Sir Ed Davey was facing calls last night to ‘ditch the clown act and bungee jumps’ or risk a leadership challenge.
The Liberal Democrat leader was warned to get serious in the face of the growing threat of Zack Polanski’s Green Party as the ‘natural party of protest’.
He was also warned that several of his MP colleagues were positioning themselves to replace him. Last night one party insider told The Mail on Sunday that even without the Greens’ threat, the Lib Dems had stalled since winning 72 seats at the last General Election.
The insider said: ‘Just what do we stand for as a party under Ed Davey? Yes, we won all those seats but since then, we’ve looked like a beached whale on the shore – impressive but going nowhere.
‘Ed should ditch the clown act and bungee jumps, and get serious.’
He added that the Lib Dems were now trailing in the polls behind a party ‘led by a man whose main claim to fame is his apparent ability to enlarge women’s breasts through hypnosis’ – a reference to reported claims about former hypnotherapist Mr Polanski.
However, a senior Lib Dem source dismissed talk of a leadership challenge, saying: ‘Ed is the consistently the most popular party leader in the country because he is in touch with what the people want and he’s fun.’
He added that although the Greens had won last month’s Gorton and Denton by-election, Mr Polanski was now pursuing a ‘narrow Corbynsta, Left-wing agenda’.
Ed Davey has been urged by Lib Dem supporters to ‘ditch the clown act and bungee jumps’ as his party were overtaken by the Greens in the polls
Mr Davey has undertaken a campaign of attention-seeking stunts since taking over as party leader in 2020
Mr Davey falls into the water of Lake Windermere while paddle boarding in May 2024
The row erupted as Lib Dems met for their spring conference in York amid claims that Sir Ed’s decision to stand up to Donald Trump over his war in Iran would reap dividends with some voters, including so-called ‘patriotic pensioners’.
A leaked internal party memo reportedly drew inspiration from the movie Love Actually where a fictional prime minister publicly stands up to a bullying US president. However, one seasoned party insider dismissed the plans last night for not addressing the basic problem of what the Lib Dems stood for.
During the last general election campaign, Sir Ed won both plaudits and criticism for a succession of stunts including bungee jumping and falling into Windermere while paddle-boarding.
But his light-hearted approach appeared to be vindicated when the Lib Dems made huge gains from the Tories in the South.
However, the election last year of new Green leader Mr Polanski – a former Lib Dem activist – has led to a surge in that party which is now ahead of Sir Ed’s party in the polls.
And polling guru Sir John Curtice told The Mail on Sunday last night: ‘Compared to Reform leader Nigel Farage and Zack Polanski, the Liberal Democrats under Sir Ed Davey have a charisma problem.
‘They did win 72 seats at the last General Election but that was because of the unpopularity of the Tories. And since then, they have failed to capitalise on what is the best opportunity since 1945 to take advantage of the decline of both Labour and the Tories.’
