In 2021 we achieved something we’ve not achieved since 1993: winning two Parliamentary by-elections in the same year off the Conservatives.

We start this new year with a larger Parliamentary Party than any of us would have dared dream of a year ago. (A winning run that has continued with the first council by-election of this year too - congratulations to now councillor Andrew Dunkin who won a seat from Labour from third place.) The question now is how do we build on that success in 2022, and how do we make the most of our limited resources? Here’s the plan. Winning over those with liberal values We showed in both Chesham & Amersham and in North Shropshire how to appeal to many Conservatives. People with (some) liberal values, who often voted Remain, but who backed Boris Johnson in 2019. They're now willing to listen to us, even to vote for us - as long as we listen in turn to what they say is most important to them. That's why our campaigns in both those by-elections didn't start with us lecturing them. They started with us listening to them, finding the common ground between their concerns and our values. Tactical voting was important in both contests. We should be grateful for the cooler heads in other parties who saw this too. But winning over a soft Conservative counts double - one on our total plus one off the Tory total. A tactical vote only counts once - one on our total but nothing off the Tory total. We need to do both to win (and of course substitute in our main rival in places where it isn't the Conservatives we're up against). Securing electoral reform Get this right and we can be a big part of the story of removing the Conservatives from power. Get this right and we can be a big part of forcing a hung Parliament. Get this right and we can use that power finally to secure electoral reform for Westminster. That is why the Conservative-Lib Dem battleground of the Blue Wall is so important. It's the way to change all our politics. But, the majority of our members, our elected representatives and our votes are from outside the Blue Wall. So we must get the balance right but I hope you can see why there is so much focus on the Blue Wall. For Labour facing areas, having voters hear us talk about the part the party can play in removing the Conservatives from power will also be helpful mood music. Background  noise that will make it easier for our local messages about Labour’s failure in so many town halls to work. Refining our message To succeed, we must continue to refine our political messages. We need to give people a clear sense of the difference that the Liberal Democrats make. We’ve got an extensive set of market research underway and now have regular feedback sessions with our most active canvassers. That way we can make sure our decision are rooted in what voters are telling us - an important lesson from what went wrong in 2019. In his autumn federal conference speech, Ed started setting out this messaging, with the idea of a fair deal for everyone at the heart of it. That desire to give everyone a fair deal, enabling them to lead their lives as they wish, is what makes us distinctive as liberals. Improving our campaign support We saw in both Chesham & Amersham and North Shropshire how important our local organisation is. Without the May election results we had in both seats, we wouldn’t have had the by-election successes we did. We’re starting to see the benefits of our big investment in our networks of field campaign staff. It’s been tough to prioritise this area of expenditure, but both results show the benefits of those difficult decisions. We also need to continue to modernise our campaigning. So the Campaign Innovation Fund is back for 2022 to fund more experiments, helping us learn what works. We’re also bringing key data work back in-house so we can improve the data available to campaigners on the front line. We’ll be making major changes to our web presence during the year and improving many of our other tools.