At a moment when Britain's political landscape is fracturing along unfamiliar lines, Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey has stepped forward in Brighton to claim his party's defining purpose: not merely to govern, but to hold a line. Positioning the Lib Dems as a firewall against what he calls a dangerous convergence of Conservative and Reform forces, Davey is asking voters to see restraint and resistance as a form of vision. It is an old tension in democratic life — whether a party can inspire by warning of what it will prevent, rather than what it will build.