So we’re up 155 councillors in England. We can give ourselves a big pat on the back, right?
Well, maybe not.
Let’s look at London. A tale of two cities in one if ever there was one.
In the leafy southern areas, our heartlands, our results were, to be honest, unhealthily good. While it is a testament to how well our councils in Richmond, Sutton and Kingston are doing and are regarded by local people, holding virtually all the seats just isn’t conducive to good, inclusive government. Even though it would disadvantage us, perhaps we should really be pushing for PR for local government as much as national.
But it wasn’t all plain sailing in that neck of the woods. In Merton, we had hoped to do much better against a dreadful Labour Council, but our gains were modest and Labour easily held control, gaining a seat from the Conservatives in the process.
It was a completely different story in inner London where the Green vote rocketed up.
Voters looked to them, not our well established Council groups, to defeat Labour and several councils, including Southwark, Haringey and Lambeth went to no overall control as the Greens surged. In Islington, where we once ran the Council, we didn’t make the breakthrough we had hoped and I was very sad that talented people like Rebecca Jones didn’t get elected despite spirited campaigns. In Haringey, voters again looked to the Greens and another disappointment was that Shamim Muhammad missed out. She spoke in the global women’s rights debate we had at Federal Conference and would have been a powerful voice for women’s rights on the Council.
We ran full, locally relevant campaigns in those areas and worked our socks off. The Greens did next to nothing on the ground but yet hoovered up hundreds of Council seats.
Why?
Everyone knows what the Greens stand for. They are speaking to people’s concerns about the divisive rhetoric we see from Reform and other socially conservative sources, about inequality, about poverty, about housing, about the international situation. And our lack of a cohesive national message is holding us back. People do not feel that we get it, that we are on their side.
The challenge for us is that the Greens is that they are going full throttle with an emotionally resonant message that connects with people and we are not. We sound technocratic. We lack passion. We don’t respond with suitable levels of outrage when the Prime Minister comes out with Reform lite garbage on immigration. In fact we come out with nonsense that sounds like we’re pandering to it only to put out a slightly better thing a few days later. It’s mixed messaging that makes us look untrustworthy.
We don’t have to promise everyone a free puppy, as the Greens frequently come close to doing, but we do need to wear our liberal values on our sleeve. It is simply not good enough to slightly shamefacedly and timidly put out something saying we are against division without actually taking on the arguments advanced by those who are stoking the division.
Our job as a liberal party is to bring people together and protect marginalised communities from attack and we need to be much better and clearer about it.
We look very much at the moment that we are here to serve the home counties and “blue wall” seats when we should be a voice for the north and our cities too.
So much of what we say seems to be moderated by timidity. We fear upsetting those in those seats more than we fear failing those in the rest of the country. Our liberal values are universal and we need to apply them and be relevant in every setting.
I understand that some key councillors across the country were warning that we needed to up our game against the Greens a long time ago and were ignored. The results this week show that we will lose out in the future if we fail to do that. In places like Oxfordshire we need to keep all progressive voters onside if we are going to continue to win. If we don’t, and at some point in the future the Tories and Reform merge and unite the right block vote, we will be in peril.
We are putting all of our eggs in a very small basket and that is a very dangerous strategy. We should want to be a national party and we should behave like one. We have already seen the cost this week when we should have been up another couple of hundred seats at least.
We put a lot of focus on Labour facing campaigning but we need to do the same for Green facing or they will keep making progress while we stagnate. We need to highlight their failings. Former Lambeth Group leader Donna Harris highlighted horrific anti semitic comments made by two Green candidates in Lambeth and challenged Zack Polanski on them yet I’ve not seen much mention of this in our national communications. We need to go after Polanski when he does stupid things like attacking the Police for the way they dealt with the Golders Green attacker and his mealy mouthed apology afterwards.
There are processes for dealing with concerns about Police behaviour and they should be followed. Politicians thoughtlessly retweeting things really doesn’t help.
One area we should be upping our game is in social media. Both the Greens and Reform are very effective at using this. This is not, of course, to replace doorstep campaigning, but the other two parties seem to be able to negate our hard work and shoe leather with an emotionally resonant video.
