“The Son of Orange Book” hasn’t had nearly as fiery a reception as its predecessor. One review described the original as ‘smelling faintly of brimstone’. No rumors of right-wing conspiracies have accompanied this volume. This autumn, the essays are more measured, and the potential future leadership candidates more cautious about what they say.

Stripped of its spin, the Orange Book was less than earth-shattering – and Britain After Blair is much the same. The two defining characteristics of the essays are that they are liberal, and intelligent.  At £10 for 14 essays and a detailed introduction, they are also decent value for money.

That said, some of the essays gave me a faint longing for something more, while a number of them are essentially arguments for existing party policy – cogent, but unadventurous.

The essay that does the most to establish the Party in the centre ground is Vince Cable’s on the economy. The depth of detail in his analysis of Gordon Brown’s economic management is impressive – though it’s clear that a Lib Dem government would broadly follow the same ‘progressive consensus’.  If the economy is the issue where voters have yet to trust us, Vince’s essay makes clear that the Lib Dems are fundamentally sensible, sound and centrist. That’s far more significant than Norman Lamb’s views of how the Post Office should be owned, or even David Laws’ views on public service provision.

Laws takes this opportunity to position himself back in the centre ground of the party. His thoroughly sensible rundown of the perils of means-tested benefits, both on outcomes and on incentives, is possibly the least controversial thing he could have said. To people titillated by the display of market-based alternatives in the Orange Book there is not even a flash of ankle on display. 

The essays that most grab the attention are those which depart from the script, and in which ideas are being incubated rather than reiterated. Jeremy Browne makes a good case for police reform based on local accountability and local operational freedom – an answer to a live debate after Labour’s police merger disaster. David Howarth not only nails nuclear myths with some power, he wants to open the whole national grid to two-way traffic in energy. Lynne Featherstone tours the difficulties of modern race relations.

This is only a small taste of the selection of articles within the book. While this book hasn’t, and won’t, set the party alight with new ideas, at £10 it’s worth a punt at the very least to read up on the thinking that is driving the next generation of Lib Dem front-benchers.

• You can buy Britain After Blair from Amazon and other retailers
• Britain after Blair is a CentreForum project.