This is what Ed said after his result was announced in Kingston & Surbiton:
Thank you. It’s been a great privilege to serve our Kingston and Surbiton communities over many years.
And I am humbled that you’ve put your faith in me – to do it again. So let me say a big “thank you”.
And thank you too, to Sarah our Returning Officer, and to all the staff and police who’ve worked here through the night.
You are the unsung heroes of our democracy. It simply wouldn’t work without you. And thank you to my fellow candidates. For making this, a campaign we can all be proud of. I wish you all well in the future.
Now, I don’t know if you could tell, but I’ve really enjoyed this election! But what I’ve loved most – hasn’t been the paddle-boarding or the bungee-jumping…
It’s been speaking to people here in Kingston and Surbiton and across the United Kingdom. About the challenges they face – and their hopes for the future.
People who are working hard, raising families, caring for loved ones, playing by the rules – But finding it harder and harder to make ends meet.
People who’ve had to wait hours for an ambulance, weeks to see a GP, months to start urgent cancer treatment.
People who are angry at the filthy sewage being pumped into our rivers and onto our beaches.
People who feel let down and taken for granted – and are desperate for change. Many of them have turned to the Liberal Democrats – in some cases, for the first time at this election – to be their champions.
Well, we’ve heard you – loud and clear. We’ve put your concerns at the heart of our campaign.
Number one amongst them: fixing the health and care crisis. So that you can see a doctor or a dentist when you need to.
And so your loved ones get the high-quality care they need, when and where they need it that’s what Liberal Democrat MPs will fight for every day in the new Parliament.
I’ve shared my own caring story during this campaign. And I’ve been overwhelmed by the response – especially from fellow carers.
People looking after their loved ones, who’ve got in touch to say “that’s my story too”.
Grateful that we’ve brought caring out of the shadows at last. And we will continue to stand up for a society where we value care, and properly support carers.
Because we can’t afford not to. Let me finish by thanking my wonderful family – even though I hope they’re sound asleep!
Emily – I love you and I could not do this job without you. Ellie and John, I love you so much.
And to our fantastic team who’ve made this result happen. My election agent, Simon Drage – and organiser, Cosmo Lupton. Our incredible team here in Kingston and Surbiton, and all the Liberal Democrat campaigners – across the country – who’ve fought tirelessly for a fair deal.
You are all amazing. Tonight is your night. And tonight is for everyone, across our United Kingdom, who are desperate for change – and ready to build the brighter, fairer future our country deserves.
Thank you very much.
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19 Comments
I’ve just seen that Starmer has managed to poll 600k fewer Labour votes that the supposed disaster of Jeremy Corbyn’s 2019 campaign.
I’m coming around to the idea of PR! 🙂
2017 (Jeremy Corbyn) — 12,877,918
2019 (Jeremy Corbyn) — 10,269,051
2024 (Keir Starmer) — 9,686,329
That’s fptp for you Peter . If you calculate seats to vote percentage Reform would be close to three figures . This time it’s worked in Libdems favour – up to a point . But hey I’m not complaining…
Who would have formed a coalition under PR – The progressive parties or Conservatives/reform/ unionist? https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/newsmanchester/general-election-2024-what-was-the-vote-share-and-how-parliament-would-look-with-proportional-representation/ar-BB1psgUP?ocid=BingNewsSerp
On topic, do we have any thoughts on how Ed should use his two questions to Starmer on July 24th ?
My thought is that the first question should be on the failure of our Electoral System to represent The Voters – particularly the one-in-five who Voted for Reform or the Greens.
For the second question I would go for the vile “Two-Child Limit” on Benefits – policy that is both cruel & stupid. Hopefully we will be pushing an open door on this one.
What do other Libdems think ?
@Paul – not sure about the first one Paul …Yep two child limit would be a good lead off .
How about windfall tax to further support the HSF household support fund etc ..
“My thought is that the first question should be on the failure of our Electoral System to represent The Voters – particularly the one-in-five who Voted for Reform or the Greens.”
Yes – and one of his questions at the next 160+ PMQs should be about the unrepresentative electoral system and tie it in with what ever he is criticising that week. Of course the opposition MPs will groan but it will repeatedly make the point which just has to be front and centre. Even thought he Lib Dems are approaching parity with a proportional vote share a 60+ uptick on next to no vote share increase is *highly* perilious come the next election and there are plenty of people with T-shirts of how losses can quickly become disproportionate
Do we really want to make PR a priority? Won’t it just be another disruptive distraction like Brexit?
PR will NOT be one of the questions!!
Caring and health.
@Joe Who would have formed a coalition under PR? Well we don’t yet have the final exact vote shares (because of still waiting for Inverness) but it looks pretty clear that Labour + LibDem + Greens between them got over 50% of the vote, so it would have to be a progressive-ish coalition with the votes as cast.
On the other hand if we’d had PR so no tactical voting, the vote shares would have been different anyway.
“Do we really want to make PR a priority? Won’t it just be another disruptive distraction like Brexit?”
I would point out that as a political objective ‘The UK leaving the EU’ is something that the people who wanted that to happen have acheived. It’s worth looking at how they acheived that when the Lib Dems (from a much stronger starting position) have acheived diddly-squat.
