The news that two Lib Dem front benchers, Alison Bennett quietly and Charlie Maynard with a bit more noise have resigned their positions this week should concern the party.
It’s been clear for some time that all is not well within the party, and the controlling, top-down management style adopted by the party leadership since the General Election in 2024. This sort of rigid discipline didn’t work so well in the Labour Party in the first two years of the Starmer administration and it sure as hell is doomed in a liberal party. We are supposed to encourage independence of mind and spirit.
Nick Baird’s critique of the “equine pacification” strategy on Friday encapsulated well what many party members think and it is clear that this view is reflected in a fairly significant chunk of the parliamentary party. The sense I get is that a fair number of MPs don’t necessarily want to change leader, but they do want us to show ourselves as a radical liberal party that speaks to the whole nation, not just the blue wall and they do want to be treated like adults whose contribution to party strategy should be listened to.
The party’s po-faced reaction to Andy Burnham’s speech and devotion to the triple lock at all costs has led to the current murmurs of dissatisfaction.
Christine Jardine did a brilliant interview on Newsnight the other night. She said that she had not seen an alternative strategy from Charlie Maynard. She says it doesn’t help anyone to have a fight about who the leader is and we need to focus on moving forward as a party. It was another accomplished media performance which makes the recent events in Edinburgh West incomprehensible.
Provoking a leadership election in the Lib Dems rightly can’t be done easily. If a majority of MPs do not pass a motion of no-confidence in the leader, and there is no indication at this stage that they would, then there is another option:
the receipt by the President of a requisition submitted by at least 75 Local Parties (including for this purpose, the Affiliated Organisation or Organisations representing youth and/or students) following the decision of a quorate general meeting;
Local parties are certainly having AGMs at the moment and might choose to take this path, but I would think it unlikely that 75 local parties would take this course at this stage. If they didn’t do it in the wildest days of the coalition, the chances of them doing it now are about as high as me winning the London Marathon next year.
This should not, however, make Ed Davey feel safe and comfortable. That is where he is going wrong. He’s not toast, but the bread is moving closer to the toaster. Whether he takes action to avoid the appliance being switched on is entirely up to him.
* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings. You can find her on Bluesky at caronmlindsay.bsky.social
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35 Comments
There’s a much bigger question than “Is Ed Davey toast ?”
The real underlying question is whether the Liberal Democrat Party can articulate radical convincing answers to this country’s issues and needs, and especially important, can appeal to the whole of the UK far beyond the cosy Home Counties and some suburban bits of London. Whether Sir Edward can do this is a contingent matter.
What’s happened in the Borders, Northumberland, Redcar, Colne Valley, Leeds and Burnley ? The only seat currently held in Yorkshire is posh old Harrogate.
The Alston UN Report on Poverty in the UK was published seven years ago. I know Sir Edward has a copy because I gave him one …………… but has he ever issued any sort of response to it ? Not to my knowledge.
Ed should take the frustration and stagnation of the party as a sign and do the honorable thing. He should announce a leadership election in the new year that he will not stand in and he should make his way to lords to be an elder statesmen’s for the country and party in a time where that’s much needed. Let the MPs have freedom to make their case for new leaders and let the members decide. Turn the page on the failed controlling strategies we’ve seen from HQ’s group chat this parliment and allow a new leader and hq leadership to lead the party into the next election and a new era. He’s done great things for this party but the last true test of a leader is having the humility and bravery to step aside when he’s no longer fit to lead.
Tim Farron said “most polls suggest we’ll hold or even add to those record numbers of MPs”
In fact not one MRP this year has shown an increased number of Lib Dem MPs and the average (albeit this is rather flawed figure) would be 65.
I think Ed should be worried if Caron is saying this. She is not quick to temper on such matters. As others have said though, my worry is not so much that Ed isn’t good enough at conveying the party’s radical vision relevant for these times, but that it doesn’t have one. I have just let my membership lapse after 45 years because I just don’t hear anything of any interest or excitement from the party any more.
Please everybody slow down and calm down. SirEd has kind of been put on notice that he needs to up his game. The problem is less what we say but that we say nothing. Farage made the news again yesterday and Labour and Conservative reacted. WHERE WERE WE? The absolute reality of now is that our support comes from middle class Conservatives and that cannot be lost Let’s wait and see what comes of tomorrow’s meeting.
At the local elections, we went up in the parliamentry seats we hold and down in the ones we don’t. At conference you could sense the divide between members in held seats who were relatively satisfied with the way things are going and those in abandoned seats who were not. I’m sure our MPs are listening to their own members but most are not feeling the pain of those in the rest of the country let alone the apathy of those who used to vote for us.