The Greens were brilliant at putting out videos of their candidates talking about their values and where they came from. We did a bit of that in Scotland and it worked well for us.
I am also quite concerned about some people arguing that the Greens and Reform are equally populist and therefore equally bad. I don’t think that’s true. The Greens have some respect for democracy, human rights and civil liberties. They are certainly very much more socialist/momentum watermelon these days rather than plant saving liberal minded mango these days, but they are generally decent human beings who want to make the world a better place.
Reform is much more dangerous and divisive and we do need to stand against them. We don’t need to pander to them with the stuff about animals on pound notes, for example and we certainly should not pull our punches on issues like immigration, human rights and democracy. We need to say why it is so dangerous for rich mainly men to be pouring their fortunes into promoting misogyny, racism and anti LGBT stuff.
With the Greens, we are looking to solve the same problems but in wildly different ways. We need to show that aspiration for a more equal, free society really, really matters to us and we are just not doing that.
So my take away from this weekend is that we are likely to go backwards unless we come up with a much more emotionally connecting message that is consistent and relevant nationally. I know I have been banging on about this for years, but it is now becoming urgent that we rise to this challenge.
* 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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Agree with much of this. Everyone will have their different takes according to their personal views and constituency. To generate more interest and regain our lost activists where I live we need a much bolder EU policy, a compelling and cohesive economic vision which reads across to what we can do for our youth.
We don’t talk enough about what liberalism is in either principled or practical terms, and that means we get taken for slushy centrists, competent managers or the least worst option. Below is a proposed short form version of who we are and what we believe, for on the ground consumption
‘Liberals believe that your life is your own, no-one else’s. We believe that everyone should be as free as possible, given real power to make the absolute most of their own lives, with as little interference as possible. We believe the role of local councils/county councils/the mayor/parliament/government (delete as applicable to the campaign) is to be the servant of individuals, families and communities, strengthening services, removing barriers to opportunity and addressing issues seriously. We believe in localism, community and doing real, practical things to help you to live your way.
For these reasons, our priorities in (name of area) are…..’
Then list local policy achievements/campaigning points/key local issues in properly liberal terms, rather than borrowing the language of either statists or populists.
Speaking as quite a left-liberal, we don’t talk about enabling liberty nearly enough, and we should do do more – it is our philosophical USP.
Just a thought – amendments heartily welcomed. Brilliant post as ever Caron.
In Birmingham several active campaigns – and hoped-for gains – were washed away in the Green tide. Nationally, we used to be known as the third party; now we are looking more like the four-and-a-halfth party. This is the age of bold messaging. Where is ours?
Is there a Lib Dem national message?
It is vital we get one for the next genetal election.
It is now a matter of national impotance to fight off Reform. I’m not going to get too tribal about who fits under the progressive umbrella, however, my hope remains in the Lib Dems. There is such a wealth of expertise and intellect in the Lib Dem Party, we must now seriously punch above our weight and influence the national discourse. The EU, and the economic benefits of rejoining, is one clarion call, I suggest.
The intervention of the Greens in Hull cost us control of the council. From managing to put up a handful of candidates in previous years, Greens stood in all 19 wards up this time. Their votes in four wards was the difference in us winning. They could have been offered one ward to keep out of our way elsewhere I guess but whether that kind of collaboration is a long term strategy I don’t know. How did Liberals feel when the SDP came along? Is there a precedent?
The Greens have Zac polanski ,Reform have Nigel Farage.i have no time for either of them but they cut through with voters and get media attention.While Ed Davey is our leader we will fail to breakout of out southern middle class enclave .Harsh but true
To respond to one point in Caron’s post. I believe HQ has significantly invested in extra staffing in the social media team. TBF We’ve always had the issue of getting across in a way the media and the electorate understand, what we actually stand for. It’s not as easy as simply the Tories are selfish gits, or Labour believe the state should do everything and the Greens are even leftier…
Lib Dems and Labour are basically facing the same challenge – How can we possibly develop a bold, convincing message of radical change and national prosperity, when Britain is skint?
Sure, Starmer and Reeves are poor politicians who have played a bad hand badly. But even if a new Labour leader were to play a stronger game, Britain would still be skint. The chances are that Labour will replace Starmer, but people will still be dissatisfied, whatever the new leader does.
