government. This is the main message of a pre-conference poll by Populus (based on interviews with 1,007 adults between September 9 and 11).

This week’s Lib Dem conference in Blackpool is intended to move the party, and its leader, towards being a contender for office but voters are far from convinced yet.

The party’s general image remains favourable. More voters think the Lib Dems share their values; understand the way people live their lives; are honest and principled; are united (by a huge margin); and have clear ideas for the most important issues facing Britain, than take that view about either the Conservatives or Labour.

This is, however, a long way from believing that the party is ready for power.

Three fifths of the public, including swing or floating voters, think that the Lib Dems are basically a protest vote party, because they have no real chance of ever winning, and a similar number regard the party as made up of “decent people but their policies probably don’t really add up”.

Just under a half of all voters, and even two fifths of non-Lib Dems, think that the party would do a good job of running the country.

The Lib Dems face a paradox. Many people vote for them as a protest against another party, notably against Labour last May, but many others do not vote for them because they do not have a realistic chance of taking office.

Nearly a third of those who voted Lib Dem last May said that they might not have voted for the party if there had been a realistic chance of it winning the election and forming a government.

By contrast, half of non-Lib Dem voters in May said that they would seriously consider voting for the party if it had a chance of winning. This shows the Lib Dems’ vulnerabilities and their potential.

Remembering that the Liberal Democrats are seen as to the left of other parties, much of the public thinks that more people would vote for them if they put forward tough policies on crime and antisocial behaviour (65 per cent, up 13 points on a year ago), and promised to abolish council tax and replace it with a local income tax (54 per cent, up 8 points).

Yet half the public highlights the attractions of a strong commitment to civil liberties in debates about ID cards and anti-terrorism measures.

Nearly two fifths say that more people would vote Lib Dem if the party was more sceptical about the EU.

But just a third mention radical reform of public services involving more private sector involvement, rather than defending the existing structure of services.

Most revealing of all, a third of the public (and 35 per cent of Lib Dems and 40 per cent of swing voters) say that people would be more likely to back the party if Mr Kennedy were replaced with someone who would be a more credible prime minister.

Mr Kennedy’s advisers accept that their main challenge in the current Parliament is building him up as a plausible alternative prime minister. He predictably knocked down press speculation yesterday that he would stand down after the next election.

If the next election is in 2009, however, Mr Kennedy will have fought three elections and been leader for ten years. That is about average for leaders of the Liberals and Lib Dems. None of his predecessors has done more than twelve years. So it is the next election or never.

Mr Kennedy wants to raise his party’s ambitions, but to do so he also has to raise the performance of himself and of his party.

The Lib Dems can no longer afford to be self-indulgent, or opportunistically all things to all people. It is time for some hard-edged thinking, starting this week with Mr Kennedy himself.

www.timesonline.co.uk/peterriddell

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