“The absolute reality of now is that our support comes from middle class Conservatives” No it doesn’t. It comes mainly from anti-conservative voters in former conservative seats. That includes middle class liberals, squeezed socialists, people who think we are running the council well or that our MP is doing a great job and a fair number who actually like our message. Borrowed Tories are a fairly small part of our voter base and nothing Kemi Badenoch is doing seems aimed at calling in those loans.
Ed Davey and Mike Dixon and others have done a tremendous job of turing the party’s fortunes round from 2019 to the July 2024 and council results. However, we have lost momentum as evidenced by our poll ratings now into single figures even if it is 9.8%. Political parties are either on the rise or falling. We are erring to the latter. I am concerned about the complacency of “most polls who us retaining most of our seats”. Is that the limit of our ambition? How can we impliment our policies if we are not in control?
Christine Jardine, for whom i have the greatest respect, indeed I am very upset that she in essence would appeart to have been deselected by her local party, said on Newsnight that Charlie Maynard has not articulated an alternative strategy. I wouldn’t expect him to. My read is that he would like to see a leadership election during which I would expect any new strategy suggestions to be outlined by the leadership contenders and fleshed out when the new leadership team is in place.
I feel a bit uncomfortable with the tone of the headline. It is remarkable how “Lib Dems for Change” were accused of betraying the party when calling for Nick Clegg’s resignation with far fewer MPs. Ed Davey did incredibly well to secure a historic 72 MPs at the last general election. Davey’s reaction to Andy Burnham’s speech was far from “po-faced,” nor was his defence of the triple lock misplaced; protecting the triple lock and raising the personal allowance are vital policies that directly shield lower-income voters.
As noted above, campaign resources are virtually non-existent in Labour-facing areas, inner city areas and left-behind areas leaving a vacuum that the Greens and Reform even have eagerly filled. Relying on negative campaigning and constant attacks on Reform UK will not win over these missing voters.
A natural successor to Davey would have been Christine Jardine MP, an exceptionally relatable and media-savvy politician who always interviews well on outlets like Times Radio. Yet, she recently announced she is stepping down at the next general election following local party tensions. This speaks volumes about a coercive internal management style, an under-the-surface lack of institutional appeal, and a shaky future trajectory.
To regain true credibility, the Liberal Democrats must dismantle this top-down management style and focus on broadening their candidate base to include more councillors and MPs from working-class backgrounds and social housing as well as amplifying social liberal policies.
With today’s news being dominated by Trumps lies on energy deals agreed in Ukraine and Houthi attacks our Foreign affairs , Energy and Defence spokespeople should now be seeking slots on the news to put their point. Govt and Conservative will be invited to put their views and Reform will barge in. Is it to extreme of me to say we need to put the boot in?
My main concern is that although we have 72 MPs and the chance of a few more in target seats in the rest of the country we are recording derisory votes. It has gotten so bad that I was relieved we managed to finish 5th in Holborn and St Pancras last week!
In a lot of places we are now well behind the Greens as the progressive third party option and this needs tackling as a matter of urgency. The vote at the recent Green conference on Zionism, the Burnham bounce and the fact that many councils are under Green control will help us. In the latter case I am confident they will mess up really badly as they did in Brighton.
All that said we can’t rely on our opponents imploding we have to have messages that cut through with voters. I am just not seeing that at the moment. As for Ed I would give him until next May’s local elections and if we haven’t seen a dramatic upturn in our fortunes by then he needs to step down.
According to the Daily Telegraph……. “Lib Dem leadership rivals ‘building war chests to oust Davey’ …………. “Daisy Cooper and Josh Babarinde have raised more than £121,000 between them in 2026 – five times as much as Sir Ed”.
The Lib Dems need a heavyweight (not a show boater) who would be credible as a possible Prime Minister……. I’d advise Ms Cooper and Mr Babarinde to look out for a worthy charity for their dosh if the Torygraph is to be believed.
My other advice to the continuing Party which I first joined way back in 1961 is to dump the daft stunts of recent years which have contributed to the present light weight image.
Caron’s final short paragraph should be taken with the utmost seriousness. After 63 years I am not going to resign my membership. I have invested a lot of my life in the party and I have nowhere else to go. I am not saying that leaving is unthinkable and there have been rare occasions over the decades when it has crossed my mind, usually in relation to some crisis or other. The present unhealthy relationship between the leadership / decision makers and the wider membership is going to hit the fan well before the May local elections. It has more to do with a festering sore than than a major scandal or anything of the sort. Within the parliamentary cycle time for a civilised change of leadership is short and the issue needs addressing now.
