Author Archives: Mary Reid

Another substantial gain – this time in South Cambridgeshire, which we have had our eyes on for many years.  Pippa Heylings  takes the seat from the Conservatives with a 10k majority.

Down in the South West Martin Wrigley has taken Newton Abbot – formerly a solid Conservative seat.

Back in Cambridgeshire Ian Sollom also took St Neots and Mid Cambs from the Tories.

And down in Eastbourne the town has returned to the Lib Dems – well done to Josh Babarinde who takes it with a 12,000 majority.

We have just heard that we have also regained Cheadle from the Conservatives – another seat lost in 2015.  This time thanks go to Tom Morrison who  achieved another 12,000 majority.

And well done to Clive Jones in Wokingham – John Redwood’s seat since 1987 – now Lib Dem.

Ed Davey has held on to his Kingston & Surbiton seat, increasing his majority from 11k to 17k. This is the largest majority ever by a Lib Dem MP in a General Election – that’s quite something.

I am personally rather pleased that the location is given as Chessington, which lies within the constituency, because it is where I live. The count was held at the Kings Centre not far from my home. Up until now Chessington was only famous for our theme park.

He has been building bug houses! Not as eye-catching as falling into water, but still a good ploy to talk about housing.

Over in The Guardian he is seen wearing a halo. Martin Kettle writes: “The Tories are fixating on Reform. They should be focused on a far bigger threat” – meaning the Lib Dems.

If wartime analogies are your thing, you could say that the Conservatives have a Singapore problem. Before the second world war, the British empire armed Singapore to fight naval battles against Japan. Famously, most of Singapore’s heavy artillery faced out to sea. But in 1942, the Japanese army overran Singapore from the rear, coming in from the Malayan mainland.

Today, the Tory high command and many supporters, especially in the media, look fixedly out to sea at the advance of Reform. As a result, they have all underestimated the threat from the Lib Dems at their rear. Even now, the Conservatives have not understood that Ed Davey is a far bigger danger to their majority than Nigel Farage.

Yesterday he met trainees who were making chilli jam at the Nickel Support community interest company in Carshalton, which works with adults with learning disabilities.  Interestingly different …

As you might expect members of the Lib Dem Voice team are fully involved in the election.

• Caron Lindsay is standing in Livingston. Caron is a veteran of many elections, and will also be supporting Christine Jardine’s election campaign.
• Charley Hasted is our PPC in Barking. Charley works as an emergency ambulance dispatcher and is Chair of LGBT+ Lib Dems.
• Paul Walter is bundling leaflets in the Newbury constituency office plus doing loads of leaflet delivery and canvassing locally.
• Mary Reid is no longer able to deliver or canvass but is doing a lot of backroom tasks for Kingston & Surbiton, from wholesaling to organising blue envelopes and sending emails to voters and members.

So apologies if we are a little slow in responding to emails between now and July 4th. Make that July 6th as we will be at counts and recovering.

Lib Dem HQ have told us that 13 Conservative MPs are standing down in Blue Wall seats where we are the main challengers. Many of them lie within Council areas where Lib Dems have done well in local elections in the last two years.

Here is the full list (with my comments):

• Nadhim Zahawi – Stratford-on-Avon. Lib Dems won control of Stratford-upon-Avon Council last year.
• Steve Brine – Winchester. Lib Dems have controlled Winchester Council for some time.
• Stephen Hammond – Wimbledon. Wimbledon is our top target seat and with the new boundaries now includes parts of Lib Dem controlled Kingston upon Thames.
• Dominic Raab – Esher and Walton. Lies within Elmbridge Council where Lib Dems are the largest party.
• Chris Grayling – Epsom and Ewell. A bit of an outlier as Epsom and Ewell District Council has been controlled by Residents’ Associations for many years, so it is difficult to gauge the current support for mainstream parties.
• Adam Afriyie – Windsor. Lies within Windsor & Maidenhead Council where we took control last year.
• Paul Beresford – Mole Valley. Lib Dems have controlled Mole Valley Council for some time.
• John Howell – Henley. Lies within Lib Dem controlled South Oxfordshire District Council.
• Philip Dunne – Ludlow/South Shropshire. Seat previously held by Lib Dem Matthew Green.
• Paul Scully – Sutton and Cheam. Sutton has been a Lib Dem controlled Council for many, many years.
• Theresa May – Maidenhead. Lies within Windsor & Maidenhead Council where we took control last year.
• James Heappey – Wells. Lies within Somerset County Council, controlled by Lib Dems.
• Nickie Aiken – Cities of London and Westminster. The unusual structure of the City of London makes this difficult to call, but Chuka Umunna put up a strong showing in 2019.

Sadiq Khan has comfortably won the Mayor of London contest although it hasn’t yet been officially announced. We can be sure of the result because the votes have been counted across the fourteen super-constituencies and their totals have been announced, so it’s a simple matter of arithmetic to work out the final result.

This contest was always a two horse race between Labour and Conservative, and voting reverted to FPTP this time around. We know that many of our voters voted tactically to keep the Tory out. Under those circumstances it is very pleasing that the Lib Dem candidate, Rob Blackie, came in third, albeit by a narrow margin of 70 votes.

🚨 BREAKING: Sadiq Khan has won the London Mayoral Election

🔴 LAB: 1,088,225 (43.7%)
🔵 CON: 811,518 (32.6%)
🟠 LDEM: 145,184 (5.8%)
🟢 GRN: 145,114 (5.8%)
🟣 RFM: 78,865 (3.2%)
⚪️ INDP: 47,815 (1.9%)

3.2% swing from Conservative to Labour

— Politics UK (@PolitlcsUK) May 4, 2024

It’s going to be a long day in London. The counting process began yesterday in fourteen venues across the region, one based in each of the Assembly super-constituencies.  Votes on the three differently coloured ballot papers were being verified yesterday and then counted today.

To understand the scale of the process you have to remember that the population of Greater London is more than those of Scotland and Wales taken together.

Results will be announced this afternoon in this order: Mayor of London, London Assembly constituency members, London-wide Assembly members (from the top up lists).  We already know that turnout was 40.5%. Previous turnouts have varied from 34% to 46%, so there is nothing particularly surprising in that figure.

Lib Dem interest is focussed on the SW London Constituency (Richmond, Kingston and Hounslow) which we are hoping to win. If we do then it will be the first ever constituency win for us.

The best place to follow the election results is on London Elects.

Catching up on a couple of councils that I was watching…

Gloucester has certainly seen an upheaval from a clear Conservative majority to a slightly awkward NOC. The good news is that the Lib Dems are the largest party with 17 (an increase of 7), compared with Conservatives on 11, Labour 7 and Others 4. Let’s hope our Council Group can find 3 others they can work with to make a working majority.

I have now moved the news about Elmbridge here. Our team in Elmbridge increased their seats but were just two short of the number needed for an overall majority. They will continue to run a minority administration, no doubt with the support of some of the Residents Associations, which has been working well for the past year.

And then we left Woking at the point where we knew they had won, but before all the results were in. And a great outcome – Lib Dems hold 24 out of 30 seats on the Council – and that included defeating Michael Gove’s election agent. No Conservatives left at all, in fact.

As we wrap up for the night there appear to be five councils that are nowhere near a result, or may not have actually started counting yet. None of them carry much interest for the Lib Dems.

In terms of control of Councils, Lib Dems have held 10, gained 2 and lost none.

And finally, here is the score line for the number of council seats won so far.

Feels good, doesn’t it?