Category Archives: Op-eds

So the General Election review is out. See my earlier post for the basics and some thoughts on the rejection of the idea of a “progressive alliance.”

As promised here are my initial thoughts and I’d welcome yours in the comments.

This was much easier reading than previous reviews given that we had done well. So often, we’ve spent our General Elections waiting for something to go horribly wrong and for once, it didn’t.

I found some very sensible acknowledgements of the factors that worked and recommendations for the future. I loved the way that the recommendations were organised into Continue, Build and Address.

Tim Farron’s foreword was very clear about the current political environment and talked of our role as the antidote to populism in way that will resonate with many of us:

The antidote is to build deep relationships with our communities, to serve them at an immersive level, to ‘keep in touch and get things done’, to win trust and to continually earn it. There is no human silver bullet to deal with the evil that is seeping into western politics, but we Liberal Democrats have found the closest thing to it. If we are to defend our country against the rise in populism, we will do so by forensically loving and serving our neighbours so that they do not feel the need to reject ‘the system’ and opt for the extremists.

So,

The good

It was good to be reminded of the four years of foundation building we did to get the result we achieved, how everyone worked together across regions and states to build strong local campaigns and how they prepared the next generation of MPs.

Singled out for praise, deservedly, were Mike Dixon, CEO; Dave McCobb, Director of Field Campaigns; Rhiannon Leaman, Chief of Staff to the leader; and, Olly Grender, Director of Communications.

But why?

It is our observation that they did this by avoiding the usual pitfalls that
other small, senior teams have been criticised for in past reviews, e.g the ‘Wheelhouse’ executive in 2015 or the inner team in 2019; namely: group-think, a lack of accountability and transparency and failing to take others with them.

Instead, interviewees were unanimous and generous in their praise of this team for their openness to challenge, the forthright and regular internal communications with the various party structures and the membership more broadly and the way in which they secured and built a cohesive one=party approach from very early on.

Such a list is always going to be short. I know we will all have people we want to add in. From a Scottish perspective, our outgoing Chief Executive Rachel Palma Randle and our Chief of Staff James Parry were vital in getting Scotland and Scottish messaging right.

It was good to see the long explainer emails and internal communications recognised for promoting understanding of our actions.

The stunts came in for particular praise – 90% of those who responded were very positive about them.

It’s worth saying that a couple of weeks in to the campaign I had lunch with some loved ones who have nothing to do with politics whatever. They had no idea about Sunak getting wet, his tactless football comments in Wales, his visit to the Titanic Quarter, all the things that we political nerds were laughing at. They did know, however, that Ed Davey had gone down a water slide and he’d been talking aobut mental health when he did it. They had also noted Daisy’s brilliant and opportunistic photobombing of that Sunak event with her Lib Dem posters.

However, not all universal praise for this approach – mentioned need to get donors on board with the evidence that it works. That should be an easier sell for next time.

While perhaps obvious it is clear that preparing for this election early was key to success. This requires a shift in mindset and culture whereby campaigning is a constant and all elections – Welsh, Scottish, English Locals, Mayorals, etc. fit within a singular strategic framework with the baton being handed to a different lead and/or leader to deliver.

Candidate support in terms of policy was fantastic and it was good to see that recognised.

Candidate support too was cited as a real highlight by many the panel spoke to: standard letters, resources and having quick, practical help at hand in a timely manner won praise across the party with one election veteran describing it as the “best it has ever been”.

Now I definitely told them that in those exact words and I’m fairly certain I can’t have been alone in that. I’d just add in that the daily emails we got as candidates had all the information we needed to know and were written with an engaging style that made you want as well as need to need them. They were clearly put together by someone with a sense of humour too, which always helps.

They also identified problems with candidate selections

Would-be candidates are often left in the dark about when selections are taking place. This uncertainty means the party is undoubtedly missing out on talent. Evidence also suggests uncertainty can affect diversity – robbing would-be candidates of the time and space needed to give thought to what running for candidacy means. Local parties too have expressed frustration with the process, for example being caught between central functions encouraging them to start selections and then being told there is no Returning Officer to enable this to happen at the State/Region level.

The answer to this is:

building on the oversight role that theJoint Candidates Sub-Committee (JCSC) has by giving it the responsibility of setting and agreeing a single set of approval and selection processes for Westminster candidates and setting an overall selection timetable for all seats.

This is something that needs resourcing, though. And we urgently need to recruit and train more Returning Officers, candidate assessors, facilitators and staff to administer the above.

A word of praise for development seats:

Finally, as a party we must do more to recognise those in development seats who not only work outside of election year to develop their seats but then go on to give considerable time and energy (often at significant cost to them) to help others win. As a party we are very fortunate to have wonderful candidates stand as representatives on our behalf – we must ensure that they are all equally valued.

The panel will be making more detailed recommendations on this point specifically in a motion to party conference.

Part of that for me has to be making sure that the seats that receive help give it out too. Many of them do, supporting local elections and by-elections in other areas, but I think there should be a much stronger element of helping them properly develop, recruit members and really get more for the effort they put in.

I was pleased to see that the efforts of Lib Dems Abroad to engage with voters abroad did not go unnoticed – and there was a clear call for us to resolve the barriers to them doing more.

Where the review doesn’t go far enough