Lib Dems aiming to go big as they spot electoral opportunity

Ed Davey and his party are preparing to do battle with Reform as they gather for their annual conference

• UK politics live - latest updates

With memories still fresh of 2019, when pre-election predictions of 200-plus seats were followed by a haul of precisely 11, the first rule of Liberal Democrat conference is that you never talk about numbers. Nonetheless, one thing is abundantly clear: this is a party thinking big.

That might sound anomalous when we are perhaps three years from an election and the Lib Dems already have 72 MPs, the biggest contingent in a century. But in a political era almost unparalleled in flux, there is an argument they are responding to the chaos as effectively as anyone.