GUEST POST Councillor defection scores on the eve of polling day

Augustus Carp offers something to whet your appetite – a curtain-raiser, a short not-too-dramatic offering before the Grand-Guignol horror show that awaits us as the results start to trickle in from late on Thursday night until the following evening.

In the first four months of 2026, the procession of councillors resigning from the political parties that helped them to get elected has continued apace. So far, 299 "events" have occurred; not just defections, but also a few expulsions and suspensions. "Double-hatted" councillors who change their affiliation have been counted twice, as have councillors who resigned and then re-joined (48 hours later, in one celebrated case in North Northamptonshire.)

That’s an average of nearly 18 a week, or 2.5 every day. I doubt if most political pundits realise that the figure is quite so high, which might explain why the subject does not get the attention given to the half-a-dozen local council by elections held every week. An exception is Mark Pack’s regular update of Reform UK defections, but those resignations are indeed worthy of serious inspection because of the novelty value, fuss and general hoop-la associated with the new insurgent populist party.

From an objective perspective, defecting councillors are a significant indicator of a change in local party morale. When they go, they take valuable resources with them, such as knowledge of their wards, help with campaigning and general goodwill towards their former party. Worse still, they might be taking their families and friends with them – perhaps into a rival organisation. They may only constitute a handful of votes, but they could represent hundreds of hours of solid campaigning at a future election, against the former party’s new candidate.

Big parties, big losers

Reasons for defections can be many and various, and can range from the principled to the ridiculous, but the damage can still be significant, regardless of the circumstances which cause it. 

The main losers so far this year have been the Labour party (down 59 councillors) and the Conservatives (down 52). The Labour figure seems to have been exacerbated by the impending London Borough elections, where reselection processes have put some noses and egos out of joint. As one might expect, excluding councillors who have opted for Independent status, most Labour councillors have gone to the Greens, with Conservatives tending towards Reform UK.

The Greens have acquired an additional 21 councillors via defections, with the Reform UK tally rising by 32. On balance, the Lib Dems have lost 13 and the Nationalists are down 2. The balancing figure in the equation is 73, representing various "Independents" (loosely described).

Straight swaps

Three Reform UK councillors have moved to the Conservatives – but 33 have gone the other way. One Tory has joined the Lib Dems, whilst one Lib Dem has travelled in the opposite direction. Four Lib Dems have joined the Greens, with one going against the tide. Eight Labour councillors left for the Greens, two for the Lib Dems, and one (in Hartlepool) for Reform UK.

Although not (yet) counted as a separate party in my system, it is worth noting that Restore Britain has attracted 21 councillors, from the independents and Reform UK. This includes a bulk membership event on Kent County Council in February. Similarly, there has been a handful of moves to Advance UK, mainly from Independents but also one from the Workers Party. (No, I don’t understand it either.)

If the local elections on Thursday pan out according to the pundits, with a large number of Reform UK and Green Party successes, then I confidently forecast that there will be many more resignations and defections over the summer, once the new councillors realise that theirs is a thankless task, with lots of work but little chance of changing anything to do with small boats or Gaza.

Augustus Carp is the pen name of someone who has been a member of the Liberal Party and then the Liberal Democrats since 1976.

Councillor quits Reform for second time in 2 weeks

BBC News wins our Headline of the Day Award.

The judges wonder how our regular guest blogger Augustus Carp will cope with this when he posts his next survey of councillors changing parties.

Mark Pack will love it though.

Lord Bonkers' Diary: The intelligence services like to recruit orphans

The old boy takes aim at the party's leader and its president, and in the process reveals something about his Home for Well-Behaved Orphans that I didn't know (though I had my suspicions). 

I still wonder why there are so many orphans in Rutland though.

Tuesday

Is it asking too much to expect our party’s leader and president to keep a secret? It seems it is. The president recently, on his electric blog, quoted the leader to the effect that the intelligence services like to recruit orphans. (This is something I have been at pains to keep under my hat, and that with the firm encouragement of His Majesty’s Intelligence Services.) 

As a result and ever since, my Home for Well-Behaved Orphans has been besieged by shifty types from every enemy this country possesses – no doubt they are keen to cast an eye over what may be their future opposition in the espionage game. 

Thank goodness the little inmates are now safely in Cornwall for their annual holiday at Trescothick Bay. This year I sent Meadowcroft off on the charabanc with them to lend Matron a hand. It seemed wise to remove him from the ambit and, indeed, the thrall, of Freddie and Fiona, who spoil him. 

I would rather have Meadowcroft spoiling the orphans.

Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South West 1906-10.

Earlier this week

• "Death to the Duke of Rutland’s Militia"

Gerrard Winstanley would love this: The councillor for Weybridge & St. George’s has joined the Lib Dems

One of the key sites of political radicalism during the English Civil War is now represented by a Liberal Democrat.

As Mark Pack reports:

Cllr Pippa Graeme, who has served as the councillor for Weybridge & St. George’s ward at Elmbridge Borough Council since May 2023, has announced her decision to leave the Weybridge & St. George’s Independents and join the Liberal Democrats.

After much reflection, Pippa expressed her belief that the values and approach of the Liberal Democrats align closely with her own, reinforcing her commitment to work collaboratively and effectively for the benefit of local residents.

Her ward includes St George's Hill, which is now an exclusive gated community. But in 1649 Gerrard Winstanley and his fellow Diggers or True Levellers invaded the land there to plant vegetables, intending to pull down all enclosures and encourage the locals to come and work with them. 

Gerrard Winstanley writes exclusively for Liberal England:

Was the earth made to preserve a few covetous, proud men to live at ease, and for them to bag and barn up the treasures of the Earth from others, that these may beg or starve in a fruitful land; or was it made to preserve all her children?

The Worcestershire ward where the Lib Dem and Reform candidates are both former Tory MPs

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I was right about Alan Amos.

Over the years, Amos has gone from Conservative to Labour to Independent to Conservative to Independent. What comes next? Will he perhaps rediscover his enthusiasm for reactionary social policies and join Reform?

And that's just what Amos, who Conservative MP for Hexham between 1987 and 1997, has done. He is fighting the Bredwardine ward of Worcestershire County Council for Reform.

What makes this particularly interesting is the the identity of his Liberal Democrat opponent there.

It's another former Conservative MP - in fact a former Conservative cabinet minister. Step forward Stephen Dorrell, who joined the Lib Dems back in 2019 and stood in Buckingham in that year's general election. 

That's his photo above. According to Worcester News, he now calls himself a "Liberal Conservative".

h/t Mark Pack.

The Joy of Six 1330

Vince Cable gives it both barrels: "Our secular and liberal values; our diverse society; our democratically elected government. All are antithetical to the Trump clan. We need to understand that the sentimental nonsense about the special relationship is over. We are under attack."

 "Trump’s potential kompromat combines with his cultural-political alignment with kleptocracy and dictatorship that makes him a Russian agent of influence. This was played out in ghastly detail in the 28 February meeting in the White House. In considering our response to America’s abandonment of the West, we need to be realistic about its leadership." Arthur Snell says it's time to take a serious look at the evidence of Trump's relationship with Russia.

Mark Pack reviews Get In: The Inside Story of Labour Under Starmer by Patrick Maguire and Gabriel Pogrund.

Kate Bradbury sets out what we can do to help bumblebees: "If you don’t have a greenhouse, do you have space for a pot of winter heather? Can you use your conservatory, porch or other covered space to grow crocuses? Can you dedicate a space in which bumblebees might make a nest?"

"When asked by the Bench chairman if they had anything to say, the taller woman said they did not approve of this court, as there was no woman there to try them. They were remanded for a week while efforts were made to identify them." Jill Evans on a 'Suffragette outrage; at Cheltenham in 1913.

"I was astonished: here was drama, humour, satire and wit in abundance, here too I learnt social history and observed sharp psychological insights." Chris Lovegrove won't have Jane Austen's novels called mimsy, tedious and woke.

Alistair Carmichael marks 75th anniversary of Jo Grimond’s election

Alistair Carmichael is the latest guest on Iain Dale's All Talk podcast, talking about his own career and about the former Liberal Party leader Jo Grimond. 

The Liberals and then Liberal Democrats have held the Orkney and Shetlands seat ever since Grimond won it at the 1950 election.

Thanks to Caron Lindsay for flagging this up on Lib Dem Voice - follow that link to see a photograph of a very young Alistair. He is his usual engaging self in the podcast.

I never met Jo Grimond. The nearest I came to it was in the 1983 general election, when he did a public meeting for us in Kew. Being a good activist, I went canvassing instead - and there were no certificates and medals from Mark Pack in those days.

He gave his speech, I was told later, and then said, looking at the timetable he'd been given:

"It says 'Questions' here, but as I'm stone deaf these days, that's no use. I'll just come round the hall and meet you all."

And so he did, charming everybody.

