Sean O'Grady: The last thing the Lid Dems need now is a 'consolidating' leader

Whenever a politician uses the word "consolidation" you know things are bad. Sir Menzies Campbell used the expression when he was defending the Liberal Democrats' performance in the local elections, and that should have made any sensible Liberal Democrat worry. The problem isn't that the results were actually that bad.

The projected national vote share, at 26 or 27 per cent, was pretty much on a par with recent performances.Losses more or less balanced gains. The party won Richmond and Lakeland councils, while Islington and Winchester slipped away. Local factors, such as the revelations about the Winchester MP Mark Oaten's private life, no doubt played their part. But there is a slight sense that opportunities are slipping away.

With Labour suffering so badly it seems that everyone has been gaining at the governing party's expense. Except, that is, for the Liberal Democrats, who just do not seem able to capitalise on the Blair Government's weakness. Even at last year's general election, the Liberal Democrats made some gains against an unpopular government and the unlovely alternative offered by Michael Howard. Charles Kennedy won more constituencies and improved his party's vote share. Kennedy was able to rally to his banner voters who were disappointed by New Labour's failure to deliver on public services, its assault on civil liberties and its involvement in the war in Iraq. Sir Menzies has had less success. True, the outcome might have been much worse, given the bloody, undignified mess the party made of getting rid of Mr Kennedy. Given Sir Menzies' own role in that affair, however, that is not saying much.

The concern for the Liberal Democrats is that the Tories have got what they used to have - momentum. David Cameron has seen his party crest the psychological 40 per cent barrier and deliver the best result in national elections since 1992, and there is a danger that voters determined to get rid of Labour will acquiesce around Mr Cameron instead. The Liberal Democrats may well deride him as a phoney, but he sounds fresh, reasonable and pragmatic and he doesn't bang on about tax and asylum-seekers.

If Mr Cameron keeps plugging away at the environment and civil liberties, keeps a more critical line on Iraq and keeps Europe off the Tory agenda than he might peel away the sort of soft ex-Tory voters who defected to the Lib Dems from the 1990s on.

A few years ago, when the Tories were the smallest party in local government and the Liberal Democrats arguably the largest, there was a lot of talk about the Lib Dems being the "real" or "effective" opposition to Blair, and speculation that they might actually overtake the Tories in a general election to be the official opposition.

It may be a while before the Lib Dems entertain such high ambitions again. They may be wondering whether a leader less inclined to "consolidate" might have been a better bet. After all, wasn't it Mr Kennedy who was supposed to be the complacent one?