It was said of the old Liberal Party that its members thought “goats were sheep from broken homes”. The challenge for Charles Kennedy in this election is to prove that portrait — and implication of a party which is sincere but unworldly — to be no longer accurate. The Liberal Democrat manifesto published yesterday is a tighter, less ambiguous document than that offered at the last general election. In most part, however, particularly on questions of economic management and the future of the public services, it comes across as a volume purposefully positioned to the left of Labour. This may be a short-term tactic, but makes for poor long-term strategy.

There are, of course, a number of individual policy items that merit some sympathy. The party is right to express so much passion about the iniquities of the Common Agricultural Policy. The section on law and order is tougher than that produced in previous elections and the better for it. The party’s civil libertarianism has, nonetheless, not been sacrificed. The scepticism expressed in the manifesto about the Department of Trade and Industry will be shared by many who are not instinctive Lib Dems. The party has also been brave in asserting that it would scrap Labour’s populist but debatable Child Trust Fund in favour of spending more on early learning.

In other areas, though, it is what can be kindly described as intellectual inconsistencies that are most apparent. Vince Cable, the party’s heavyweight Treasury spokesman, makes a number of robust comments about the virtues of market economics. Yet, elsewhere, in the chapter called A Fairer Deal for Rural Communities, the party wants a “legal duty to trade fairly” that will “protect farmers and consumers from unfair practices by supermarkets and the processing companies”. “Unfair” here means affordable food.

There is more tension over the regulation of business. Malcolm Bruce, party spokesman on trade and industry, waxes lyrical about cutting “red tape”. But in another segment of the mani-festo, Liberal Democrats back the EU Registration, Evaluation and Authorisation of Chemicals (Reach) Directive. Many in business understandably regard Reach as a classic example of Brussels overreach, which is unnecessarily damaging to competitiveness.

The final set of difficulties relates to health and education. Liberal Democrats, while conceding charitably that “choice has a place in the NHS”, indicate that it is a distinctly modest place, some distance away. The continued hostility of the party to external testing in schools is unconvincing. The plan to bring in free personal care for elderly and disabled people, while idealistic, is a vast extension of the role of government and hugely expensive.

These matters are ultimately more significant than the exact link between any new 50 per cent income tax band and a proposed local income tax, a subject on which Mr Kennedy seemed somewhat confused at his press conference yesterday. They indicate a disagreement in the party about the essence of Liberalism. It is a manifesto that smacks of having been written by sheep, with the odd goat occasionally managing to force a more realistic provision on to the agenda. That may not harm the Liberal Democrats this time. There are disillusioned “old Labour” voters out there who will be attracted to them. They will require a more centrist, disciplined, formula in 2009-10 if they are to be serious players.