The Lib Dem manifesto is sensible – but it won’t save Jo Swinson from her failing campaign

Usually, the third party gains momentum over a general election campaign; that the reverse is happening now is incredibly worrying

If all had gone according to Jo Swinson’s brightest hopes, by now she and her party would be storming towards 30 per cent support in the opinion polls, attracting large swathes of “moderate” Remain voters from both main parties, and the nation would be in the grip of “Jo-mania”, “Swinson fever”, or some such.

That, after all, is one reason why an early general election made some sense for the Liberal Democrats, or at least as it seemed to Ms Swinson. Yet now it seems a misjudgement. The party is languishing in the polls, her trigger-happy response to using nuclear weapons making her look unfit to serve, and she will be lucky to maintain the 19 seat-strong representation she had in the Commons by the end of the last parliament. She will do better than the hapless Tim Farron, but not by that much. No one has yet bothered to ask her if gay sex is a sin.

Ms Swinson has been a minister of state (more than Jeremy Corbyn achieved) but a casual observer might never have thought it from her gung-ho ways. The “right” way for a prime ministerial candidate to answer a question on nuclear weapons is to rule out first-use and, reluctantly, not rule out subsequent use – and to evince an air of caution and concern throughout. Ms Swinson sounded more like Dr Strangelove, and a little too keen on loosing off weapons of mass destruction for her target audience’s tastes.