In this last round-up of the day, we bring news of the final London result, the 11 list Assembly Members who work alongside the 14 constituency members.
We have always had list members because until our Gareth Roberts won South West London this afternoon nobody other than a Conservative or Labour had won a constituency.
Once the list votes had been counted, the absolutely brilliant news is that Hina Bokhari has been re-elected. The rotten news is that Rob Blackie, our fantastic mayoral candidate who has run such a good campaign and took us to third place in that contest, missed out on a place. It would have been so good if all three of them had got in. It’s the tough aspect of these list systems. If Gareth hadn’t won the constituency, I’d have been as sad for him as he would not have got in on the list as he was in 4th place. Huge thanks to Rob for putting together such a good campaign with significantly less resource than the other parties.
The new Assembly comprises 11 Labour, 8 Conservatives, 3 Greens, 2 Lib Dems and 1 Reform.
There is still much number crunching to do, but it is way too late at night to start wrestling with spreadsheets.
The other news of the evening is of course that Labour removed one of Rishi Sunak’s two fig leaves for this set of election by winning the West Midlands mayoral election by just 1500 votes. If Labour hadn’t been so split on Gaza, they’d have got a good chunk of the Independent’s 70,000. They are going to have to deal with that.
The Conservatives have had a total nightmare. The best thing that has happened to them is a few hours of spin that Sadiq Khan was in trouble last night. You might think that this abysmal set of results makes a Summer election less likely, but who knows? Thanks to the Conservatives ditching our Fixed Term Parliaments Act, it’s entirely up to Rishi Sunak to decide when we go to the polls. It can’t come soon enough for me.
I think my moment of the day was seeing Gareth Roberts’ sincere, happy and at times funny acceptance speech when he won. He thanked his other candidates for a good campaign with no whinging or moaning. He then thanked his team and pulled himself up for using the cliche that they’d worked tirelessly. He was obviously so delighted to have won.
Finally, a massive thank you to Mary Reid for the superb coverage of the results across the country that she has put up single-handedly over the past two days. She is, as always, amazing. How did I show my appreciation in our team WhatsApp? By telling her she’d played a blunder. Autocorrect really is a curse. Mercifully, Mary also has a sense of humour.
* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings
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26 Comments
We shouldn’t have come behind the greens, we’re poised to win the same number of parliamentary seats in London as we had at the first assembly election in 2000 yet we won less than half as many assembly members!
Were also at a standstill overall in labour facing areas whilst the Greens continue to make plenty of gains from them and in some cases from us, having already killed off what was left of us in our former Bristol west seat.
Somthing is clearly wrong and it’s not because of seat taprgeting which we’ve been doing for nearly 30 years, and which the greens also do. It’s symptomatic of us running purely as a “not the conservatives” party in places where we are already 2nd without coming up with any policies to make us distinct from other parties. (Unlike the greens)
My fear is that when labour are in government and we start to lose votes to the Tories, there won’t be any labour voters to replace them with since the Greens will have beaten us to it.
I have been warning about the rising appetite to vote green for a long time. We needto address the gap in our campaigning as David says
Ditto – I have also been warning about the Greens.
How many seats did we lose to the Greens?
That aside, it’s essential to have a coherent strategy for dealing with this threat. What is their approach that enables them to win seats off us?
Never, ever, let them get a toe-hold!
The Greens are the enemy, we should give them no quarter.
Now for the good news. Local by election Bideford North, been a Green seat for decades. Unfortunately the incumbent died after a very long Councillor career, he may even have been their very first councillor.
Lib Dems came second in May 2023, 300 or so behind, which was a good performance, even better on Thursday, we took the seat. That is the way we should play the game, no messing, compete. We did that in North Yorkshire a few months ago and came from 4th to win a Green seat.
Unfortunately one of the legacies of Clegg, Tuition Fees and the Coalition is our demise in Bristol and now the Greens have all 14 ward seats in Bristol Central. We have a long way to recover there but at least we now have 8 City Councillors ourselves.
But the message is clear, they have little time for ourselves and only use us as it befits them, those in the party who still want pacts etc with them, do that and you will deservedly meet your eventual electoral demise..
David LG says ‘It’s symptomatic of us running purely as a “not the conservatives” party in places where we are already 2nd without coming up with any policies to make us distinct from other parties. (Unlike the greens)’ His comment hits the nail on the head! Regular readers will remember the recent spat when a number of senior Lib Dems wrote a letter to The Guardian pleading for us to get into campaigning mode which evoked only a snub from our leadership cabal. Our continuing dismal poll ratings reflect this. In our non-target seat, membership has shrivalled to just 28 and I, for one, am in despair. What to do? As someone who posted asking for action from our leadership on this, are we to accept that nothing will happen to sort this deficiency until after the General Election?
