The successful election strategy which earned the Liberal Democrats a record number of seats had a a special ingredient — targeting Home Counties constituencies that contained a branch of the upmarket, Israeli-founded bakery Gails.

The party had their eye on so-called “Blue Wall” Conservative seats outside London, many of which are home to a branch of the bakery famed for its sour dough, cinnamon rolls and challah..

A party spokesperson told the JC: “We didn't base our targeting strategy on areas with a Gail's, but this became shorthand for our strategy as we observed that many leafy commuter belt areas where people were turning to the Liberal Democrats had a branch of the bakery chain.”

Gail’s has long been associated with the middle classes and some have connected the shop with gentrification: the arrival of Gail’s often marks an increase in local house prices.

In the last week of the campaign, the “Gail’s strategy” directed the party’s activists and its leader Sir Ed Davey to areas with branches of the bakery.

On his way to Henley and Thame to campaign in the days before the election, Sir Ed told the Times, “Even though it has a Gail’s, I didn’t expect us to be going to Henley.”

Lib Dems won the seat after more than a century of Conservative rule in the area, with Freddie Van Mierlo receiving 23,904 votes.

The Economist said that the party “invented a rule of thumb” that any town outside London with a branch of Gail’s “had activists hurled at it.”

The strategy paid off, as the Lib Dems stormed to victory in a record 72 seats last week – their best general election, despite winning fewer overall votes than they did in the previous poll.. In 2019 the Liberal Democrats won 11 seats with 3.7 million votes, compared to 72 seats with 3.5 million votes this year.

A map of Gail's in southern England suggests the areas of the home counties where the party targetted (Photo: Gail's)

However, in the southwest, where the Lib Dems won numerous seats, there is only one Gail’s – in Bristol, where the Green dominated.

Gail’s was founded in the 1990s by Israeli baker Gail Mejia and businessman Ran Avidan, who opened its first bakery in Hampstead's High Street in 2005. It has since expanded to over 130 shops across London, southern England and Manchester.

One TikToker described the chain as “Greggs but for posh people”, while several other social media posts have demanded that shoppers boycott the chain because of its links to Israel.

A spokesperson for the bakery said they had not heard of the Lib Dem strategy and clarified that Gail’s does not hold any political views.