As Conservative eyes look to Reform UK appearing to overtake them in popularity, they are perhaps not taking enough notice of another, quieter menace. Threat may not be the first word voters associate with Ed Davey, particularly if they saw him earlier this week, making chocolate truffles in a converted shed near Stratford-upon-Avon with Manuela Perteghella, the local MP in what was once a surefire blue seat.

But while Kemi Badenoch may rightly focus on the growing appeal of Nigel Farage’s party, Davey will continue to add a second front to her fight – so-called ‘blue wall’ seats which fell to the Liberal Democrats last year and their neighbours which could go the same way.

Stratford-upon-Avon sits in Warwickshire County Council, which has 41 Tory councillors out of 57 seats, a picture mirrored across the country in councils which last voted in 2021, when the Conservatives were far more popular. In Warwickshire, Lib Dems are hopeful the council could swing into no overall control by the time votes are counted this week.

Fresh from the best electoral performance for the Lib Dems in a century, in which the party won 72 seats, their leader is keen to continue his string of stunts, from jetskiing in Brighton to bungee jumping in Eastbourne. Speaking during the general election campaign last year, Davey said of his escapades: “The importance of the stunts is to get people to engage and to listen, and they really achieve that.”

He added: “We take the concerns of voters really seriously.”

Evidently, much of the electorate in Lib Dem target seats agreed, returning dozens of new MPs like Perteghella, and Davey is even more optimistic for the upcoming polls.

He told the Guardian campaigning had felt “even better than the general election”, hopeful that his party can improve on 2021’s result.

In that vote, the Lib Dems gained eight councillors and a single council, but were far from the main story as the Tories gained 13 authorities and finished with 235 more members amid a vaccine bounce under Boris Johnson’s leadership.

Labour lost over 300 councillors and eight councils in the same vote, context which means the main story from these elections will likely be the rise of Reform.

Davey is keen to stress that the Lib Dems could benefit from Conservative voters disillusioned by Badenoch’s culture war focus and rumoured talk of a pact with Reform.

He said: “People who were lifelong Conservatives haven’t forgiven them, they’re not impressed by the leader, and some are put off by this talk of some sort of arrangement with Reform.

“This is just anecdotal, but Reform have tried door-knocking one or two places, and they got such a hostile reception from quite a lot of doors, they quickly gave up. So they’re not fighting the campaign that we do.”

Davey thinks that, as much as Reform might struggle to break through in these areas, so too might the Tories alienate traditional blue voters by being drawn into Farage’s tactics.

“The Conservatives are in a bit of a bubble, aren’t they? They’re talking to themselves. They’re certainly not listening to the public. It’s the fact that they inhabit an X-sphere, if you like, a Twitter-sphere.”

Lib Dem insiders told the Guardian they were not intimidated by the prospect of a Reform-Tory pact, despite potentially commanding over 40% of the vote.

They said it would make the Tories even more toxic and potentially inspire tactical voting to keep them out.