Here we are again –– though this time, it has been rather longer a wait. The stuttering, quick-paced elections of 2015-2019 have given way to the yawn of a full five-year term. And ‘yawn’ really is the proper word.

The Conservative Party promised much in 2019. They smashed the so-called Red Wall. They dismantled the Labour Party. They pledged reform, levelling up, unlocking the benefits of departing from the European Union. But where are we now? Three Prime Ministers later, the record speaks for itself.

For starters, don’t get ill. It’ll be weeks before you can see a GP. Months before you get a referral to your local hospital. Waiting lists are up. Staff are immiserated through low pay and poor conditions. The mass of new hospitals promised by the Conservative Party have failed to materialise. Wards are crumbling and shabby.

Don’t hope for you and your family to be better off. Growth has been stagnant. Wages are barely higher than they were before the 2008 financial crisis. House prices are past boiling point –– it is essentially impossible for a young person to buy their own home, especially if they happen to be committing the cardinal offence of living and working in the South East of England. Major national infrastructure projects like HS2 have been mothballed and neglected, and energy generation projects have been met with a collective shrug by successive Cabinets.

Don’t dare fall onto hard times, either. Disability benefits have been sharply curtailed, including inhumane assessments which, when challenged in court, turn out to be wrong more often than not. Child benefit has been limited to two children only, and the Conservatives see no reason to extend the programme of free school meals for primary school children. It should be repugnant to the national conscience that the moral outrage of child poverty and child hunger has worsened under this government, and indeed has reached a record high.

Those are its failures. What has Conservative government actually achieved? What will it be remembered for? Same-sex marriage was a Liberal Democrat policy guided through government by a Liberal Democrat minister and passed in Parliament despite a majority of the Conservative Party voting against it. Raising the personal allowance threshold was a Liberal Democrat policy originating on the Liberal Democrat conference floor. Positive environmental progress, including the Green Investment Bank, was Liberal Democrat policy scrapped by the Conservatives the moment they won an outright majority. One can only suspect that history will record the primary consequences of Conservative government as having been leaving the European Union, shipping asylum seekers to Rwanda, and presiding over more than a decade of economic decline. These can hardly be characterised as ‘achievements’.

It will be obvious, then –– and it is heartening to see in the opinion polls that the vast majority of the country appears to agree –– that the Conservative Party deserves to be removed from office. Indeed, it deserves to be so roundly defeated that it has no hope of ever forming a government again.

But who, then, to support?

The Labour Party will win this election, but they are not our choice. Their plans are too cautious by far, and there appears to be no prospect that Sir Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves will take the bold actions necessary to grow the economy and grow wages once again. They have taken a bizarre line on public services and welfare, pledging to keep much of the Conservatives’ failed legacy on both. They have abandoned their plan to spend a transformative sum on greening the economy and building new green industry. And their views on civil liberties and the so-called ‘culture war’ are confused at best and alarming at worst.

The Green Party are fundamentally unserious. Their manifesto criticises the other parties’ support for economic growth, saying it is “actively undermining our wellbeing”. This is pure hokum. Such a disastrous, defeatist position would have serious negative consequences for our country. They appear proud of their anti-development and anti-growth policy, including scepticism of HS2 (the scandalous curtailment of which does not feature at all in their manifesto). Their manifesto refuses to pledge to build a single new house which is not a social home, ignoring the economic concerns of millions of people. And their continued opposition to nuclear power remains entirely untenable in a world of energy insecurity.

Part of the issue is that many of the opposition parties misdiagnose the problem –– or worse, have no diagnosis for the problem at all. It seems to this publication, however, that many of the country’s troubles, and many of the primary concerns of its people, are fundamentally rooted in questions of freedom and liberty.

Stagnant growth, stagnant wages, obscene mortgage and rent payments and the spiralling cost of living have thrust millions into a straitjacket of economic precarity, spending every moment working to stay afloat, never able properly to enjoy the fruit of their labour. Our economy is throttled by an overburdensome planning system, an over-litigious class of serial objectors to infrastructure, and a myopic unwillingness to build.

Our catastrophically broken health and social care system –– with its weeks-long waits for GP appointments, its hours-long waiting times for ambulances, its insufficiency of beds, its poorly remunerated staff, and its inadequate social care structure –– is leaving the most vulnerable members of our society limited by illness. In the case of the very elderly, or those in need of significant care, or those family members who provide that care, the insufficiency of our current services leads to their whole lives being dominated and constrained by illness and infirmity.

These are just some examples. There are many others. In almost all cases, people are worse off and less able to lead rich and fulfilling lives because they are limited by poverty, precarity, ill-health and all manner of other constraints which the present government has made worse, not better. Given that reality, and given that it is only through a clear focus on improving economic, personal and social freedom that the country will be pulled out of its current rut, it is perhaps inevitable that the only party offering compelling solutions is the one with liberalism in its very name: the Liberal Democrats.

The Liberal Democrats have been much derided since 2015. Many claim they are an irrelevance. Their low seat count since 2015 has certainly not helped matters, and nor did their underperformance in 2019. But the polls suggest that they are due a revival at this election –– one which may well restore them to their undisputed status as Britain’s third party. It will, one hopes, lead to their policy position being given greater coverage and attention by the commentariat. This is unquestionably a good thing, and it is worth demonstrating why.

The Liberal Democrats are committed to economic growth. They are committed, for example, to reviewing the cancellation of HS2, to a massive expansion in green infrastructure, and to building 380,000 new homes a year (the largest number of any of the parties). The Liberal Democrats are the only party with a credible plan for the NHS and social care –– assisted, no doubt, by Sir Ed Davey’s personal experiences of care and caring, which he has communicated movingly throughout this campaign. The Liberal Democrats reject Labour’s continuity conservatism on public services, pledging real investment into both staff and infrastructure. And the Liberal Democrats are the only party to be realistic about the need for the United Kingdom to repair its broken relationship with the European Union and return to the single market. Add to this the party’s continued support of traditional liberal causes, including LGBT+ rights and electoral reform, and it is obvious that there is only one good choice for liberals at this election.

This election will no doubt be historic. The country seems poised to deliver a stunning blow to the Conservative Party –– one which is deserved, and one which this publication hopes it never recovers from. But just as important a question is what comes next. Britain’s problems, as expressed above, demonstrate that liberalism is as relevant now as it has ever been. Electing a party which does not understand or share that diagnosis will just prolong the problem. And so there really is only one option.

The Torch endorses Sir Ed Davey and the Liberal Democrats at this election, and encourages its readers to vote for them across the country.