Obama had “the audacity of hope”. That wouldn’t wash now. The options sometimes look like “the inevitability of despair” with Starmer, “let’s believe in magic” with the Greens, or “let’s all cheer ourselves up by scapegoating foreigners” with Farage.
To do better than that calls for a few key policy platforms which add up to a plausible programme for Government. Mine would be:
Stop Farage and his crypto mogul friends from pillaging Britain and starting a race war.
Restore prosperity – Quickly rebuild unity with Europe.
Recognise climate change (e.g. food prices) as a key cause of the cost of living crisis. Use renewable energy and public transport to cut costs.
Decent government – Stop cheating subpostmasters, tainted blood victims, etc.
Stop “academy” bureaucrats wrecking schools.
Save the NHS!
Phil Banting – the irony is that in England we DID come third! But you wouldn’t think so from reading or listening to the media. That in itself tells a story.
As for messaging – for how long have I and others been banging on about this? Is anyone prepared both to listen and take action?
Absolutely !
It’s not just that we aren’t talking about our Values, what we do say is wrong. Our Leader in particular has been pushing the line that we Are the sensible Middle between the equal extremes of The Greens on The Left & Reform on the Right. To a lot of Voters that sounds very like Starmer, it makes Us sound smug, complacent, Establishment, silly and perhaps a bit nasty.
In a lot of places we are going to be running Councils with The Greens, Voters can see that they aren’t Extremists & saying they are means Voters may stop listening.
I agree with much of this (though am not so keen on the Greens under their present leadership). Our national politics needs a strong liberal voice but I’m afraid we aren’t providing it. Look no further than this morning’s Laura Kuennsberg programme which ran perfectly well without an LD rep. So long as we can’t do better than cosy stunts and church roofs the electorate will conclude we have nothing distinctive to say about the big national issues. For heaven’s sake – we have 72 MPs………….
Good piece Caron, as ever. How long has it been since the Thornhill review that identified the key task of the leader being to establish a clear vision for the party?
My own take on the results in England is that where we are well established we did very well – as someone said on Friday we are very hard to shift once ensconced in local councils as we genuinely do work harder and for the general good of the whole community. But where we have been absent, there is no compelling reason for anyone to vote LibDem as there is no rallying call that chimes in the way Polanski can.
The way to beat the Greens is not to attack them for being extremists – they are anything but. Sure some of their solutions are naïve and maybe ‘populist’ but their aims are very similar to ours, and in most areas I am convinced we are chasing the same votes. And Polanski is brilliant in highlighting the problems people face in a way that shows real understanding. We come across too often as comfortable middle class – which of course most of us are.
@ Nigel Quinton, “And Polanski is brilliant in highlighting the problems people face in a way that shows real understanding”.
Sorry, Nigel, but Polanski and his comments about women, hypnotism and personal claims are very good reasons not to support the English Green Party as long as he remains its Leader. The polls already show that.
Thanks for a well timed article!
Might L.D s, not least the leadership, focus on, and promote, fairness, clearness, respect for individuality, realism and whole society cohesion and effectiveness?
In short, might the LD Party consider being a “Liquorice All-Sorts” party which feels, thinks and works to create and develop respect for and with individuals and groups combined with overall socio- economic cohesion?
“Like liquorice all-sorts, we are all differnt and we all stick together!”
Local newspapers and media have almost ceased to survive. So voters are uninformed on local issues. We have some very competent community based LD councillors here. But only get credit when they are in office. Reformists haven’t got a clue which means that there are a few more Kents on the way All this national posturing is an irrelevance at local level. Unfortunately that got all the media attention in the last elections.
Caron yes yes yes, what I and some others have have been saying for months. It is the Greens who are our enemy, we should not be worried about Reform let others go for them, otherwise it will be 2015 all over again. Wipe out.
We have to change our strategy and fast, that may mean a new leadership, dare I say it, a northern or Scottish person.
