There seems to be a naïve assumption that all the problems of the Liberal Democrats will be solved by a decapitation strategy.

During my lifetime there have been 12 Liberal and LibDem leaders and during that same period we have always been told that voters don’t understand what we stand for. Yes, occasionally, voters do identify with something we stand for. Our opposition to the Iraq war for example or our support for the EU. They have also recognised stupidity like abandoning our firm pledge on tuition fees.

In 2024 I suspect our success was mainly down to being the best opportunity to kick out the Tories than any real understanding of what we stood for.

All my life, since the death of the News Chronicle, we have had no national media to support our cause. In 2010, the Guardian did encourage people to vote LibDem, only to withdraw that support the minute the coalition was agreed. All we ever see is ridicule, disagreement and, more usually, silence.

Is that going to change if we have a new leader? I very much doubt it. The Tories changed their leader 6 times between 2005 and 2024. That didn’t prevent the worst defeat in their history in 2024. The Greens chose a new leader, Polanski, and enjoyed short term success before dropping back down the polls and losing the HSP by-election. Labour has had 6 leaders since 2005, but has that created a really successful party? The jury is still out on their latest change. We have had 5 leaders since Charles Kennedy. Our current leader led us to our best election result in 100 years but apparently that’s not good enough.

I suggest that the leader is not the only factor in getting our message across. We have never found a way to express our ideology and policies in a simple way, perhaps because it isn’t possible to do that. Leaders can only project what the party stands for if the party decides what that message is.

We need to think about an effective way of telling people about us, not constantly seek to blame and change the leader in a desperate attempt to get our message across.

Some clearly think a more charismatic leader might do better. Perhaps the most successful Labour PM was Clement Attlee a man widely recognised as having no charisma at all. He did however know what he wanted and largely delivered it.

Be careful what you wish for, is always sound advice. Changing our leader, followed by a possibly divisive leadership vote is just a distraction from campaigning. We should avoid it. A decapitation strategy is not the answer to the party’s perceived problems.

* Dr Michael Taylor has been a party member since 1964. He is currently living in Greece.