"The Courier" reported on 23 January that leaked minutes of a meeting on 11 January at Westminster revealed that "senior Scottish Liberal Democrats do not believe their party has any chance of winning the Dunfermline and West Fife by-election", and that "their aim is to beat the SNP rather than topple Labour". This suggestion was backed up on 27 January by a poll in "The Daily Telegraph" that put the Lib Dems at 13% UK-wide (down 9% on Election 2005), their worst position since the 2001 general election.