Whilst West Sussex was pretty good and Surrey produced some excellent results, I have to say I was very disappointed with the results in East Sussex, even Eastbourne was really only kept due to the collapse in the Conservative vote. Not a single seat won in the east of the county besides Battle and Crowhurst and the Greens seemed to dominate the north-west of the county and everything else pretty much went to Reform, the only good results seemed to be along the south coast in Seaford and Ouse Valley, even Lewes is Green now. and Hastings is a no go zone for anyone besides the Greens and Reform now, even Labour who have an MP got wiped out.
@ theakes “dare I say it, a northern or Scottish person”.
What’s so daring about a Leader from the North or from Scotland, Theakes ?
Just wanted to add how much ‘I agree with Caron’, but also pretty much everything that the others have contributed commenting on her post. A middling performance at best, and speaking from the heart of the country (North Midlands) we have got to get across an emotive message that resonates with the everyday concerns of people who are trying to make ends meet – otherwise we will simply be the south/ south eastern regional opposition to the Conservatives in wealthier areas (with more than a few honourable exceptions of course!).
I’m really glad to see that LDV isn’t whitewashing these results. It must also be noted that this was the first time that the Greens have gotten more votes than us in a local election and the first time that their net gain in councillors and councillors has been greater than ours (and by a very large margin).
The gap between us and the Greens would is also allot bigger if you only count the regularly scheduled elections, our gains in the postponed county councils and new Surrey authorities are vs 2021, a year when the Tories were very popular.
Problem is that both our leadership seem to be very resistant to the idea that the party should do anything bold and are basically copying the politics of Keir Starmer
Those with longer memories know we’ve been here before. In 1989 European Election we came 4th behind the Green Party. The Greens faded and we did better in elections. We need a plan, but remember Corporal Jones, “Don’t Panic!”
There are problems. In West Yorkshire, we had a dismal set of results. In Calderdale and Kirklees, where we once ran the councils (often with another party), we lost a lot of seats. In Bradford , with one LibDem ward postponed, we were reduced to one seat, we went backwards in Wakefield. In Leeds we stayed still. In all those cases the problem was Reform UK.
In Cambridge, claims by the Greens to be winning allowed Labour to hold two of our target seats by low margins.
A party activist for 62 years with 10 party leaders, I can say people have always moaned about messaging.
Our campaigning seems to assume that telling people what we stand for will put them off! In my early days as a campaigner in Calderdale our leaflets always had a snippet of party policy, we covered both local and national issues and even EU ones. Those leaflets had almost no pictures and were in black and white! That didn’t stop us winning. Telling people to vote for us as the least worst option to the party they loath is not enough. We need local and national issues, what we stand for AND tactical information. Let’s start doing that in 2026.
Might the L. D. Party help itself and, no less imortantly, our whole society by adopting clear policy plus practices targets?
Might these include?
1) Exposing Austerity/Neoliberalism as being, for regular citizens and their children, the harming deceit that it is, as shown by child food depriviation figures
2) Creating a fair and transparent tax system instead of the current one which benefits the well off
3) Exposing the deceitful myth that our national economy is like a household economy which it cannot be because housholds cannot connot create useable money.
4) Exposing the deceitful myth that the purpose of taxation is to pay for H M G. expenditure when it does not. The reality is that it secures our soverereign. currency, can manage inflation and can/could provide a democratic connection bewtween the governed and the government etc.
5) Making clear that much the most of “Government debt” is, in practical reality, an essential foundation banking activity
6) Etc, etc, etc
We doubled the size of the Sefton Council group and ended up with all the seats in Southport bar one ward where we deliberately did not campaign, trusting the Greens to see off Reform (they didn’t) and one seat where an ethnic minority candidate was narrowly pipped. The national message was not unhelpful but it did not register. I definitely do not want though to see the party combat populist nonsense of the right or left by producing populist nonsense ourself on any issue. Immigration, economy, welfare, energy policy are complex matters. Most of us are doomed to be Liberals because we know life us complex, the state does not have a magic wand, markets can’t solve everything, individual behaviour matters etc. Lisa Smart when launching the local government campaign made the point that sometimes the more nuanced and sensible approach won’t grab the headlines or interest an increasingly shallow media.
What we need to think about is presentation and moving away (if that’s possible and the media allow) from a presidential model, unleashing the formidable talents within our 72 MP group. Green popularity is driven in part by the perception that Polansky is a ‘cool guy’ for ‘modern times’ and politics as John Major said is becoming like a game show.
