Voters head to the polls tomorrow in local elections in many places across England. When these seats were last up, we did exceptionally well, gaining an incredible 700 Councillors and 10 Councils.
Then, the Conservatives lost over 3500 councillors and 44 Councils while Labour also had a small net loss.
Those were strange times. Millions turned to us in that election and the European elections a few weeks later and we became the focal point for opposition to Brexit. At that point we still held on to the hope that it might be stopped and we might secure a People’s Vote.
The signs on the ground bode well for further success next week. The Conservatives remain unpopular and we are hoping to gain in the so called Blue Wall seats we hope to win from the Conservatives in the General Election.
Ed did the media round yesterday and set out our stall well, talking first about the cost of living crisis on Good Morning Britain:
Our exclusive poll has shown that only 8% of people think @EdwardJDavey understands the cost of living pressures. @Susannareid100 asks the Lib Dem leader what he knows about how the cost of living crisis is affecting people. pic.twitter.com/ugqYv6R0E4
— Good Morning Britain (@GMB) May 2, 2023
He also slammed the Government’s new voter ID requirements.
'This is undermining our democracy.'
Lib Dem leader @EdwardJDavey criticises the government for bringing in voter ID.
He tells @susannareid100 and @richardm56 that he thinks the govt are 'trying to mess up with our democracy.' pic.twitter.com/omNUZMu64A
— Good Morning Britain (@GMB) May 2, 2023
On Saturday, the Guardian had a piece on the Lib Dem plan to take Berkhamstead:
With its half-timbered houses, smart coffee shops and reams of coronation bunting, Berkhamsted feels like true blue Tory territory. But the Lib Dems hope to make gains on 4 May. The party’s leader, Ed Davey, even launched his local election campaign there, on a tractor.
Daisy Cooper, the MP for nearby St Albans, who won her seat from the Conservatives in 2019, says the issue of raw sewage being dumped into rivers “sums up in a very obvious visceral and visual way, the state of the country; that’s how bad it’s got, that they feel they can do this with impunity”.
The local Dacorum district council has 31 Conservative councillors and 19 Lib Dems. With all the seats up for grabs, the Lib Dems believe they could even take control – and then use it as a stepping stone to the general election, echoing their success in nearby Chesham and Amersham in 2021.
“It’s all of it,” says Laila Walker, who stops Collins and Cooper in the street to offer her support – and express frustration at the state of the country. “The NHS obviously is just desperate. But – cost of living – there’s not one thing, there are so many things.”
The Telegraph (£) highlights our digital advertising campaign in the blue wall seats:
They focus on senior figures such as Dominic Raab, the former justice secretary, and point out that he voted four times for the threshold freeze.
They reveal that in his local Surrey council of Elmbridge, this stealth tax is equivalent to an average hit of £1,486 to residents’ incomes this year. This is a bigger rise than anywhere else in the country facing elections in May.
Mr Raab is MP for Esher and Walton, where he has a majority of less than 2,000.
The new attack advertisements come even though it has traditionally been the Conservatives accusing the Liberal Democrats of pushing for higher taxes.
Stealth taxes ‘toxic on the doorstep’
Sarah Olney, the Liberal Democrats’ Treasury spokesman, said: “Stealth tax rises are proving toxic on the doorstep with former Conservative voters.“Families are already facing soaring mortgages, food prices and energy bills, and this is pushing them over the edge.
“I’ve been campaigning across the Blue Wall and it’s clear this issue could cost the Conservative Party seats in their former heartlands.”
Income tax thresholds – the salary at which people start paying the tax in the first place and at which they pay higher rates – usually rise with inflation every year.
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I don’t think a TV interview that begins with a deliberately chosen false headline saying only 8% of people think Ed Davey understands the cost of living crisis is Good coverage. It should be the basis for a formal complaint to the ITV and the regulator. Alistair Campbell wouldn’t have put up with it nor would the Conservatives now. Why do we pretend it is good?
I agree with David Evans – terrible (& incorrect) reporting. In fact it was 8% who felt Ed Davey *best* understands the cost of living crisis (as opposed to Sunak, Starmer, “None” and “Don’t know”.
The rest of the Survation poll, including the headline voting intention figures for both local elections and general election, are pretty positive. You can read them here:
https://www.survation.com/great-expectation-management-will-labour-triumph-in-the-local-elections/
Precisely Dominic. All that this unending desperate drive to “big up” the party and pretend things are great does is stop us getting angry and doing something about it. Of course it is even worse when things are going wrong internally, when simply ignore it all is the usual practice.
Whatever happened to our radical drive to sort things out? Nowadays the only thing anyone seems to get angry about is pronouns.
On May 3, the Voice: ‘When these seats were last up, we did exceptionally well. Millions turned to us in that election and the European elections a few weeks later and we became the focal point for opposition to Brexit’. This time – silence on Brexit.
On May 2, Polly Toynbee wrote in the Guardian: ‘while canvassing with the Liberal Democrats last weekend in Michael Gove’s Surrey Heath constituency here was the dream Lib Dem door-knock: a young couple with a small boy, ex-Tory voters who had voted Brexit and were now full of indignant regret, had a lot to say and out it all poured. “We were turkeys voting for Christmas,” said the father, shaking his head in disbelief. His company supplies many others struggling with Brexit fallout: “They can’t sell into the EU, takes too long, too expensive.” Why did they vote Brexit? “I wish we hadn’t,” says his wife. “I just thought, ‘We’re British, we don’t want to be pushed around.’ We had no idea how well we did out of it. Oven-ready? Boris had nothing. He just lied and lied, even to the Queen. We won’t forgive Tories.”’
On April 30. William Keegan in the Observer asks: ‘On Brexit, will no one in the major parties admit that Britain has blundered? Polling reveals most voters can now see through the referendum’s lies much more clearly than their leaders’
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/apr/30/on-brexit-will-no-one-in-the-major-parties-admit-that-britain-has-blundered
I thought it was surely some mistake when I read.
@John Waller
Exactly. You could also have mentioned Matthew Parris’ column in Saturday’s Times. What is the point of being right about the biggest issue of the day (2nd time, 1st Iraq war) and not campaigning on the issue. Very poor indeed.
Following on from previous comments this would be the ideal time to gain coverage of an anti -Brexit stance and build up momentum ahead of next year’s GE. I can understand Keir Starmers caution as he has to win back the red wall. The Lib Dems don’t have a red wall to worry about so Ed Daveys silence is baffling.
“When these seats were last up, we did exceptionally well….”
Pure propaganda I’m afraid!
The reason we won 700 seats in 2019, was that we did exceptionally BADLY in the same set of elections in 2011and 2015, where we polled a princely 15% and 11% – on implied national vote share respectively – being punished for our role in Coalition.
The 18- 19% – implied national vote share – in the 2019 local elections was, of course, very poor compared to the mid to high 20s we polled for many years prior to Coalition. And we lost many more than 700 seats in 2011 and 2015 combined.
As to the heartening anecdote about the repentant Brexiteers, very few voters indeed in a local election will have going back into Europe as their highest concern. We are rightly campaigning on policies that will appeal to large numbers of voters. Beware of anecdotes!
The 700 seat gain in 2019 although it was no great shakes as a result, gave us good publicity and a subsequent increase in national opinion polls in May 2019 AFTER the local elections.
We then surged in the EUROPEAN elections where our Remainer stance was an effective rallying point against Brexit.
We are currently polling a bit better in national polls than in the run up to the 2019 local elections.
Not sure if it was wise of Ed to state that he’s had to cut back on his weekly shop . £84k a year, a salary & benefits that most could only dream about …
Other than that not a bad interview.