But I did meet Laura Grimond, a significant figure in the party in her own right in her day, and also the wife of Jo, daughter of Violent Bonham Carter, the gender-fluid gangster even the Krays feared Violet Bonham Carter and granddaughter of Mr Asquith.

She came to Market Harborough a couple of times in the Eighties, and I've found a photo from those days in the British Newspaper Archive. It shows Laura Grimond, Phil Knowles (the current leader of Harborough District Council) and me. One day I'll share it with you.

David Laws and Jim Wallace on Lib-Lab cooperation 1903-2019

The Liberal Democrat History Group website is a goldmine. With my pick and my mule, I have found this video of a fringe meeting the group held during the Lib Dem Conference last September.

Its title was Friends or Enemies, Allies or Competitors? Liberals and Labour 1903–2019, and the speakers were David Laws and Jim Wallace. Wendy Chamberlain was in the chair.

You can also hear David Laws speaking on the subject on a recent edition of Never Mind the Bar Charts - I endorse David's condemnation of Lloyd George, but am slightly mystified by the parallel Mark Pack draws between him and Boris Johnson. 

David's book Serpents, Goats and Turkeys: 100 years of Liberal–Labour relations is published by Politicos.

What did political parties do on polling day before 1945?

I once heard a story about polling day in the Brecon and Radnor by-election of 1985, which saw a gain for the Liberal Alliance candidate Richard Livsey.

A hirsute Young Liberal was telling on the day at a remote rural polling station when an old farmer arrived and challenged him.

"What are you doing? I always take the numbers for the Liberals."

It turned out that he had for years been coming here on polling day for an hour or two, taking voters' numbers and then going home with them.

This was a folk memory of political organisation. All that remained of it was the notion that taking voters' polling-card numbers somehow helped the Liberals.

After a while I began to doubt this story, however much I wanted it to be true. Because the Wikipedia article on Get out the vote says:

The traditional GOTV method used in the UK is the Reading system, developed by the Reading Constituency Labour Party and its MP Ian Mikardo for the 1945 general election. Once canvassing was performed to identify likely Labour voters, these were compiled onto 'Reading pads' or 'Mikardo sheets' featuring the names and addresses of supporters and pasted onto a large table or plank of wood. On election day these lists, with identical copies underneath, were torn off and given to GOTV campaigners.

That was certainly polling day as I knew it in the Liberal Party before personal computers came along. To Liberals, of course, Reading pads were 'Shuttleworths' - the SDP called them 'Cowley pads".

But did party workers sit round and do nothing on polling day before 1945? It sounds very unlikely.

As Michael Steed and Tony Greaves are no longer with us, I asked Mark Pack what he knew about the history of polling day operations. He replied:

The pre-1939 Woodings election manuals have a section on polling day, including 'fetching up voters' with instructions on crossing out names from cards etc. to record which supporters have voted so far. Not sure when 'fetchers-up' became 'knockers-up'.

I now suspect Ian Mikardo's contribution to polling day was harnessing the power of carbon paper to come up with better stationery.

So the moral is you shouldn't believe everything your read on Wikipedia. As for myself, I shall go on believing that story about Brecon and Radnor.

The Joy of Six 1192

Computer Weekly has investigated the Post Office Horizon scandal since 2008. Now Karl Flinders has written a guide that tells you everything you need to know about it.

Chris Bowers finds that Mark Pack's recent Never Mind the Bar Charts with Duncan Brack shows striking parallels between the Liberal Democrats under Charles Kennedy’s leadership and the party today.

Peter Simons on a call by more than 30 prominent figures in critical psychiatry for the government to acknowledge the evidence that antidepressants are no better than placebos for most patients and to increase funding of social and psychological interventions while decreasing drug prescriptions.

"A decline of empathy and a rise in narcissism are exactly what we would expect to see in children who have little opportunity to play socially. Children can't learn these social skills and values in school, because school is an authoritarian, not a democratic setting. School fosters competition, not co-operation; and children there are not free to quit when others fail to respect their needs and wishes." Children today are cossetted and pressured in equal measure, argues Peter Gray. Without the freedom to play they will never grow up.

"Elsewhere, the universality of the situation depicted in Brief Encounter, the pull between desire and duty, family and infidelity, was lauded. Whether Laura Jesson was privileged in her home life or not faded to the immaterial as people across the country felt they could identify with her dilemma." Rose Staveley-Wadham looks at the critical reaction to Brief Encounter when it was released in 1945.

A Very Public Sociologist takes a pessimistic view of Steven Moffat's call for a British version of The West Wing.

