Local parties and residents have been creative in the use of posters.
This splendid display is in our target seat of Esher and Walton:
Here is a novel cantilevered approach in Ed Davey’s constituency:
I like the way the diamond points to a leaflet. Thanks to Ruth Bright for this one from a home in Eastleigh:
Got a (copyright-free) photo to share? Landscape works best. Email them to [email protected] and we will add them to the post.
* Mary Reid is a contributing editor on Lib Dem Voice. She was a councillor in Kingston upon Thames, where she is still very active with the local party, and is the Hon President of Kingston Lib Dems.
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11 Comments
Mary, from the USA. My 2 diamonds are up on the main Twickenham-Kingston Road. Did Sunak call the election early because of the Covid inquiry?
A report on the inquiry’s first area of work is expected in summer 2024. It started on June 28, 2022. Sunak gave evidence during the second round of public hearings in London, which focused on UK decision making and political governance. He apologised to “all those who suffered… as a result of the actions that were taken” but denied his Eat Out to Help Out Scheme had increased Covid infections and deaths.
https://www.bbc.com/news/explainers-57085964
A light-touch approach to Covid-19 doesn’t work. But that didn’t stop pundits and thinktanks from advocating it for the UK
Sunak is part of the growing libertarian trend among Conservative MPs, many of whom have been vociferous in their opposition to renewed lockdown measures.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jan/03/swedish-model-failed-covid-19
On 16 August 2020 UK COVID deaths had reached 46,791. For eight consecutive weeks UK deaths had exceeded the sum of the deaths in 12 major EU countries. Three days later the total was 5,325 lower because the government decided that those that died after four weeks would not be included in the statistics! Popular Chancellor Rishi Sunak was photographed serving food to encourage people to take up his meal deal offer. He did not wear a mask as demanded in the COVID rules.
My election leaflet from Lib Dems in Canterbury had 3 scan me added items, is that now something being done universally because it wowed me
We do want to see the back of the Tories. The alternative, though, is the shape shifting Keir Starmer who doesn’t really mind what he says providing it achieves the desired result of collecting the votes.
On the question of PR, a topic close to Lib Dem hearts, this was Keir Starmer in 2020 before he became Labour leader and when he needed the votes of Labour Party members:
“We do need a constitutional convention. One of the most powerful things coming out of the referendum was the sense that people want decisions to be made closer to them and by them. It was a very, very powerful thing… I think that’s a very powerful message, it’s a socialist message and it’s a Labour message about power coming from bottom up, not top down…….We’ve got to address the fact that millions of people vote in safe seats and they feel their vote doesn’t count”
Now a “Starmer spokesperson” is reported as saying:
‘the Labour Leader has a “long-standing view against proportional representation”.’
When asked to clarify if the Labour leader was against PR he said:
“yes…..He isn’t looking to change the electoral system…It’s not something that’s a priority for him.”
So we can only conclude that Starmer is a Marxist of the Groucho variety. “These are my principles and if you don’t like them….well, I have others”.
What an appalling choice we face!
Ignore the MRP’s, their constituency polling shows such diverse views as to be ridiculous.
One show Lib Dems to win Battersea and another Cambridge, Labour to win Guildford and we are at 9% in North Shropshire, yet a good second in South Shropshire, all bizarre.
The party has a plan for the campaign, essential we stick to it. Rigid targeting to make sure of some wins.
For me 20 seats solid, 25 very good, 30 great and 35 the tops. We need to come third in seats however many, however few, they are.
@ theakes,
You Gov did claim to correctly predict the 2017 election using MRP polling by getting it right in 93% of constituencies.
I’ve got a theory that the bookies actually do better than this! I did try to beat the odds using polling forecasts during the 2010 election but didn’t do very well!
So I would say that if anyone wants to know the overall result they should just go with the favourite in every constituency. They won’t all be right but any errors should cancel out and the size of the Labour majority (we can assume there will be one) and the number of Lib Dem MPs should come out fairly close to the actual result.
Would anyone like to test this out?
Peter – there might come a point on Thursday when fptp comes – bizarrely to the libs advantage.
Such is how fptp works when it gets to a certain point it can be cruel and losses are exaggerated against votes cast .
@Theakes. You pessimist you! In any other election in my lifetime (74 years) you’d probably be right. However, as Martin Gray says, FPTP is a strange beast and when you crash under FPTP -as perhaps the Tories will do with Reform taking many of their votes – that party could suddenly plunge in number of seats won and whoever is in second place in their seemingly safe seats, could well benefit.
This isn’t to say we should abandon our strategy entirely. But just maybe we should allow some flexibility given the extraordinary situation. From the report in the Guardian, we may be doing just that.
Normally the Tories can manage to run a decent enough election campaign but this time they’ve been strangely but totally useless.
Faced with an open goal of an openly deceitful Labour leader they’ve somehow managed to miss the target! The left, somewhat ironically, has done its best to help them out with numerous articles, podcasts and you tube videos along the lines of Owen Jones’ Guardian piece below. An obvious attack line is to suggest that it doesn’t really matter whether or not we agree with any of Starmer’s numerous and varied shifting political opinions. It’s is lack of integrity which is the issue.
We perhaps have had a little of this line but nowhere near enough to be effective.
Don’t the Tories really want to win? I suspect they don’t. Just what do they know that they aren’t telling us about?
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/may/31/boris-johnson-dishonesty-keir-starmer-labour-abandoned-pledges
@ Peter Martin
Regarding betting on individual constituency results, slightly different to what you’re proposing but…
…at a previous election I bet on the favourite candidate in a number of constituencies where the odds indicated a probability of the favourite winning was above X per cent. I can’t remember what I set X as but it was something like 70%.
Suffice to say, I comfortably made an overall profit.
@ John G,
Yes this is probably a better strategy than the one I used. Some candidates are quoted at very short odds such as 1/100, or even shorter, which means it’s hardly worth the effort. So there needs to be upper as well as lower limits on the probability.
I annoyed my local Labour Party candidate by pointing out, on her FB page, that she was a 1/6 favourite to be elected. She’d been giving out the message that it was “too close to call” – presumably to try to ensure the maximum of effort from her campaign team.
I’ll feel bad if she does lose but that’s unlikely. I trust the bookies to get it right.
Peter Martin: pessimist, I prefer realist. 30 seats would be heaven too me. A good sizeable looking block of MP’s, just enough to come third in Parliament. Suspect,as is usually the case, with everything centred on the government, we will be squeezed in the last 3 days and Even Electoral Calculus will mark us back to third place.