It is so good not to feel completely crap on the day after an election. Sure, there has been some heartbreaking news from Wales in particular which we can’t forget about, but for the first time in years, there is more good news than bad.
If I had any talent for graphic design at all, I’d make this into a bar chart, but I don’t, so you just get the figures from the BBC website:
Gaining more seats than any other party in England is not a bad result and shows that we are getting somewhere. It feels like we’ve managed to negotiate a juggernaut around one of those really steep mountain hairpins. The summit is still a way away, but at least we’re moving forward.
Cheltenham, where we lost the excellent MP Martin Horwood last year, was one such place. “A day of celebration for resurgent Lib Dems” is a headline you’ll never get tired of seeing. On Cheltenham Borough Council 20 seats were up and we won 15 of them, holding 10 and gaining 5. More from the Gloucestershire Echo:
Even before counting was half-way over Councillor Max Wilkinson (LD, Park) who wasn’t up for election this year said: “I think we’ve got a very good story here. It’s all going rather well.”
The tone was set early on when council leader’ Steve Jordan’s All Saints ward was the first to declare and he held it with some ease.
Then after a couple of routine holds for the Lib Dems in Charlton Kings and the Conservatives in Battledown came the first surprise.
Jacky Fletcher had served Benhall & The Reddings for 24 years as a borough councillor for the Conservatives. But there’s no sentiment in politics and this time the voters chose Mike Collins of the Liberal Democrats by just 145 votes.
Such a victory, over such a long-serving councillor seemed to justify all that Liberal Democrat confidence.
In the end the party held all 10 wards it had councillors in and gained another five. As well as Benhall & The Reddings, new Lib Dem councillors will represent the wards of Charlton Park, Warden Hill, St Paul’s and Pittville.
Councillor Jordan said: “This would seem to be a vote of confidence in the Liberal Democrat administration and a desire from the people of Cheltenham for us to carry on with our priorities. Those are to continue to make sure that Cheltenham’s economy does well, and we’re doing a lot of work behind the scenes with the Cheltenham Development Taskforce, and that seems to be working with all the investment coming into the town.
“We also want to invest wisely the money we get, such as with the new play area in Pittville Park, which is going to be great.
“It’s very pleasing to get such support.”
Well done to all the team there.
* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings. You can find her on Bluesky at caronmlindsay.bsky.social
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32 Comments
A net gain of 39 seats – when the Lib Dems have lost 1800 over the past 5 years. The total number of councillors elected were half that of the Tories and a quarter of Labour’s total.
Only 1 Lib Dem in both the Welsh Assembly an London Assembly. LIb Dems picked up two constituency seats in the Scottish Parliament – but lost out in the List system – remaining on just 5 MSPs.
The projected share of the English Council results may have put the Lib Dems on 15% – but the party always does better in these kind of elections.
There has been no re-surgence. Fell back in Wales and London, stood the same in Scotland and a very minute improvement in English councils.
If anyone thinks this is a ‘comeback’ think again!
It was an appalling day. I’ll clap the Lib Dem winners. My congratulations to people who won where we hadn’t won recently. My congratulations and respect to wins and fails in challenging seats.
It was awful, Caron. In London, the biggest city in England, the most culturally different space, 4% think that we are worth a vote.
Fantastic result in Cheltenham. I only joined the party last September so this is my first election cycle as a member who helped out in my own tiny way. Such a buzz watching the results come rolling through yesterday afternoon. Well done Roger, Steve and all the other councillors and their supporters, particularly those who worked their socks off to make the gains happen.
Useful heading in the Times: http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/lib-dems-turn-corner-in-council-vote-bl3sfrhq7
Not sure the elections were the confidence enducing performance that is being made out. The only conclusion I would draw is that we still remain relatively effective at getting our vote out in low turnout elections in the few areas where we are strong on the ground. I fear it is these sorts of performances that led to the blind belief in 2015 that the incumbency factor would be our saving grace.
2016 was a worst performance in Wales and London than in 2011 and 2012, despite those elections taking place during periods of great Lib Dem unpopularity. Scotland may have seemed like a plus yesterday but we have fallen to 5th at a time of considerable political realignment and disruption in Scottish politics.
Yes, we didn’t lose seats and gained overall, making this undoubtedly a high point in the last six years but let’s not kid ourselves that survival ultimately depends on attracting support in areas outside our comfort zone and reaching those who only vote at national elections.
We must consider how to beat the Greens and UKIP.
Hey, I’m still a fringe Bristol member and I can’t claim to have been anything but a sluggishly active ‘activist’ myself, but whilst you all go to bed or down the pub bear in mind those poor political souls in our party in this city who have to go through the last count in the entire country tomorrow.
This is the first election of a new pattern set in these parts for all-council elections every four years, and our rivals (particularly Labour) are already showing strong support in the PCC and mayor election results in our area over the last two days (which of course were citywide and Supplementary Vote, so not an inherent guide to the FPTP ward-by-ward council results in themselves…).