I think the specific problem you have as a party is that now both Labour and the Tories are turning away definitively from the consensus of policies that held from Major to May, and – this is the key thing – not making any apologies or waffle around that anymore. And they’re using longterm-narrative arguments about where politics has been over 40-50 years to make their case. Ed Davey hasn’t gone to Manchester and come back a new politician, he remains linked with the Coalition and the period when the voters began to reject that Major-to-May consensus; he hasn’t always been seen as the opponent of the Major-to-May consensus (as Badenoch has been); his approach to the voters is transactional or situation, not using historical narrative. He can stage a stunt but he can’t tell a story.
If the party tacks to the left, I think we are toast. Why should anyone vote Lib Dem if they can vote Labour (for cautious “progressive”) or Green (for wacky “progressive”).
Remember that the political right is split into ethno-nationalists, and conservative liberals who are the political descendants of those who left the liberal movement in the 1920s to join the Conservatives. The political space available is for a liberal party that talks about freedom, is internationalist and environmentalist, cautiously positive around social liberalism and economically liberal. If we don’t take it that space (which is absolutely consistent with the Party’s traditions) there are others who will.
If something does not change soon, the whole part will be toast, areas abandoned nothing but crumbs.
it needs more than Ed learning not to make controversial announcements in leaders speeches, and some token help for northern seats. We need a whole reset of where we are going and how we do it.
The party is be concentrating on keeping the 72 seats, and whilst none of us want any to be lost, the point of winning seats is not do keep them again, but to actually do things, in our situation make the case for radical changes that Lib Dems stand for.
There are times you just have to stick your head above the parapet and speak out. It isn’t a case of moving to the left, it is being radical.
I am not going to resign again, I’m too old to do as much, but need to stand with those who are fighting for Lib Dem values.
I’m not being “anti Ed”, Inever have been, campaigned for him to be leader, but “the time has come” for him to resign gracefully, concentrate on Care issues is a good excuse, and let’s have a healthy leadership election, hearing what candidates have to say about the future or the party and leadership, it isn’t for us members to dictate now what that needs to be.
In the meantime, for goodness sake start talking loudly and clearly about Lib Dems and Climate Change issues, whilst the Greens are undergoing their crisis.
We certainly feel as though we have lost our way, having a Leadership Election would be one way finding ourselves again, lets get on with it.
This party is in the frying pan. The option under discussion would seem to be that of jumping into the fire.
One faction would like to go back to Clegg – Coalition politics. They would then have to compete with Farage and with Badenoch. They would have to hope that an ill-defined pink Toryism would get a hearing in competition with two more strident, better funded right-wing opponents, and would retain most of their 2024 anti-conservative votes in their current seats. Rather an obviously losing option.
Another faction would like to go back to Kennedy / Ashdown centre-left radicalism. That was a better option – Until Burnham came along, essentially captured that position, and captured its voters.
A third faction would just like a kind of change with continuity, the same message shouted louder. Sounds like wishful thinking.
Sorry, many of you are decent people, but right now, I can’t see you going anywhere.
Just look at how vacuous Max Wilkinson was today…. (On Reforms horrendous asylum plans)
“Lib Dems home affairs spokesperson Max Wilkinson said the “UK can only restore order, control and fairness by joining the EU migration and asylum pact”, which increases the number of irregular migrants returned to their home countries and spreads responsibility for asylum seekers across the EU.
Tristan Ward: the ‘political space available’ which you say we need to take is already ours, and mostly only ours. What is needed is for us to tell the nation about it, because most of the nation is surely centrist, and may be persuaded by our excellent MPs and Councillors to like this left-of-centre Liberal view. But we do need a strong articulate leader to speak out and begin the persuasion.
@Hywel – I hadn’t seen that and don’t know whether to cry, scream or go on next train to London and spell out for him existing Lib Dem Policies that have a lot to say on the issue that is practical, radical and lib Demmy.
I suppose I won’t be spending £100 on a train for him to not listen.
What might be society improving, “headline” policies that would attract attention, and then support, externally and motivate and energise internally?
Who controls, if anyone, the “headline” policies issued by the L. D. Party?
Might it be that recently, and currently, lack of effective opposition to Neoliberalism is allowing it to suffocate democracy?
Might a policy to make the U K tax sytem fair an transparent be a “headline” start?
P S Making our tax set up so that it does not favour the wealthy would increase our tax revenue by some £50 billion a year.
@ Tristan Ward, “If the party tacks to the left, I think we are toast”.
Historically, Tristan, when the party moved to the right (2010-15) the consequence was that the number of Lib Dem M.P.’s dropped from 57 in 2010 to 8 in 2015, and thousands of party members left after being involved for many years. Being a pink Tory Party is a one way street to oblivion.
@Katharine Pindar
Are most people centrist? Centrism – whatever that ends up meaning in any particular time and place – is arguably at its core a belief that the country is on roughly the right track and what it needs competent leadership, which appears by its “averageness” of wider political opinion to perhaps even be “non-ideological”, to keep it there. It’s not that it can’t be improved in the details – look, here’s a hundred pages of fully-costed incremental proposals – but it doesn’t need any major changes.
