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Wednesday 06 July 2016 | UK News feed

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Defiant Kennedy takes 'decapitation' strategy into Tory heartland

Charles Kennedy
Charles Kennedy campaigning in Hythe, Kent, yesterday 

Liberal Democrats stuck to their controversial "decapitation" strategy of unseating senior Tories yesterday despite claims that it was backfiring for Charles Kennedy.

The Lib Dem leader re-affirmed the tactic of throwing resources into unseating five senior Tories, including Michael Howard, by making a late campaign visit to the Conservative leader's Folkestone and Hythe constituency. The trip, with less than 48 hours to polling day, was intended to send a message that Mr Howard's 5,907 majority was not secure.

"We can win in this constituency," said Mr Kennedy before telling the party's final big rally that there was "no ceiling" to its ambitions and urging supporters to "redouble their efforts" for the last hours of campaigning.

Lord Rennard, the party's elections chief, dismissed as "absolute rubbish" Tory-inspired claims that he was pulling his activists out of the Haltemprice and Howden constituency of David Davis, the shadow home secretary.

The Lib Dems are banking on a late switch of Labour voters, possibly motivated by Iraq, to topple at least some big Tory figures. But the strategy of decapitation, a description attributed to the media, was hit yesterday by an opinion poll suggesting it would not reap dividends tomorrow. The Guardian/ICM poll, partly taken in Mr Davis's constituency in the East Riding of Yorkshire, said that as of last week, the Conservative vote was two per cent up on 2001 and the Lib Dem vote down by one.

Mr Davis, who has a fragile 1,903 majority over the Lib Dem challenger Jon Neal, told The Daily Telegraph last week that the decapitation strategy was "stupid" and was resented by local people.

Tories and Labour aides seized on yesterday's poll evidence to suggest that far from devising a masterstroke, the normally tactically adept Lib Dems had blundered.

As well as Messrs Howard and Davis, the Lib Dems have also targeted Oliver Letwin, the shadow chancellor, Theresa May, the party's family affairs spokesman and Tim Collins, the shadow education secretary.

A Labour source hinted that by naming the five Tories as top targets, the Lib Dems had helped to reinforce local Tory support.

Labour suggested that parading the MP Brian Sedgemore, who defected to the Lib Dems last week, had harmed the party's appeal to Tories. The Lib Dems' much harder line on Labour, compared with 2001, had limited their scope for attracting defectors from Tony Blair's party, said a Labour source.

Mr Kennedy played down the notion of specifically aiming to unseat Mr Howard yesterday, saying: "I am here irrespective of who leads another political party and precisely because this is a prime target seat for the Liberal Democrats."

Later, in the Mermaid Theatre, London, Mr Kennedy told his party's rally that "record levels of support'' for it was increasingly the story of this election campaign.

Mr Blair was scared of his party and its policies - "abolishing tuition fees, replacing council tax with a local income tax and introducing free personal care for the elderly''.

As leader of the only main party that opposed the Iraq war, Mr Kennedy underlined the question of trust. If re-elected, Mr Blair would be a "lame-duck Prime Minister".

Closing the rally, he said that the future of the Conservatives "as a viable, credible national political party is going to be in fundamental doubt by the end of this week".

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