Three letters to the Guardian about that letter to the Guardian

There are three letters in Monday's Guardian in response to the recent letter to that paper from 30 more or less senior Liberal Democrats saying the party is being too cautious and needs to explain to voters what it stands for before the general election.

The first is from the party's president Mark Pack and claims: "Far from being too cautious, the Liberal Democrats under Ed Davey have shown incredible boldness."

The second is from Alan Butt Philip and says it would help if the party linked what it's saying to longstanding liberal ideas. 

"When the voters are crying out for radical change," he says, "the Lib Dems are calling for a 'fair deal for Britain' - which has about as much electoral appeal as a pink blancmange."

And the third. from Peter Wrigley, lists some of the more radical policies in the policy document approved at this year's party conference. and adds: "I hope these exciting proposals make it to our manifesto and our candidates highlight them, rather than keep quiet about them for fear of scaring off floating voters."

How the Lib Dems are choosing their targets for the next election

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Peter Walker in the Guardian has more details of the Liberal Democrats' plans to 'use the by-election playbook across the Blue Wall' - see my Liberator article on For a Fair Deal.

He writes:

The Lib Dems’ approach is, at its heart, to worry much less about winning votes and focus entirely on winning seats. If you are a Lib Dem candidate and your constituency is not on the target list? Basically, you’re on your own.

Walker presents this as a reaction to the disappointment of the 2019 election, though that had its roots in Jo Swinson's team believing some wildly optimistic opinion polling that suggested some unlikely seats were within the Lib Dems' grasp. It wasn't caused by a lack of central control.

This time we shall be ruthlessly targeting of a limited number of seats. These are not new tactics, but it has always been a strain to stick to them in the heat of a general election, when deep down every candidate thinks they are in with a chance.

Anyway, this is Walker's account of how the party is preparing for the next election - McCobb is the Hull councillor Dave McCobb, our election co-ordinator:

Every three months, the 50 Lib Dem activists members who have recorded the most voter interactions over that period join a call with McCobb, Lib Dem president, Mark Pack, and others to update them on how the messages are landing.

While the Lib Dems are targeting a handful of Labour-held seats, the preponderance of contests with Tory candidates means policies and priorities are heavily based on tempting over former Conservative voters who have grown weary of the party’s dramas.

This means a relentless national focus on issues such as sewage, the NHS and the cost of living, with more traditional Lib Dem fare such as electoral reform still in the draft manifesto but relegated to a lower 'tier' and barely discussed.

All of this is then directed at identifying seats where enough disillusioned Tories and tactically-voting Labour supporters can be tempted to the Lib Dem side. ...

The list is not fixed. It is determined by a mix of polling and a metric based largely on legwork. The overall aim is, as one official put it, to give voters the impression of “winning momentum”.

If we are targeting a handful of Labour seats, I suspect it's a very small handful, but I like the idea that you can canvass your way into the party's higher counsels.

Walker ends by asking how well the party can expect to do come the election. I suspect he gets it about right:

There is, however, one thing no one will talk about, even privately: how many seats it could secure. The broad view seems to be that fewer than 30 would be regarded as a huge disappointment; more than 40 a triumph.

Thirty would double the party’s current tally. More than 40 would be approaching the glory days of 2005 and 2010. Will it happen? No one really knows. But if it does not, it will not be for want of effort.

Counsels' opinions on the Lib Dem definition of transphobia

One of Mark Pack's initiative in his first term as Liberal Democrat president was to ask the party's disciplinary subgroup to produce a definition of transphobia.

It was duly produced and adopted by the party. You can find the text and links to useful additional material in a Lib Dem Voice post from 2020.

Since the definition was adopted, doubt has been expressed about how legally watertight it would prove if the party were to use it as the basis for disciplinary action.

For that reason the party has commissioned an opinion from Guy Vassall-Adams KC, You can read it online together with the supplementary advice that he was later asked to submit.

A member of the party's' board commissioned a second opinion from Karon Monaghan KC and this can also be found online.

I'm not aware that these links have appeared on a Lib Dem blog yet, so I have posted them here.

Three candidates standing for Lib Dem presidency

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Nominations have closed for the Liberal Democrats' internal elections and there are three candidates for party president:

• Lucy Nethsingha
• Mark Pack
• Liz Webster

There is just one nomination for vice-president: Amna Ahmad.

You can find the list of people nominated for the various party committees on the Lib Dem website.

This month's Liberal Democrat Conference has been cancelled

The Liberal Democrat Conference, which was to have taken place in Brighton from 17 to 20 September, has been cancelled.

