THE architects of the Liberal Democrats’ election campaign are being blamed for failing to deliver a breakthrough by underestimating the strength of Michael Howard’s campaign.

Lord Rennard, who drew up the Lib Dems’ list of target seats, and Lord Razzall, who chaired the campaign and directed its strategy, are the subject of unprecedented private criticism.

Claims of organisational and strategy failures come on top of a gathering view that some Lib Dem policies, in particular plans for a local income tax, frightened off middle-class voters in southern England.

Lord Rennard, the party’s chief executive, faces criticism that his “ground war” activities of concentrating literature and advertising campaigns in selected seats failed to match new street-fighting Tory tactics. The Lib Dems’ local campaigning techniques were copied and developed in a nationally coordinated Conservative campaign that included negative leaflets attacking Charles Kennedy’s policies, spoof websites and massive telephone canvassing.

There is further frustration that Lord Razzall failed to hone “air war” messages that appealed simultaneously to Labour and Tory supporters. He insisted that Mr Kennedy devote his time during the election traipsing Britain in battlebuses and a chartered aircraft, meaning that the Lib Dem leader spent large parts of his day travelling and the Lib Dem campaign became inflexible and less able to respond to events.

One senior Lib Dem accused Lord Rennard and Lord Razzall of failing to adapt their tactics and strategy. The pair spent between £3 and £3.5 million on the Lib Dem campaign, more than twice that at the previous election, as they made extensive use of poster and press advertising for the first time.

“Chris and Tim were incredibly complacent after 2001,” the source said. “They were given too much power and they failed to deliver. When it became clear it was not working against the Conservatives, they didn’t know what to do.”

Crucially, the party appears to have failed to realise the effectiveness of Mr Howard’s plea to voters to “send a message to Tony Blair” and to have been too slow in trying to neutralise this. Despite research showing that Mr Howard and Tony Blair were both unpopular, some Lib Dem MPs and candidates who fought Tory marginals in the South said people told them that they would vote Tory nonetheless as the only way to rein-in Mr Blair.

Such rancour within Lib Dem ranks is rare, given the party’s small size, and reflects a realisation of the scale of the missed opportunity for the Lib Dems, in an election in which Labour and the Tories were both weak and Mr Kennedy’s was the only mainstream party to have opposed the Iraq war. Privately some hoped for between 75 and 80 seats, rather than 62.

Another Lib Dem MP on the party’s Centre-Right said: “I was not happy with the way Brian Sedgemore [the ex-Labour MP who defected] was used and I think we perhaps spent two days longer than we should on Iraq.”

Such disappointment is, however, not widespread among Lib Dems at Westminster many of whom believe their net gains of 11, overwhelmingly at Labour’s expense, were an achievement.

Mr Kennedy began reshuffling his front bench yesterday as he spought to stamp his authority on his parliamentary party. There will be no changes in the top posts and Sir Menzies Campbell, Vince Cable and Mark Oaten stay on as foreign affairs, home affairs and Treasury spokesmen.

But Norman Baker will lose his post as environment spokesman. Mr Kennedy said several times during the election that he wants bolder environmental policies. He will also cut the size of his so-called Shadow Cabinet, which by the end of the last Parliament comprised half his parliamentary party, to create a smaller top team of better-known Lib Dems and more backbenchers.

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