Yes, hopefully, the naivety of some local parties giving Greens a leg up is a thing of the past. The party has to wake up.
The Greens have no hesitation in trying to take seats off us. We should be fighting back as strongly. In Dorset, we did this successfully, winning seats from 3rd place behind the Greens. This has to be generalised.
Everywhere they are incumbents, we must put up a candidate and try to make headway.
The Greens are not an Enemy, they are a Rival – a very different thing.
Our Councillor numbers went up by a fifth, The Greens by two thirds – if they can keep that up they would catch us up in a decade or so.
However, that ignores the overwhelming effect of Westminster Politics. After The General Election we will have probably between 35 & 50 MPs while The Greens may have 2 or 1 or none at all. We are the Third Party in England, The Greens have yet to break out of Fringe status.
“We shouldn’t have come behind the greens….”
If you can’t beat them why not join them?
You formed an Alliance with the SDP. Why not a new Alliance with the Greens?
@Peter: the Greens wouldn’t want an Alliance.
@Leek Liberal: I’ve no idea what your personal circumstances are. But if they allow, why do you not take over the running of your local party? One committed individual can be the seed.
@Paul Barker, if they continue that rate of growth for a few decades, there will be more green councillors than molecules in the universe.
It is beyond me why our party does not speak out loud, clear, and often on our Green policies. We have them (should have been able to have more) but do not headline them.
Is it really going to frighten off blue wall voters?
Even those not bothered about climate change are getting interested as we have more extremes in our weather in this country, local farmers and gardener cannot plant what is needed, and the impact on the rest of the world is beginning to filter through with forthcoming shortages of what must be blue wall staples of good coffee and chocolate.
At a recent local climate change meeting we heard that there is now a mental health problem amongst younger people of “Climate Change Anxiety”.
@David LG said “us running purely as a “not the conservatives” party in places where we are already 2nd without coming up with any policies to make us distinct from other parties. (Unlike the greens). My fear is that when labour are in government and we start to lose votes to the Tories, there won’t be any labour voters to replace them with since the Greens will have beaten us to it.”
I agree, that this is a big danger. By adopting Tory policies, in their unprincipled “dont-scare-the-centrist/soft right-horses” approach, Labour are leaving a huge space some of which we can and should be occupying.
Front of Conservative Home web page today
“So, I repeat: these elections have only confirmed that the Conservatives are heading for the electoral equivalent of the Chicxulub asteroid impact (except this time one or two dinosaurs might survive). Ignore the vote shares, Holden’s Comical Ali routine, and Sunak’s desperate smiles.
Angry ex-councillors can take comfort in knowing many MPs will soon join them in the job centre. Conservatives lost everywhere. Redditch, Thurrock, Basildon, Rushmoor, Dorset, Hartlepool. The outcome was the same: Red Wall or Blue Wall, Left or Right, competent or clueless. The voters are sick of us and want us out. Rearranging the Titanic’s deckchairs won’t change a smidge”.
There is much more but it would take up too much space.
The disaster of the last 7 years could have been avoided had the 2017 election gone the other way. The infamous leaked Labour report details how paid Labour employees, aligned with the party’s right, worked to sabotage the electoral effort.
The Labour Party is now under the control of those whose only concern is that the report was leaked rather than addressing the contents of it. I’m pleased it was leaked. It should be something that should be available to the general public.
Jamie Driscoll was supposedly thrown out of the Labour Party because he shared a platform with Ken Loach. I doubt this was the real reason. This account of the report, and the leaking, by Jamie might have had much more to do with it.
https://www.jd4mayor.com/blog/understanding-the-emotion-of-betrayal/
The Greens have very specific, consistent and clear message combined with a radical and non-conformist image. This plays very well with some voters who either identify that way themselves, or want to signal certain virtues. The Greens have not had to take serious responsibility for anything much yet – but the realities of principles vs. public service provision will slow them down eventually.
Back in the 60s, 70s, 80s and on through the 90s and 00s we it’s true used attract much of the non-conformist electoral custom – hence the wistful comments on this site. But even then Plaid, SNP, the Greens and UKIP/Reform(!) were whittling it away with their clearer stances and identities.
Here’s my point: There is no point in a Liberal party emulating any of the central contentions that make those Parties distinctive in the hope of reclaiming a novel and radical(?) non-conformity once proclaimed by Grimmond and Thorpe – both men in fact embodied entirely establishment backgrounds – without compromising liberalism. Even if we did, we would not be believed because the real thing would be on offer elsewhere.
