Edward Lucas, Lib Dem candidate for the cities of Westminster and London www.thetimes.com 

Feed recent opinion polls into our quirky electoral system and extraordinary results can emerge. Combine the latest YouGov survey and the FT’s prediction model, for example, and Labour’s 37 per cent of the vote would garner it 447 seats, a majority of 122. The Conservatives’ 18 per cent would shrivel their tally to 30. Reform, overtaking the Tories with 19 per cent, would have 22 seats. And my party, the Liberal Democrats, with 14 per cent, would have a stonking 98, making us the official opposition.

Could it happen? Among Lib Dem bigwigs, caution reigns. We often get squeezed towards the end of general election campaigns as voters opt for the lesser of the two main evils. Other prediction outfits give different results: YouGov’s own model suggests a more modest 48 seats for the Lib Dems, 140 for the Tories. Electoral Calculus suggests 63 and 80. Other recent polls show less dramatic shifts, with Reform and the Lib Dems lagging. The Conservatives are using the prospect of a Labour landslide as a bogeyman, with messages such as “Keir Starmer needs you to vote Lib Dem”.

It is hard to see this saving Tory fortunes. Rishi Sunak’s penchant for tin-eared missteps seems ineradicable. My experience on the doorstep — I’m a Lib Dem candidate in central London — is that voters have simply stopped listening to the Conservatives’ message, be it pledges or scare stories.

Although Nigel Farage — by far the most effective campaigner since Boris Johnson’s departure — has yet to unleash his talents fully, Reform has already split the right-of-centre vote catastrophically. Jeremy Corbyn lost with 40 per cent of the vote in 2017. Starmer could win a landslide this time with less support.

Attention so far has focused on the incoming Labour government. But what kind of opposition will it face? Defeat will not end the Conservatives’ civil war. Their priority will be how to deal with Farage. Whether or not the Lib Dems are indeed the official opposition, the job of holding Starmer’s new government to account is theirs for the taking.

But by whom? Filling a shadow cabinet is an exciting prospect for a party that was last the official opposition in 1906. Lib Dems typically select local campaigners as candidates. In the outgoing parliamentary party, Layla Moran, the only MP with Palestinian heritage, has made a mark. So too has the deputy leader, Daisy Cooper. With the stars of the Nick Clegg era and the 2010-2015 coalition government mostly gone, such as Vince Cable and the pensions expert Steve Webb, only two of the party’s 15 outgoing MPs have ministerial experience: the leader, Sir Ed Davey, and Alistair Carmichael, a former Scotland secretary. A lot will rest on the newcomers’ shoulders.

A bigger question is about ideas. The party’s strategy for the past few years has been to cast the broadest net possible in the most promising seats. NHS woes? Fuming about sewage? Round here, only the Lib Dems can beat the Tories! If YouGov is right, that cautious, disciplined approach has paid off, confounding sceptics (including me). More exciting — and contentious — ideas such as getting back into Europe and land-value taxation have been soft-pedalled. The most distinctive Lib Dem policy is on social care, with an £8 billion package of pledges, promoted with personal conviction by the leader, a carer for his dying mother and disabled son.

Pushing the new government to fulfil promises on the NHS and social care will therefore be a priority in opposition. Unlike Labour, Lib Dems have not signed up to the Conservatives’ ludicrous and implausible fiscal straitjacket. Many agree that we must spend more on our creaking care system and must find the money willy-nilly. But outflanking Labour to the left on tax-and-spend has its limits. The bigger their presence in the next parliament, the more the Lib Dems will need a broader, strategic approach. Newly vacated swathes of the political spectrum offer abundant opportunities under big-state Labour and its public sector and corporatist cronies. Standing up for individual freedoms, for consumers and for real competition could pay off. Another is greenery. Starmer, notoriously, flip-flopped on Labour’s original, ambitious plans to spend £28 billion on the transition to net zero. Conservatives will want to slam on the brakes. Lib Dems can urge full speed ahead.

Another target is closer relations with the European Union. Hunting red wall voters, Starmer boxed himself in with red lines: no single market, no customs union, no freedom of movement. Lib Dems have no such hang-ups. Many Labour high-ups know that Britain’s security and prosperity depend on rebooting ties with the EU. Opposition pressure on that front may even be welcome.

The biggest push, however, should be on political reform. The government will need to pack the House of Lords with new members in order to get a working majority there, underlining the need for radical change and, eventually, an elected second chamber. Even more scandalous is the electoral system, the political lottery that looks set to exclude from parliament almost completely the Greens and probably Reform, to over-punish the Conservatives and to give Labour a colossal majority on under two fifths of the vote. The only other country in Europe to have such a system is Belarus. May 2024 be the last election in which we endure its uncertainty and unfairness — even if this year’s quirks benefit my party.