Hallelujah. Well done Caron for saying what needs to be said. ‘So much of what we say seems to be moderated by timidity’. Nail on head. And at this point in our national life, it’s the last thing we need. Also, I agree that suggesting an equivalence of Greens and Reform is just plain wrong – but I note it came from the very top. After 44 years in the party I despair. When I joined we put out Focus to inform and empower local communities, now we do it just to win elections (which we often don’t). Indicative of this is using our posters to say ‘winning here’ which as well as lacking credibility since we often don’t, also gives the voters the idea that winning elections is the only thing that matters to us. As for the Mark Pack tortoise and hare post event rationalisation, don’t get me started. We have been fighting the good fight but with little success in most London boroughs outside SW for as long as I can remember, but at a stroke the Greens come along and snatch several from nowhere. Why? Because they have a message. The same happened here in Cambridge. Labour Council on the ropes – LD stood still and Greens got ALL the gains and now have leapfrogged us to be the opposition. 12 years ago we RAN Cambridge City Council and had done for 15 years.
Mick Taylor – it seems a bit rough on the Greens to accuse them of claiming they were winning in Cambridge – given that they were! It’s also not unheard of for LDs to claim this 🙂
@MartinPierce. In the two target wards that we narrowly lost they were claiming they could win but all they did was take some votes from us and let Labour hold on.
Great article. Spread the word folks that we can do it if we step up.
“The Greens are speaking to people’s concerns ……”
Shouldn’t alll parties be doing this?
“……. about the divisive rhetoric we see from Reform and other socially conservative sources, about inequality, about poverty, about housing, about the international situation..”
Like this is a bad thing?
“People do not feel that we get it, that we are on their side.”
Maybe this is because LibDems don’t see that there should be any sides and it is possible to be friends with everyone? If you are concerned about inequality, you do have to choose a side, either with those who have too much or too little.
You can’t have it all ways.
I do hope that Caron’s excellent post is actually taken on board by the leadership of our party.
Sad to say, the overall gain in seats is likely to be used as an excuse for cosy self-satisfaction by a blinkered coterie. I am starting to despair of these people.
Just importantly, we must urge and encourage all who worked so very hard but achieved disappointing results to renew their efforts. It’s easily said, but it is essential to maintain the tension – more than a couple of weeks of ‘rest’ can lead to organisation starting to unravel. Let not disappointment lead to disillusion.
I strongly recommend a read of the below, especially the bit about swing voters. Don’t be put off by the author or the location.
https://conservativehome.com/2026/05/11/david-gauke-cannons-to-the-right-of-them-cannons-to-the-left-labours-dilemma-is-also-that-of-the-tories/
Brilliant, Caron, this article and the discussion following it are exactly what our party needs, following the lacklustre local election results. “So much of what we say seems to be moderated by timidity”, indeed. The real threat of the Greens “going full throttle with an emotionally resonant message that connects with people and we are not . We lack passion. We don’t respond with suitable levels of outrage…” Yes, yes, yes! We need our leaders to hear this and to up their game.
I agree with Caron’s article and much of the comments. I remember Shamim Muhammad’s powerful speech at Conference and I hope she will carry on campaigning. In Lewisham we cannot blame the fact that we won nothing on anyone else but on the fact that we did not have enough help. Too few activists worked their socks off (not me). The question is why and why are we not appealing to more younger people? For me the answer is the economy, as mentioned and support for real peace and justice (as written on our banners) in Palestine. Come and join the Libdem Friends of Palestine on the march to commemorate the Nakba on Saturday in London.
Oh and don’t forget. There will soon be by-elections as ineligible councillors step down (Camden there is one already) and other paper candidates who didn’t want to get elected resign. We can try new approaches, as I suggested above, very soon.
People say the North was all gloom, but don’t forget Newcastle where we are now the largest party and Labour are reduced to 2 councillors. We ran Newcastle before and we could now do so again in cooperation with the Greens.
The real winner in these elections was ‘apathy’; only 27% of eligible voters bothered turning up at voting stations..