Though I believe too many events are being cancelled, from the last night of the Proms to junior football, the party had no choice. Because the date of the Queen's funeral, Monday 19 September, falls in the middle of the conference.

Mark Pack sets out the different options the party considered and the reasons for choosing this oneL

Cancelling our Conference and postponing debates until Spring

With a heavy heart, we think this is the least bad option. It means that most of our members can recoup at least some of their costs, and does not ask people to spend even more money than they have already.

We are reviewing options around the Spring Conference in order to allow more items on the agenda and ensure that crucial debates can be considered properly and democratically.

The Tories took back control of a blue wall council on Thursday and no one will admit it

On Thursday we failed to hold a Liberal Democrat seat in Surrey Heath with the result that the Conservatives won overall control of the council.

But you wouldn't know it from the Association of Liberal Democrat Councillors' report on Lib Dem Voice:

On Surrey Heath Borough Council, Lib Dem candidate Jacques Olmo came agonisingly close to beating the Conservatives in Frimley Green ward. Well done to Jacques and the team for winning 47% of the vote. But sadly, they were just 19 votes shy of the Conservatives.

You would be somewhat better informed by the post on the blog written by Mark Pack, the president of our party. (May he live for ever.)

Under the headline:

Conservatives gain seat from Lib Dems after Ukip no-show

Mark writes of

a rare Liberal Democrat loss to the Conservatives after a recount and helped by the absence of Ukip this time:

Commiserations to Jacques Olmo and the team for getting so close but not quite making it in this contest in Michael Gove’s constituency.

But if you go to the indispensable by-election preview written by Andrew Teale, you will find that Ukip didn't have that much to do with it.

The result last time this three-member ward was fought (May 2019) was:

Lib Dems 1019/1012/889
Cons 601/568/519
Ukip 269
Pirate Party 190

Given that demolishing the Tories' blue wall is our only apparent strategy, this is a deeply disappointing result.

My worry is that if we are not honest about how badly we are doing then the party will continue to dwindle.

It reminds me of the way we reacted to the collapse of 2015 by tweeting incessantly about the #LibDemFightback. 

Having convinced ourselves it was a real phenomenon, we were shocked when our vote went down at the 2017 election.

Six of the Best 920

In the latest edition of his Never Mind the Bar Charts podcast, Mark Pack talks to Duncan Brack about the lessons we can learn from the last time a Conservative government was defeated at a general election.

Elisa Thomas explains how hostile government are using web-based conspiracy theories to spread disinformation cheaply and easily.

As Pam Jarvis points out, Tory ministers excuse their own teenage and later wrongdoing as youthful indiscretion yet refuse to increase the age of criminal responsibility from 10.

David Bather Woods suggests Schopenhauer can teach us to live through these dark times.

"Class is a bigger issue in Clouds of Witness than in later Sayers novels, perhaps because of its time: it was published just three months before the General Strike, and tensions were already high. Lord Peter Wimsey himself, normally considered a man of courtesy, is here criticized for his aristocratic condescension." Alwyn Turner has been reading Dorothy L. Sayers.

David Marshall remembers The Fenman, the train that ran from Liverpool Street to Hunstanton.

Postponement of Lib Dem leadership election under review

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Mark Pack writes on Liberal Democrat Voice:

Last month, the Federal Board decided to postpone the party leadership election, due to kick off in May, until May 2021, so that the party can focus on dealing with the coronavirus crisis instead. 

Following this decision, an appeal against it was made to the Federal Appeals Panel (our internal Liberal Democrat equivalent of the Supreme Court). 

The Appeals Panel has agreed that the Federal Board can suspend the leadership election while exceptional circumstances exist, but not delay to a fixed date next year. It has asked the Board to keep the timetable for the leadership election under review, as circumstances continue to develop.

Mark links to the Appeals Panel's judgment and, as party president, invites your view on the matter so they can be considered by the Federal Board's review.

Lib Dem leadership election postponed until May 2021

The decision is announced this evening in an article by party president and joint acting leader Mark Pack on the party website.

Remembering Valerie Silbiger

I was very sad to read that Valerie Silbiger has died. The news is on the blog written by Mark Pack, and his post quotes the former Liberal Democrat MP Lynne Featherstone:

I am so sorry and sad to hear this news. Such a wonderful warm caring engaged human being. So kind to me and supportive from the very start. Love and thoughts to all the family.

Valerie was a friend to me, to Liberator and to many in the party.

I remember her proud claim to be "the world's only Jewish Methodist".

As a little girl in the second world war she had been evacuated from London to West Yorkshire. She remained in touch with the family that took her in for the rest of her life.