In this month's local elections the Liberal Democrats made a net gain of 175 seats where they hold the parliamentary constituency and a net loss of 20 where they don't.
That stat comes from Nick Barlow on Bluesky. He doesn't give a source, but as he's a former Lib Dem blogger I trust him implicitly.
It strengthens my impression that, however highly you rate Ed Davey's leadership, the party's current strategy has reached the end of its useful life. We never talk about it, but I can't be the only one to have noticed how low the Lib Dem vote now is in local by-elections where we have done no campaigning. And I worry that by concentrating all our efforts on Conservative seats, we are putting all our eggs in demographic basket.
There seems a consensus among journalists that we could be making more of a splash at Westminster, and that some of the exciting, fresh faces elected to the Commons two years ago should be seen more. The media rarely does us any favours, but perhaps it's too easy to blame it for all our failings. There are whispers that some of those MPs don't appreciate the very top-down way the parliamentary party is run.
So what do we do now? I've no easy answers, but there is a need to let people know how a Liberal Democrat government would be different and the main policies we will press for if we are party of a governing coalition after the next election. I'm not sure I know that at the moment and I'm sure the public doesn't.
We have plenty of policies, but there rarely seems to be a wider theme that makes them hang together as a programme for government.
I received an email last night from LDHQ that accused *Labour* of being timid...
ReplyDeleteI just thought I'd give a social media nerd perspective on this. Social media metrics aren't the be all and end all, but the numbers do indicate a level of interest. On Instagram follower numbers for the main party account are up 90k > 121k in the last six months, for Ed Davey even more so: 37k > 98k. This contrasts with twitter where the main party account has barely put on any numbers since the 2019 election. The problem is that while we've ticked up on insta, and this can't just be a migration of people from twitter to insta, the numbers for other politicians put us in the shade.
ReplyDeleteSo increases for Farage, Polanski and Rupert Lowe are far greater. The party hierachy would be right to say Ed is cutting through, but at the moment he's overshadowed by the populist/hysterical fringe figures in the battle for eyeballs online at least.
What's frustrating is we'll lead on an issue such as sewage and water company malpractice and that goes viral, but messages on essential public services such as healthcare and education aren't being picked up at all.
Is it too simple to say that we used to be able to rely on a "neither of the other two" vote without having to campaign for it, and now that vote goes to the more obvious insurgents, Greens and Reform?
ReplyDeleteI think there's a lot of truth in that. Certainly, the Reform vote is less ideological and more of a protest that tends to be assumed on social media. It's noticeable that what are now Reform's Lincolnshire heartlands used to have a large Liberal vote.
DeleteThat's a VERY interesting piece of research - thanks for bringing it to my attention.
ReplyDeleteI am a very long way from the centres of power in Lib Demmery these days (indeed, I always was) but last year I had a quick lunch with an old pal who is now an MP. He says that in his first year, he was told, in no uncertain terms, that his job - his ONLY job - was to ensure that he would get re-elected. His whole first year was devoted to getting the constituency party into good shape, getting a war-chest of money together and ensuring that both his Parliamentary and Political offices were run properly.
Maybe, just maybe, that's why they have been a bit more quiet than we would have liked over recent months.
This is a very useful observation. I'll add (with much less evidence) that my general sense is that many current Green councillors and activists are people who I would have expected to meet in the Liberal Democrats twenty years ago. I think those people will still join the party in areas where we have a strong network, but in most of the country they'll go to the Greens, even if that involves joining a small local group. In the absence of a compelling national culture, then we won't ever be able to grow. (The Greens also include people who would rightly never have been at home in the Lib Dems.)
ReplyDeleteHas anyone counted up how many Lib Dem councillors lost to RefUK candidates?
ReplyDelete