David Raw corrects me by pointing out Polanski’s less wise comments, and he has a point. It’s probably why I remain a LibDem for now – that and the fact that this is my family. But if you haven’t already seen it, please go watch his ppb from January – the running video.
https://youtu.be/bF_a_w7Dozo?si=w4hAzJv42-T_E6Cl
This is the sort of messaging we need and nothing in what he says here is contrary to our party policy, nor, especially, our values. We have been campaigning on these issues, of inequality, the unfairness of the neoliberal economy, of the importance of the environment, on better place making, for as long as I can recall. We need to find a way to once again be a better green party, with more pragmatic evidence based policy, that have the credibility that the Green Party still lacks but will indubitably develop, before they completely overtake us. Don’t attack them for being extreme, they are not; they are natural partners for us and a LibDem Green coalition is, I believe, what the country most needs right now.
“We have been fighting the good fight but with little success in most London boroughs outside SW for as long as I can remember, but at a stroke the Greens come along and snatch several from nowhere. ”
Whoa! That’s wildly inaccurate given that there have been Lib Dem led administrations in Islington, Lambeth, Southwark and Bromley at the very least in recent-ish years – plus a hand in some others (Camden I think) and sizable groups on some others such as Haringey. And in the more distant past you can add in Harrow and Tower Hamlets.
David Raw.
Scotland or the North for a leader. Let us go for it.
Hywel – I don’t think it is wildly inaccurate. Islington of course was LD controlled in the 2000s (going back a bit now) but at the last four elections we have had 0 Cllrs each time. You would need to tell me when there were LD led administrations in Lambeth, Southwark and Bromley but at the last four elections we have had 8, 3, 0, 0 in Lambeth, 11, 11, 14, 13 in Southwark and 6, 5, 0, 0 in Bromley. Greens meanwhile went from 3 to 19 this year in Islington, 2 to 29 in Lambeth, and 0 to 22 in Southwark, though didn’t score in Bromley. Whilst in Waltham Forest Greens went from 0 to 31 (control), 2 to 42 in Hackney (control) and 0 to 40 in Lewisham (control). I don’t believe that we have taken majority control of a new Borough that we haven’t held before in London this century; the Greens just took majority control of three in councils where they had a grand total of 2 Cllrs four years ago. My question is – why can’t we do that?
@ Martin Pierce,
Lambeth was run by a very much Liberal Democrat-led administration between 2002 and 2006, whilst Southwark had a similar administration between 2006 and 2010, so hardly ancient history.
As I was Chair of the cross-border Dulwich and West Norwood Local Party in 2005 and 2006, I remember them well – they were efficient, effective and well led compared to the Labour administrations they replaced.
I am just wondering if part of the problem is that the Lib Dems field too many candidates in local elections. Many voters like to split their vote between parties but don’t know which candidate to favour. In longer shot seats it may be better just to field one candidate ideally who is well established in the area and they will pick up all the potential LD votes.
The best posts on here are those by John Pugh and Mick Taylor. The nay sayers and the never will bes always spread doom and gloom after an election campaign that didn’t go 100% to plan. The Ed-sceptics in particular, think a change of Leader will lead to a miraculous upward surge in our support.
And Marco. No. Not putting up a full slate just means voters give their 2nd an 3rd votes to other parties candidates and reduce our chances of winning.
Ref Inner London, Lewisham was mentioned above. One the Blackheath ward both LD candidates got well over 1000 votes but the turn out was far far higher this time. Many residents who did not even vote in 2022 turned up and voted Green last week. In Greenwich which used to have pre coalition a handful of LD Councillors, candidates came last in most wards. There was no campaigning or leaflets in this area. The Greens put in a huge effort even on council estates and got the results. There is still a bit of a legacy from the coalition days in inner London. A leader from Scotland or the North would work well if there’s going to be a change. In view of the antipathy many Greens have towards Lib Dems I don’t think a coalition with them is at all feasible and there are some major differences on policy areas.
I note that Jo Swinson is Scottish and Tim Farron is Northern, so two of our last four elected leaders were either Northern or Scottish.
Tim I mean seats where the Lib Dems were unlikely to win this time round but wanted to make inroads in the ward. I believe that many seats where the Greens took 2-3 seats this time were ones where they only fielded 1 candidate last time who took all the potential Green support. This shows the merits of such a strategy.