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
For me the undoubted weakest part of the review was the way it glossed over some of the really awful things candidates can to through, particularly bullying, harassment and abuse of candidates. Especially when it acknowledges in the diversity section that this has an impact on people from under-represented groups putting themselves forward. It came up well short on how we help with that. And there really is no excuse for that because I know they were given some pretty detailed stuff in the form of a motion to Conference that was rejected by FCC on the grounds that it would be considered by the General Election Review.
A bit of training and referral to external charities isn’t going to cut it when you are being overwhelmed by racist, misogynistic or anti trans abuse, bullying and harassment during the campaign. You need active support during and after the campaign with people checking in on you to make sure you are doing ok.
What about looking after candidates after the election, especially those who have lost campaigns they had a chance of winning?
In terms of our campaign strategy, I just wonder if we need a wee bit more humility. A lot of the reason we won where we won was that we were the nice people who weren’t the Tories. We are not going to get away with that next time. We need to have a better answer to what we are for and the political landscape gives us plenty opportunities. It’s not that these points were ignored by the review, but I felt that they could have gone harder.
We are now in a place as the third party where we have built enough trust to lead conversations into places that we have been too fearful to tread. For example, we know that Brexit is not viewed as a success by getting on for two thirds of people in polls so we should capitalise on that in the future. Then we can start to up our national poll rating as well as hold what we have and develop in other areas of the country.
The review acknowledges that we could have done more for Labour facing seats:
A targeting strategy that is worth its salt must be as the name suggests, targeted. However, given that this strategy was set very early on in the Parliament it seems there was a missed opportunity to build collateral for those working in Labour-facing and/or more urban seats early.
I feel that we do need more effective messaging for those seats because how on earth do we build the next generation of target seats without it?
So there’s my first thoughts. What about yours?
* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings
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15 Comments
I think your initial reactions are similar to mine – while there was a lot of good, I’m concerned about two things in particular from this report:
1) I think there’s still far too much timidity about actually being actually Liberal about actual politics – even after a successful campaign, plenty of people know *that* we stand for certain very good things, but not *why* we stand for them. We did best in the past when voters understood not only our policies but our underlying philosophy as a party, and we need to not shy away from communicating that, especially in the wider context Tim addressed quite rightly in his introduction.
2) The Diversity section was a disappointment. There seems to be a huge risk of the party backsliding into an early-2000s mindset of “diversity means race and perhaps gender, and that’s it”. No. It’s definitely true that we need to do way better on race in particular, and we need to focus on that, but particularly in the wider context, it’s vitally important we don’t drop the ball as a party on LGBT+ rights, disabled rights, and the rest of it. We need a holistic approach to diversity as well as specific actions to tackle specific shortfalls such as on Race (and getting on with the Thornhill recommendations for instance).
I’d agree with Caron overall and in particular John Grout’s point 1. Certainly the local party I was supporting were very well organised with a great candidate. At the same time, the loathing of the incumbent Tories was palpable and it is unlikely to be the same next time. That our vote share was flat, despite the flood of tactical voters, suggests that the core vote was pretty small. Those I’d suggest are the people who understand and care about the underlying philosophy. We’ll need a lot more of them next time so need to be communicating our ‘vision’ for the country and why Liberals are the people to deliver it.
Thanks to Caron Lindsay and John Grout for analysis based suggestions. Such are a foundation of deep democracy.
Might L Ds further contribute to deep democracy by widening the political imagination/opening a wider range of politico-economic Overton windows?
Suggestions include a well publicised emphasis on adaptive thinking which assists contacts with those of similar and differing attitudes and involves minorities positively and actively.
Might such help reduce the narrowing of politico-economic possibilities which has been with us since thé Thatcherite era?
Might L. D.s be an actively, visibly and positively different political party by assertively promoting a mixed economy which provides the essential root, ideally cooperative, competition between private and properly staffed and funded public organisations?
A thoughtful piece raising many important issues. What we do in the future to build on our success is the key issue. Future strategy as Caron implies cannot merely replicate what worked in the past. In particular, we have to capitalise on our distinctive message about building closer relations with the EU, not least to strengthen our economy to pay for the public services we badly need. Labour is just tinkering at the edges and will not grow the economy. We are the only national party with the policies to grow the economy and build a better future. We need to shout about that!
John Grout – spot on!
“I think there’s still far too much timidity about actually being actually Liberal about actual politics – even after a successful campaign, plenty of people know *that* we stand for certain very good things, but not *why* we stand for them. We did best in the past when voters understood not only our policies but our underlying philosophy as a party, and we need to not shy away from communicating that”.
As I keep saying, not being the Tories (or indeed anyone else) is simply not good enough. All parties make policy promises. We should be telling people what we are about as a philosophy, as people – and then how our policies support the attainment of those objectives. It could and should bring great coherence and structure to the party’s message and enable many many more people to really understand what we are all about.
As Tim Farron pointed out, whilst we did well we didn’t actually secure much more of the vote than we usually do. We benefited from the fact that we aren’t the Tories and as Graham Jeff’s points out, that isn’t good enough. I’ll be honest and say I joined the LDs relatively recently having long been a Tory supporter, for various reasons, but despite that when I’m asked why I switched parties no one ever wants to know why I chose the LDs, it’s why I left the Tories. We need to work just as hard, if not harder, to secure representation in the media. We can’t always rely on Ed’s stunts.