Fingers crossed…
Also best wishes to our respected and hard-campaigning mayoral candidate Kay Barnard, who must be lying down somewhere quiet by now.
Its a mixed picture. We went backwards in Wales & London, losing some very good people; but Wales & London have a population of around 11 million between them.
We held our own in Scotland & Northern Ireland, thats another 7 million or so.
But, we made gains in the rest of England & thats more than 40 million. The extra 44 Councillors are useful but the real point is that our vote went up by about half since last year. Its only a first step but its a big one.
In other news – Labours new Leadership seem to have come round to the idea of Electoral Reform. That is a potential game-changer.
How is it that Liberals don’t win in London, perhaps where folks might be a bit more liberal?
Agree with Paul Barker that if there is a genuine, coherent plan within labour for PR (in what form? how?) that will be articulated well and won’t be lost within their own infighting, then that is a game-changer.
But one fears that it would be another decade at this rate before we see that plan bear fruit, if it does. That’s ten years of hard work in a mis-shapen patchwork of a system fighting to be in contention in many areas and retain our status as the third party in England, and indeed nationally.
Cheltenham held 10 gained 5 so how did we loose our MP? Simple the Tories spent a fortune. Before the spending limits they produced glossy full colour leaflets delivered by paid deliverers. Once the spending limits came in they used a bus load of outsiders not properly expense charged, local or national, and then nationally paid for posters on the major routes into town for the Labour/SNP scare story. No way could a local party compete with so much national money from dubious financial donations.
@Peter Hayes – I still can’t get my head round it! Hopefully 2015 will be shown to be an aberration, with 2016 showing that common sense has been restored to the good people of Cheltenham.
But a combination of money, ruthlessly effective message targeting, labour/SNP scare stories and probably the fact that the coalition rehabilitated the Tories from their “nasty” party reputation.
I can confirm that it went rather well in Cheltenham.
Every week in the Western Gazette there is an advertisement for the new Conservative MP for Somerton and Frome who does sound quite reasonable in his weekly column. It will be hard to dislodge him without access to huge amounts of money.
It is a start but no more than that. Large areas of the country have no candidates at all let alone a councillor. Encouraging green shoots have come in places like Liverpool where locally we polled 20% with four wards won, and we have representation again in Manchester albeit one only.
What we now need is that slice of political luck, a parliamentary by election in a seat where we came second with over 25% of the vote last year. That will give us publicity. Frankly who knows we won 370 seats this week gains of 44, with Bristol to declare. So far as the main media are concerned we do not exist.
@Phil Beesley
I totally agree with you. It was an awful day for the Lib Dems. Let’s look at the FACTS
1) In London, only ONE Assembly Member. UKIP got two seats. In fifth place
2) In Wales, only ONE Assembly Member. in fifth place
3) In Scotland, Lib Dems reamin on five seats and in fifth place.
4) A meagre net gain of 39 council seats in England. 1800 have been lost since 2011!!
I see some supporters are talking about particular successes eg Southport, Cheltenham etc. So what? The Lib Dems always do better in local elctions. At the General Election last year, local elctions were held the same day. Lib Dems “won” Bath, Portsmouth South Yeovil, Cambridge etc at local level but not at national level.
Wake up, Lib Dems!
We must understand that it will take a very long time to get back to where we were. I was very disappointed in my own result in Southampton, but I have been there before it will take time. We need to learn from those who seem to know what they are doing. We must accept that in many areas we just do not have the resources be it people on the ground or money. I was only able to do what I did in my own ward as I had my own money to do it. The local Party did help with my main Leaflet. Lets enjoy the successes that we have had, but like I have already we have a lot to do.
The latest figures from the English locals give us 370 seats, a gain of 44 with Bristol still counting. We are clearly the third Party with 6 times as many seats as UKIP & 11 times the Greens total. The Greens failed to make any net gains. London is big but its not England.
The reason our English gains are relatively small is that we got roughly the same vote share as 4 years ago but compared to last year our vote share seems to have risen by around 5%. That is a real revival & something we can build on.
@Paul Barker
The Lib Dems are only the 3rd party in terms of local government. The Lib Dems always performs better in local than in Westminster elections. Last year, the Lib Dems did much better in local elections than the general election – held on the same day!!
In Regional elections – London, Wales, Scotland the Lib Dems are in 5th place .
Nationally, in percentage terms the Lib Dems are in fifth place.
@Johnny
“Nationally, in percentage terms the Lib Dems are in fifth place.”
I think you’ve got your statistics mixed up.
To quote the BBC: “BBC projected national vote share: Lab 31%, Con 30%, Lib Dem 15%, UKIP 12%”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2016-36192606
@Johnny. Last year we did a little better in The Locals than at The General Election – 10% in the Rallings & Thrasher estimate & 8% at Westminster. We dont always do better in Local Elections & the differences arent huge.