Some observations re PR:
First, there now seems to be a firmly established trend away from the two largest parties. In 1964 they received 88% of the vote. On Thursday, that figure had dwindled to 57%. (Incidentally, it would be interesting to know the extent to which that sharp decline is reflected in local election results.) Whether that trend continues, and how it plays out in terms of unfair representation, I wouldn’t care to speculate on.
Second, should Ed ask a question about PR he might do well to refer to FPTP’s alleged advantage of it producing clear majorities and strong, stable government. Would the PM agree that was the experience of the last 5 years?
Third, the election saw the return of 6 Independents. I’d suggest representation of the views they hold in Parliament is a sign of a healthy democracy. Would that be lost under PR?
The biggest story of Thursday, but largely ignored, was the rise of the far right even though they only managed 5 seats. They still managed to poll over 4 million votes. Their intervention was crucial in averting what otherwise would have been considered a failure by the new Starmer faction.
Starmer managed to poll 600k votes less than Labour in 2019 and over 3 million less that Labour in 2017.
Then there was the rise of the socialist independents. There were five MPs elected. Four of whom had not received any significant level of media reporting prior to Thursday . Jeremy Corbyn’s campaign being the only exception. There had also been an interesting contest, again largely ignored, in Ilford North where Wes Streeting was defending his seat against Leanne Mohamad.
She reduced his majority to just 508 and his vote share by over 20 percentage points, gaining a respectable total of 15,000 votes.
Starmer’s vote in Holborn and St Pancras was half of what it was in 2019, thanks largely to the intervention of Andrew Feinstein.
It remains to be seen how significant these events will turn out to be in the longer term, but surely they are worth some discussion.
Normally the media are happy to cover David vs Goliath type stories. If a non league football team of part time players make it into the later rounds of the FA cup and are drawn against a Premier Division side the media are all over it!
@PeterMartin
“The biggest story of Thursday, but largely ignored, was the rise of the far right even though they only managed 5 seats”
“largely ignored” ….seriously????
https://peterblack.blogspot.com/2024/07/time-to-redress-media-balance.html
@Joe The results would have been very different with STV, as people would have voted for who they want rather than who they dislike least. You can’t extrapolate from here to there, as it’s a completely different scenario. We would probably have finished up with more centrists able to work together for the common good.
@ John G
“largely ignored” ….seriously????
Yes. Sorry. I had to cut down my comment to be within the 250 word limit so some of the original meaning was lost.
I wasn’t referring so much to the primary Reform wins such as Farage had in Clacton, but rather the secondary effect of the many other Reform candidates who took enough votes away from Tory candidates to allow Labour to win big time – even though their vote share was hardly any different to what it had been in 2019.
The swing to Labour was only 1.7%. Yet they gained 206 seats.
@Peter Martin: You seem to be assuming that Reform took votes entirely from the Conservatives. That’s not plausible: Look at the opinion poll history graph on Wikipedia’s 2024 election page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_Kingdom_general_election): Eyeballing that graph shows that increases in Reform support were correlated with drops in the Labour AND Tory vote shares. Also in the election, Reform were piling up in many traditionally Labour red wall areas while doing less well in many Blue Wall Tory areas, so it’s clear that Reform were taking votes from both main parties, not just the Tories. Anecdotally, I have a strongly-Reform-supporting friend who hates the Tories and would vote Labour if Reform weren’t there. I think it’s more likely that Reform had only a marginal impact on the number of seats Labour won, while reducing both main parties’ vote shares.
The Tory-to-Labour swing in this election was a massive 11.2% – one of the biggest swings since WWII. I’m not sure where you got your 1.7% figure from?
@ Simon R,
“I’m not sure where you got your 1.7% figure from?”
That’s what I remembered reading somewhere. I just checked on Wiki and the figure there is 1.6%
Search {UK 2014 general election wiki}
At one time it was probably reasonable to assume that it was the swing between Tory and Labour was a valid measure. We’ll both remember the old ‘swingometers’ but they aren’t useful any longer. Nevertheless the change in votes for any one particular party is still a valid number.
A couple of very revealing articles:
Note the tiny amount of press coverage received by the LibDems, Greens, and Nats compared with other parties: https://bylinetimes.com/2024/07/05/media-coverage-of-the-election-campaign-is-both-baffling-and-predicable-with-a-very-unlikely-winner/
Why do the LibDems lag so far behind other parties on social media? Can/should the party address this? See bar chart: https://bylinetimes.com/2024/07/03/nigel-farage-bots-general-election-2024/
@ Simon R,
Starmer’s argument was that he had to take the Labour Party to the right to win extra votes. The figures show he was wrong about that. He’s won fewer votes this time than Corbyn won in 2019 and 2017. It’s those who voted Reform which have come to his rescue, and I’m not making any assumptions on where those votes came from.
Of course we don’t know exactly what would have happened if Labour had campaigned on a more socialist platform. It’s possible that significant numbers of former Labour voters thought we should have moved even further to the right and voted for Reform in protest. Possible but unlikely IMO.
In any case it’s not just a question of left and right. The low popularity of Starmer (-19 pts reportedly) isn’t simply a question of where he sits on the political spectrum. He’s perceived to be a slippery character who can’t give a straight answer to a straight question who no-one really knows what he stands for.
Whenever I’ve questioned his integrity in Labour Party circles, the only counter argument was that I should have kept quiet to avoid the Tories getting back in!