There have certainly been times and places where that’s been a winning political position. Is it still true right now? I think if it was then Davey would be seen as an excellent leader and the Lib Dems would be doing rather better than tied with the Greens for 4th in the national polls.
@Steve
“Who controls, if anyone, the “headline” policies issued by the L. D. Party?”
It appears to be the Leader and Deputy. Neither appears to to take any notice of the party’s actual policy.
“Might a policy to make the U K tax sytem fair and transparent be a “headline” start?”
I don’t know if it would get a headline but it would be right. It’s the sort of policy that enthuses activists.
@David Raw. “According to the Daily Telegraph……. “Lib Dem leadership rivals ‘building war chests to oust Davey’ …………. “Daisy Cooper and Josh Babarinde have raised more than £121,000 between them in 2026 – five times as much as Sir Ed”.”
The rules of a leadership contest are very strict. I’m not sure Sir Ed could usefully spend the implied £12,000.
@cim. Fair enough, it is true that much of the populace currently may not believe the country ‘is on the right track’, as you put it. Hence I suppose Ed was justified in asserting that he believes ‘We are in the fight of our lives.’ But I hold that most of the populace will believe that better things are possible – that, as each problem is faced in our country and the world, it’s the Liberal Democrats who have the best principles AND very good policies which can ensure stability, security and progress for us all.
@ David Raw
Historically, Tristan, when the party moved to the right (2010-15) the consequence was that the number of Lib Dem M.P.’s dropped from 57 in 2010 to 8 in 2015″
What did most voters actually vote for in 2015? It wasn’t the soft left “progressivism” of Ed Miliband nor the chaos of Brexit and/or the resultant ethnonationalism that has been unleashed.
To make the point another way, I bet that if we could rewind back to 2015 now and have that election again with the parties offering exactly the same manifestos/positioning but with the voters (but not the parties) having the benefit of hindsight we’d do a hell of a lot better than we did.
And to make the point a third way, Orban was defeated in Hungary by a liberal conservative, and not by “progressives”.
We don’t live in 2015. The world has fundamentally changed since then. The 100 year coalition of the right between conservative liberals and nationalists has broken down, and “progress” seems to be on hold at best now that socialism (including democratic socialism) has been shown not to work.
@ Tristan Ward , “Orban was defeated in Hungary by a liberal conservative,”….. Orban wasn’t standing in Berwick-on-Tweed or Westmorland, Tristan, and as for ‘democratic socialism) has been shown not to work’……… probably the greatest government of the last century (with a bit of help from the Liberal Beveridge) was the Attlee government of 1945-50.
Hi Sir Ed. Thanks for your service, but it’s time for you to retire.
“Hindsight” is an absolutely useless metric for electoral success. Nobody can go back in time and “fix” the 2015 result based on what we know now. What happened in 2015 happened and the only thing we can do is learn the lessons of 2015 to ensure that it doesn’t happen again if we ever find ourselves in coalition government, whatever the political leaning of our coalition partners.
The main reason for the scale of our collapse in 2015 was our failure to differentiate our party from the Tories until it was far too late. There was little attempt to show how we made a difference to a Tory-led government, or show the electorate what Lib Dems representatives not bound by Westminster collective responsibility (e.g. MEPs) were doing. So voters who liked the Coalition decided they might as well vote for the major partner.
Prime Minister’s Questions today saw our Leader calling for the promised cross-party talks on Social Care to be brought in quickly, and the PM agreeing they are soon to be. It was an example of the current state of play between our parties, with Andy Burnham proposing themes we have long advocated, and Ed Davey urging him on. (Equally they fell into their expected stances on the increased suffering of Ukraine, with Ed advocating standing up to Trump and Andy saying he must work to help bring back the co-operation of the USA with Ukraine.)
Just as Ed Davey now seems unlikely to face a leadership contest in the near future, so it appears that he will continue to lead us in a way which will attract no Media attention and will not enhance our poor showing in the national polls.
The question remains, then, of how we can show a distinctive sense of what our party stands for to the public, to maintain if not increase the numbers of our elected representatives in the contests to come, failing a new dynamic leadership emerging. Our agreements with the Government, while desirable, may suggest merging rather than opposing.
I suggest that we must for a start make the most of our greater commitment to the EU (albeit an EU reformed in some respects), in urging Andy Burnham to go further and faster in his fledgeling plans. It is surely greater access which will be most conducive to the economic growth our country needs. And we Liberal Democrats should not be shy, when telling the country of our urgent wish to reverse the ill effects of Brexit, in pointing out that ours was the party which most clearly and strongly opposed Britain’s Leaving the EU from the start.