Sustaining a surge

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Government formation is a two-way race in Britain. Labour and the Conservatives have been at each other's throats since the 1930's.

But this weekend saw the British election turned on its head by polls showing the normally third-place Liberal Democrats surging. The party is a coalition formed in the 1980s of the Liberals - the party of William Gladstone and David Lloyd George that was usurped by Labour as the principle alternative to the Conservatives in the 1920s - and the Social Democrats, who were moderate Labour MPs disgruntled with the a perceived Trotskyite tendency of Labour at the time.

The Lib Dems are somewhat like Canada's NDP in their consistent third-place showing: too big to be a minor party but too small to ever form a national government. The difference is the Lib Dems are a resolutely centrist party, devoted to free markets and social liberalism, while the NDP equivalent in the British marketplace is Labour.

The cause of the surge appears to be Leader Nick Clegg's exceptional performance in the leader's debate last Thursday. Immediately afterward, a YouGov poll found the Lib Dems jumping seven points to 29 per cent, just one point behind Labour and ahead of the Conservatives. ComRes and ICM confirmed the trend, with ICM showing a 10-point jump by the traditional "bridesmaid" party.

Suddenly, a two-way race becomes a three-sided contest.

It's been a very long time since the Liberals were anywhere near the front of the pack. Labour fought a rearguard action against the centrists in the 1980's as the left coalition splintered and the moderate "New Labour" vote slipped to the new centrist coalition. But no one has really had to fight the Lib Dems in a generation, and no one has waged a serious campaign against them in 80 years.

So why is this happening?

First of all, the first leaders debate in British history was an institutional gift to the Lib Dems. Any time a third party leader is on the same footing as the big guys, he or she is winning. Suddenly, you are taken seriously by the electorate and - more importantly - the filter of journalists and pundits who colour any contest.

Second, a big part of the Liberal Democrats bounce is the fault of the two "government contender" parties. Gordon Brown and David Cameron's main point of divergence in the debate was which one of them agreed with Nick Clegg more. Thinking they needed to appeal to Clegg's slice of the electorate - who are notorious for switching at the last minute to block the party they don't like - the two leaders went overboard and boosted the third-party candidate into the stratosphere.

Finally, the single biggest reason is that the Lib Dems have caught the public mood.

There is an exhaustion with Labour, but voters are not yet ready to trust the "nasty party" as the Conservatives are known in Britain. Those are perfect conditions for a tire kicking expedition to new potential governments, like the Liberal Democrats. At the same time, the Lib Dems centrist positioning makes them an easy parking spot for disgruntled Labourites and Tories. Brown and Cameron are both playing to their bases during the writ, attempting to goose turnout at the margins. The Lib Dems are picking up moderates in the middle to whom neither major party is appealing.

As a message, the Lib Dems are bundling the Conservatives and Labour together as the "old" parties, responsible for 60 years of failure. Only a new offering like the Liberal Democrats can provide real change, they say.

Messages like this rarely lead to government, but when the public really is looking for significant change, they can toy with a new party, and if they get particularly ornery, they can elect it.

How do the Labour and Tory campaigns get back on top?

Both Labour and the Tories must be careful in attack in the Liberal Democrats directly, as they both believe it could be a "hung Parliament" - or minority government - and the Lib Dems will hold the balance of power and decide the Prime Minister.

But even more critically, being seen to assault the Lib Dems directly could lead to poisoning the potential for those voters to move to their own coalition. A Labour attack on the Lib Dems might drive the votes to the Tories, and a Tory attack could strengthen Gordon Brown.

Some British insiders are urging their party to ask leading questions about the Lib Dems policies to lead them into a quagmire of debate on the details where they will lose support. Others want them to move into a full-throated appeal to their base, ceding the middle ground and instead working to drive up their appeal at the margins.

The old guard parties' reactions today are telling.

The Conservatives are attacking the potential for a hung Parliament, warning that it will result in indecision, and potentially the retention of Brown as PM. This allows the party to work to both drive down Lib Dem support and drive it to their own camp under the "change" banner.

Gordon Brown stuck with his focus on polarizing the election between themselves and the Tories by attacking the Conservatives and their economic policies. Their hope is that voters currently flirting with the Lib Dems will shift - as they have in the past - to Labour in hopes of blocking the "nasty party."

However, Labour campaign director Lord Mandelson spent the day pointing out Lib Dem proposals at odds with the Labour base, including cuts to child tax credits and criticizing the Lib Dems proposed "amnesty for illegal immigrants."

But both parties will likely ratchet up their tactics in the coming days, focusing on increasing voter suspicions about the Liberal Democrats and reducing their ability to appear "new and different."

So how are the Liberal Democrats to respond to their new-found competitiveness? In short, stay disciplined and stick with the plan.

This is the best shot the Liberal Democrats have had in thirty years, and the best they will have for at least another eight.

The public mood is rotten, and big change is possible. Voters in Britain - disgusted by revelations of MP pork-barreling and cool to both Labour and Tory - are ready to consider a significant change. So keep the issue "change" and not yourself.

When Labour attacks the Liberal Democrats on "amnesty for illegal immigrants," reply with: "Our policy is to focus resources on criminals, terrorists and human-traffickers, instead of poor Mr. Singh the neighbourhood grocer whose papers aren't in order. The opposition to focusing on terrorism from the old guard parties shows why it's time for a real change."

When the Tories attack the possibility of a hung Parliament, reply with: "Thirty years of one-party-rule alternating between Labour and Tory was what got us into this mess. It's time for a real change."

Pro-active campaigning by the Liberal Democrats should be about proving why it's time for a real change, not proving that they are ready for government.

They need to be careful not to make themselves the ballot question. Instead, they want the question to be "do you want another four years like the last 60 or do you want a real change for the better?"

The Liberal Democrats have already done themselves some real harm with an election manifesto that is far, far too comprehensive for an insurgent party. This is where policies like the "illegal alien amnesty" are being dragged out of. Labour and Tory researchers will have a field day cooking half-baked policies into full-baked clunkers.

They also have two more leaders debates to manage, a tough proposal as both will provide opportunities for Nick Clegg to wrong-foot himself under the increasingly skeptical glare of a nation.

If they can keep the spotlight on the warts of the two major parties for the next two weeks, the Liberal Democrats have a chance.

My instinct is that they have peaked too soon, and their natural desire to be taken seriously will make them talk about themselves rather than why it's time for a change. But the ingredients are there for an upset.