The 3 sets of votes in the London South West constituency show massive tactical voting – both against us (for Khan) in set 1 and for us (for Gareth Roberts) in set 2 while the 3rd set presumably reflects voters’ real loyalties. Our leaders have indeed as Curtice says bet the farm on this working for us in blue wall seats where we are the obvious challengers. These results suggest we might just win the bet. If we can get back to being the 3rd party in Parliament, that will give us more profile, new resources, new personalities, and, hopefully, a distinctive set of policies.
Always fight the Greens. No pacts with them. Typical. We get very good results and a minority moan about the strategy that delivered those very good results. It was ever thus.
Why are Greens the “enemy” ? The enemy should be the Conservative Party, who must be beaten. Greens can be part of a progressive coalition that might be able to push Labour into STV at elections in England and for the House of Commons. Tories will never agree to it and i doubt that Labour will if they win big under FPTP. Remember that as John Curtice has said, FPTP is more to do with the two main parties so if Tories collapse it will be Labour that gain unfairly with a lop sided Commons.
@DavidSymonds. Don’t be naive. We may share some policies with the Greens, but they are not our friends, nor ever will be.
They will walk all over us if they get the chance. A few years back, I heard one of their founder members (or so he claimed) say that of course, if they formed a government, they would have to suspend democracy until their programme was delivered. So, not to be trusted either.
Our complacency about the Green Party is allowing them to gain votes and popularity in areas where we once held council seats. I know of at least one council area where we lost a prominent councillor because we’d stopped campaigning on issues important to local people. Our sitting councillor came 3rd and who had been doing what we should have done and who benefited? It was the Greens.
Vote together on issues of agreement, but never stop- campaigning to get LibDems elected and never make electoral pacts with anyone, including the Greens.
David Symonds:
There is dreamland and there is reality.
If we are to advance we need the Greens to be put in a box that is locked otherwise in ten years they will destroy us.
Like every other group in society, and every political party, the Green party members and supporters/voters have a variety of views and personality types and while it would be naive to think they all want to work collaboratively for the benefit of society, acting like they are all collectively our enemies is equally daft.
The Greens are our rivals, and there are times when both parties act like it, but for those of us that are interested in doing the best for society and the planet there is also a time when we need to work together, or at the very least recognise we have a common enemy which is much bigger than a rival political party.
Ideally, a bit of rivalry will push each of us to do better. Unfortunately FPTP means negative campaigning is rewarded, and we need to work with the system we’ve got, not the one we want. However, I’d like to think most people in both parties are smart enough to acknowledge it’s something neither of us want, and we shouldn’t hold a grudge.
The reality is that Greens have targeted seats held by LDs: nothing wrong with that. They are a separate political party. They don’t agree with some of our policies. Many are not liberal-minded.
We should be doing the same. No need for it to be only one way traffic.
We should be treating the Greens exactly as we treat Labour.
I spent 14 Years as a member of The Green Party (GPEW + a Year in The Scottish Party) & 20 Years now in The Libdems so I am in a position to compare them. By & large the Two Parties are quite similar, with similar policies & almost identical campaigning. I live in a Green Target ward & their leaflets are just like ours.
If Politics was only a matter of calm, reasoned argument I would suggest merging but in the real world that would be a disaster.
In England we should treat The Greens as Rivals, with Respect & where possible, friendship.
I imagine it would be helpful in opposing the Greens if we could decide (and articulate) what the differences between the LibDems and the Greens are. Paul: Out of interest, what made you swap? Presumably there was some difference in polices that attracted you?
@ Paul,
” Two Parties are quite similar, with similar policies & almost identical campaigning…. but in the real world {merging} would be a disaster. ”
Maybe I’m just slow on the uptake but I don’t follow your argument at all.
Lib Dems are polling at about 10%. The greens about 6%. Add them together and you’ve got 16% which is going to increase your profile substantially. You’ll save a lot on lost deposits!
A party which is polling at 16% looks a lot more credible than 10%. There’ll be a snowball effect so that 16% will easily grow to 20%. The Labour support is ultra soft at present and based on little more than a desire to vote for them because they aren’t the Tories. Who knows what you would end up with?
The sensible options are to either merge or explain exactly what your differences are and why a merger would not be possible.
@Graham Jeffs Labour, LibDems and Greens have the same number of Assembly seats as before. Conservatives one less and Reform has one. LibDems have a constituency seat (formerly Conservative) – the first time any party other than Labour and Conservative have had one, but that means one less list seat for LibDems. You can drill down into results of this and previous Greater London elections by starting from https://www.londonelects.org.uk/im-voter/election-results/results-2024-0