Jo Swinson joins Ed Davey in race to succeed Vince Cable

First it was Edward Davey, now it is Jo Swinson joining the race to be the next Liberal Democrat leader:

The party’s foreign affairs spokeswoman used an appearance on the BBC’s Question Time programme on Thursday evening to make the announcement and said she would officially launch her campaign the following day. She is the second person to announce their candidacy.

“I happen to think that this country is crying out for a liberal movement that will challenge the forces of nationalism and populism … the Liberal Democrats need to be at the heart of that movement, and I’m the person to lead it,” she told the Question Time audience. [The Guardian]

Jo Swinson has set out three priorities:

• Build an economy that puts people and the planet first
• Harness the technological revolution for Britain’s future
• Rally a liberal movement to stand up for our values against nationalism and populism

That last one of course particularly interests me as it’s a key part of how to turn a core votes strategy into an organisational and political approach that can deliver results. It also reinforces my suspicions that this will be one area where some substantive differences open up between the two* leadership candidates.

We’ll see as the campaign develops and it’s a topic I will be returning to in future editions of Never Mind The Bar Charts (subscribe here) and Liberal Democrat Newswire (sign up here).

* Layla Moran, Christine Jardine and Alistair Carmichael, all speculated about as candidates, are all not running.