Liberal Democrats' tour de force was planned down to a tea

THIS time last week, as the Dunfermline by-election entered its final phase, there were 200 volunteers at the Liberal Democrat campaign headquarters in Inverkeithing.

They had come from all over the UK armed with leaflets, stickers and a determination to defeat Labour. Everything was so well co-ordinated that the party knows how many cups of tea were consumed in the party HQ that day (400) and how many pints of milk were bought to lighten the tea (18 pints).

There was one woman whose sole job was to organise accommodation for the activists and MPs from all over the country who had answered the party's call and arrived in Dunfermline to help.

Some Liberal Democrat leaflets were individually tailored to specific voters. One or two MPs from the south of England came to campaign even though they had never been to Scotland before.

It was a typical Liberal Democrat by-election effort. The party decided to work as thoroughly and as completely as possible on the ground to overturn Labour's majority, and it worked.

The other parties, however, have a slightly different view on the Liberal Democrat campaign. Douglas Chapman, the defeated SNP candidate, described the tactics as "weapons of mass deceit".

He was particularly sore about an advertisement which was placed on the front of the Dunfermline Press on the morning of the by-election which looked uncannily like the newspaper text on the rest of the front page, and which heralded a tight finish between Labour and the Liberal Democrats.

Other senior SNP figures blame a well stunted photograph which the Liberal Democrats orchestrated a day before the by-election.

Willie Rennie, the winning candidate, was pictured with his leader, Nicol Stephen, standing on top of the Forth Bridge. It was such an eye-catching image that most newspapers, desperate for something new on the by-election, ran it in colour. The Dundee Courier even put it all over its front page. The impression was given: this man is on his way to the top.

But neither of these stunts was illegal, simply smart and astute electioneering, something the Liberal Democrats have honed to a fine edge.

For the campaign itself, the Lib Dems focused on local issues: the state of the centre of Dunfermline, the reorganisation of local hospital services, and the Forth Road Bridge tolls.

Somehow the party managed to exploit concern over these issues despite the fact that all are devolved or council responsibilities and, strictly speaking, have nothing to do with the area's MP. Mr Rennie insisted he did not see any problem in condemning Labour by talking up local issues - even though the Liberal Democrats share power with Labour at Holyrood.

He said: "We were responding to the issues people raised on the doorstep; that is why we campaigned on these issues."

Mr Rennie said the party may have been opposing Labour locally, but it was the "Labour-controlled bridge board", the "Labour-controlled education authority" and the health board they were taking on, not the Executive.

This may seem like a semantic distinction, particularly given the Labour Party was the Liberal Democrats' main opposition during the campaign.

But it is a distinction the victorious Liberal Democrats have to maintain to keep the sometimes rocky relations within the coalition from dissolving completely.

The Liberal Democrat campaign was successful but it was not cheap. Initial estimates suggest the party spent about £70,000 on the by-election effort.

That is a lot of money to elect one MP, but not a lot when the huge electoral boost generated by this week's shock result is taken into account.

The Scotsman