Johnny: you have to admit, perhaps grudgingly that the Lib Dems overall have gained, albeit nothing outrageous, to say otherwise is somewhat dare I say it silly. It is a start and the acorns may start growing. I posted on here several times 50+ net gains should be the target, just short of that. The losers in England overall at this point in time appear to be the Greens.
Well done for finding this chart on the BBC website. I’ve tried for awhile to look for something like this but couldn’t finad anything. The results by council simply sent you to a local council’s website leaving you to search it for results. The BBC just goes from bad to worse.
@ Nigel Hunter “We must consider how to beat the Greens and UKIP”.
Agree with the UKIP bit – but we need to learn to work with the Greens (certainly in the Scottish Parliament.
Assuming all the results are now in, the BBC have us gaining 45 councillors, which compares well with 1990 when we lost 78 (I wonder why I thought we made gains); 1992 we gained 56; 2002 we gained 37; 2005 we gained 40; 2006 we gained 2; and 2008 we gained 34.
There is almost a tradition of saying that the election results were good because of what happened in Cheltenham:
“The line the party has pushed throughout the night is that in those areas where the Lib Dems have an MP or strength on the council there have been some local successes. There’s some truth to this with Lib Dems achieving good results in a range of places where we face the Tories, such as Cheltenham….” – Lib Dem Voice May 2012
“Our vote share in these parliamentary seats continues to be out in front… In many of these seats we have gained councillors….. two more in Cheltenham…” – Lib Dem Voice May 2013.
I said a few months ago the Lib Dems would lose vote share (from 2012), make small net gains – and the Lib Dem Voice loyalist tribe would say it was a good set of results and all was going to be well.
The ideal time to recognise your weaknesses is after a poor but non-disastrous set of results. Time and again I’ve seen local council groups fail to do this. Whether people encourage that to happen I don’t know.
Another point to consider is that this is the electoral cycle with the most by-thirds seats up. Anyone who fights elections by thirds will tell you it is substantially easier to pick up the “missing” seats in a ward than it is to break into new areas – and those local parties tend to be more battle hardened than those who only fight elections every 2 or 4 years.
@Simon Shaw
I did indeed say “Nationally, in percentage terms the Lib Dems are in fifth place.” This is for National elections!….I did say that the Lib Dems were the third party for local government…
For clarity, Lib Dems are third for local elections, and 5th in Regional elections and National opinion polls.
@Paul Barker
Yes, an improvement from 10-15% in local elections, but they are just that, local.
In the London, Welsh and Scottish Regional results the party was on 5%…in current national polls they are below the 8% got at the General Election
Hywel, would I be right in thinking that when these seats were last fought a) Labour were riding high in the polls/campaigning at a time of unpopularity with the Coalition, and b) the full effect of the impact of the SNP on Labour would come after the independence vote, so that therefore Labour defending that position is actually a pretty good result for them?
MichaelBG; the 1990 elections were the ‘poll tax elections’ and they followed the battering the image of the new party had from the merger process (The Dead Parrot farce).
The reason you will have had better memories is that the Party at grassroots were buoyed up by ALDC’s People First campaigns that were an important motivating factor and key the Party’s survival at that time and in the construction of a recovery crystalised by the Eastbourne and Ribble Valley by-elections.
I agree with both sides. And no, that isn’t typical Liberal fence-sitting, not that we do fence-sit much.
These are solid gains and by no means all in places where we were already strong. We gained in Sunderland and Gateshead, for example. There were many people, some on this Forum, predicting substantial losses. We’ve turned around the sad trend of year on year suffering a net loss of councillors.
The London assembly elections have always been really hard for us, for reasons that should be obvious. The real test of revival in London will be at the borough council elections. For example, where we were once strong but have been wiped out by Labour, in Islington and Waltham Forest, will we regain seats? Can we regain control of Richmond?
The Welsh results were indeed very disappointing and I’m sure colleagues there will be reviewing future strategy.
Yes, there is much more to be done and not just more foot-slogging. For example, where at federal, national or regional level is a reassessment of targeting philosophy and of what is needed to save or revive weak and semi-derelict areas? How widely are we adopting social media campaigning?
One factor we’ve failed to say much about is the successful engagement of new members. For example, in North-east Essex, facing elections in the parts of our area in Colchester Borough, members new since the 2015 election provided both of the paper candidates we fielded, two out of three candidates in our target ward (neither elected, but one out of three was our realistic target and that would always be a popular councillor standing again in a heavily reorganised ward), the NEELD activist who pushed way forward Colchester’s social media campaigning and most of the team working our target ward before election day. OK some of the newcomers were students at the adjacent University of Essex, but a year ago there was no Liberal Democrat organised presence there.
From what I hear, our experience was quite common. This gives us strength for the next few years.
Bill – you may well be right. Outside of Scotland this might be a decent enough result for Labour. The problem with elections by thirds is that your headline figures seen through the prism of how you did 4 years ago. Its possible to lose control of a council on a set of results that would see you regain control the following year!