For what it’s worth, very few seat selections were seriously held up last time around because of a shortage of returning officers. The much bigger problem was the unwillingness of many seats, particularly in the development and start-up categories, to select at all, however hard the regional candidates’ chairs and local campaigners tried to persuade them. Members have a fundamental right to choose their parliamentary candidate, but if their local party executive simply won’t get going on a selection they get someone they haven’t chosen appointed at the last moment. Many less-active local parties think it’s easier to have someone appointed, but this is a splendid way to reduce member motivation.
@ Callum,
As a newly-elected member of your Region’s Candidates Committee, I take cautious note of your comments. And yes, Regional Parties can often do more to work on a holistic basis in terms of most of their roles.
But we grant an awful lot of power to Local Parties and, whilst we might want them to act more expeditiously in terms of things like candidate selection, we can only make them do so with the various constitutional “sticks” if they don’t want to.
Now, as a former Regional Secretary in two English Regions, I can assure you that you can only override the power of Local Parties in two ways – imposing a candidate on them (and who is going to want to take on such a role too far in advance of a General Election?) or suspending them and placing the responsibility in the hands of an almost certainly over-stretched and under-resourced Regional Party. The latter seldom ends well.
So, I’ll be interested to see what the apparent recommendations look like, and whether they are realistically appliable. I can’t say that I’m optimistic.
John Grout – thank you for very helpful comments. Perhaps we could do with a wider sharing of examples – from Focus leaflets to Parliament – of sentences beginning “As a Liberal …”
@Caron says “You need active support during and after the campaign with people checking in on you to make sure you are doing ok.”
Tell me off for not having read the report yet, but I was struck by this comment of Caron’s. Many years ago there was a buddy system where people like me, who had retired from being a candidate, were a buddy to one or more current candidates during the campaign, as someone detached from their campaign, but hopefully an understanding support and listener. Would be worth thinking about again?
PS it will take me a few days to read the report properly, we need to start a new article in a weeks time for those of us who didn’t read straight away! my own contribution, phoning, had very little (I did Ctrl + F) and none of the constructive suggestions I put in.
@Margaret
It’s very easy to put the blame on local parties, but when your local party covers constituencies where the principal achievement is retaining your deposit, you find very few candidates from outside the local party willing to put themselves forward. In our case both our 2019 candidates have left the UK and are now living in Brussels and we had to fight to get our 2017 candidate in one constituency re-approved, despite him being our longest-serving councillor, because of his choice not to use social media. On several occasions we have had candidates imposed on us by our Regional Party and I have to say we have been very pleased with those they have chosen for us because they have been willing to work in a thankless cause. Our problem is that it is as much as we can do to get even one candidate per constituency, so holding a candidate selection is meaningless. Perhaps Party HQ should look again at the PPC selection process for start-up (and maybe development) category local parties and allow us to go forward with a single candidate if advertising has produced no other willing candidates. In my opinion, a qualified candidate plus approval by the Regional Party should be sufficient when advertising has failed to induce a sufficient number of candidates to apply for selection.
“we had to fight to get our 2017 candidate in one constituency re-approved, despite him being our longest-serving councillor, because of his choice not to use social media.”
Maybe he actually talked to people….?????
Dear Caron,
Thank you in your article and for being “pleased to see that the efforts of Lib Dems Abroad to engage with voters abroad did not go unnoticed” – and saying “there was a clear call for us to resolve the barriers to them doing more” in the party’s general election review.
2024 was the first time the party had fought a comprehensive campaign abroad. The opportunity for the party was the additional 2.1 million British citizens living outside the UK who had just been enfranchised in 2024.
Highlights of our work can be found at https://www.libdemsoverseas.com/about-us/chairs-report-to-agm-2024 The campaign included a fabulous first-ever video appeal by Ed Davey to overseas voters.
A number of issues were thrown up by the campaign which need to be tackled with Compliance in time for the next general election, as indicated by the party’s review.
Those of us abroad look forward one day to having our own MPs represent us directly via the hoped-for establishment of overseas constituencies, a manifesto pledge by our party since 2017. In the meantime, we are delighted that three former Lib Dems Abroad members – David Chadwick, Victoria Collins and Freddy van Mierlo – were elected Members of Parliament in UK constituencies.
My disappointment with this review is that it is as blinkered and one-dimensional as almost every previous GE review we have had – simplistic, overly influenced by a desire not to upset remaining senior figures and far too top down in its seeking and choice of evidence.
Nothing more exemplifies this than the numerous expressions of thanks to “key staff” and references to their work “laying foundations” while the huge efforts of local figures and volunteer activists over the five year period rebuilding our party’s credibility in key seats goes completely unmentioned.
The overall effect is that the three biggest factors in our exceptional result – the almost total collapse of the Conservative party as an election winning machine; the impact of Reform and most importantly the huge impact of our four by election successes in Chesham & Amersham, North Shropshire, Tiverton & Honiton and Somerton & Frome (Huge thanks to Sarah Green, Helen Morgan, Richard Foord and Sarah Dyke and all their teams) which raised our national profile massively in the election run-up is totally ignored. However, the need to ever increase centralised bureaucratic control and make numerous tweaks to internal procedures is everywhere.
It is as if the possibility that the Conservative may recover by 5 or 10% in the next election (aided and abetted by Labour’s disastrous start to its term in power) is much less likely to affect our next result than a minor improvement in our operational efficiency!!
I really do despair.
The words ‘disabled’ or ‘disability’ do not appear in this Review except in the statistics of the diversity of the new Parliamentary Party. Why?