As soon as I mentioned the phrase “General Election” Mr Cole-Hamilton’s face lit up, eager to tell me about how “if viewed from space” his party looks like it’s dominating even the “might” of the Labour Party in terms of geographical area.
And there’s reason for his enthusiasm.
The Lib Dems managed to pick up 72 Westminster seats, six of which are in Scotland, making them the third-largest party in the country in terms of MPs.
This makes an exciting change for the Liberal Democrats who suffered significant losses after the coalition government with Nick Clegg and David Cameron took them out of favour amongst the public. A Lib Dem will still wince every time you mention tuition fees.
Ahead of their conference today in Perth, a Liberal Democrat source told me there’s enthusiasm amongst their members.
The Lib Dem source said: “It’s the first time since the Scottish party is meeting since the general election – our best results in over one hundred years.
“This is going to be an extremely buoyant conference.”
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“It also comes less than 24 hours after a stonking council by-election victory in Colinton and Fairmilehead – a ward we’ve never seen won before – where we took the former seat of a Labour MP.”
This was a surprise win in Edinburgh for the Lib Dems.
And the fighting talk is coming out ahead of the Scottish Parliament elections in 2026 as a Lib Dem source told me “there’s a huge gap” for them to “speak to middle Scotland”.
The Lib Dem source added: “Keir Starmer seems determined to sink Scottish Labour with businesses, pensioners and farmers.
“John Swinney is a smart guy but he’s the walking embodiment of the fact that the SNP are out of fresh ideas.
“Russell Findlay was daft enough to back Liz Truss and will have to keep saying increasingly bloodthirsty things to stop Reform eating his lunch.
“Huge numbers of people like what we’re saying about care, about faster access to GPs and dentists, about making Scottish education the best in the world again. So, this conference is about saying to people: if you like what you’re seeing now, we promise you that there’s so much of all that great stuff to come.”
And what can people see? Well, a party on the rise here in Scotland but also one that does not take itself too seriously. Unless we are talking about the US elections. Mr ‘Cole-Hamala’ takes that result very seriously.
During the election campaign, we saw the Scottish Lib Dem leader ride a tractor and nearly crash into the party’s deputy leader at Westminster Wendy Chamberlain (the MP survived with a healthy majority in her North East Fife seat).
Yet on this campaign trail, amongst the laughs, they were also calling for better access to dentists, solutions to fix mental health support in Scotland and long term fixes for social care.
And after a strong set of results for the party at Westminster, we know Mr Cole-Hamilton will be keen to try and gain a Lib-Lab (love?) coalition at the Scottish Parliament in 2026. However, there is potential the Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar isn’t as keen. He has told journalists he’d prefer establishing a minority government.
In spite of this, Mr Cole-Hamilton says he will work with whoever comes their way. They’ve been kingmakers before and they are prepared to do it again. The Lib Dem door is always open to talks with other parties but after losing favour in 2015 the party wants to make sure red lines are drawn.
No spending on Independence, the National Care Service withdrawn, Mr Cole-Hamilton told me last week when setting out his demands for the Scottish Budget. One of these wishes has (sort of) come true but is this their leader setting out they are not just the party of fun and games and going with the flow? That, maybe, they will put their foot firmly down when they disagree?
At their conference today at ‘The Salutation Hotel’ (perhaps a nod to welcome in more members?), the Scottish Liberal Democrats will discuss a range of issues with their members such as the winter fuel payment, a debate around public smoking and mechanisms around ensuring gender balance within the party.
Mr Cole-Hamilton will also be making his leader’s speech in the afternoon. It’s likely this will be a rallying cry to members to get ready for the Holyrood election in 2026. With 18 months to go, I imagine the Lib Dem blueprinting is already ongoing in the background and they will want to keep that buoyancy – instilled by the recent General Election- going.
