Party President Mark Pack has been recording results and commentary throughout the counts. You can read today’s post here: How are the local elections going for the Lib Dems?
Here are some takeaways:
As of Saturday morning, the results look pretty good.
Before getting into that, it’s important to recognise that’s not the same as universally good. There are, for example, two wards I campaigned in this time around which we lost out on by very small margins. Defeats like those, or losing your seat while others are gaining those on the same council, are in some ways made all the worse by most other people around you celebrating. I hope though that our overall progress means those nursing disappointment this weekend can also take some consolation from the fact that our continued progress means, if they decide to stand again, better times are coming in their ward too.
We are certainly going to end up with our longest run of winning rounds of local elections since the 1990s, beating our previous winning streak in Charles Kennedy‘s time.
The growth in our number of councillors, with the extra profile and resources they bring, are a big part of the growth of our local campaigning strength across the country in this Parliament. Our total number of councillors this Parliament – primarily May elections but also council by-elections and switches – will have grown by somewhere between a third and a half. That’s a big, sustained change.
One of the results that got the most cheers from activists around the country, especially among Liberal Democrats who are listeners to the Lib Dem Podcast, is the result in Preston: the small team there had quite a bumpy few years, but this week, oh my… 5 gains, overtaking the Conservatives, becoming the official opposition on the council for the first time this century.
After 2021 I thought about taking a step back from politics. I blamed our horrible set of results on myself.
Keep learning, keep campaigning and better days are always around the corner…today was a good one. https://t.co/aV4CwKlXtf
— Cllr John Potter 🔶🇬🇧🏴🇪🇺 (@johnpotterLD) May 3, 2024
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9 Comments
I understand the point about local council elections and to keep fighting your patch. What is concerning is how badly the LDs have done in mayoral contests, behind the Tories, Greens and Reform and in my area, West Yorkshire, even an independent got more votes. Doesn’t feel like this augurs well for the General Election
AlexB – you have misunderstood the Davey strategy. It is to target resources, messages and our manifesto to around 35-45 seats in the south of England plus a handful in Scotland and a bare handful in the Midlands and North (N Shropshire, Harrogate).
This means keeping quiet about Brexit and appealing to Tory switchers, whilst squeezing Labour. It means that in seats such as yours in West Yorkshire – including the two constituencies in that county that we held in 2010 – the party will do very badly. Pretty uninspiring stuff and I was a teenager again I’d join the Greens. But unfortunately it is just about the only workable strategy for gaining seats that the Lib Dems have come up with since the 2005 GE.
K Cutlet. You may be right although it would be dangerous to totally ignore large chunks of the UK and even with a targeting strategy, seats like Hazel Grove will feature. My observation was more one of how low the LD core support appears to have fallen as evidenced by the mayoral elections.
Yes, the concentration on target seats is inevitable, because that’s where LibDems will certainly end up with a massive growth in the number of parliamentary seats this time around. But that means that there will be poor results in the vast majority of the 632 constituencies across Great Britain – an awful number of parliamentary deposits are going to be forfeited later this year. So after this year’s general election there needs to be deep thought about how the core vote can be raised in areas where there will be no record of meaningful support. And that means committed Liberals starting work in places where there is no record and certainly no memory of (recent) Liberal activity, and getting “stuck in” with little prospect of success before several years of work has been put in – maybe even a couple of electoral cycles. Please learn the lesson – there are no quick fixes!
Is the party who rightfully point out the legitimacy of Democracy in our voting system – comfortable being in charge of Hull council with a turnout of 21% … Which broken down to the actual votes received by the victor – is paltry ..
@Rif Winfield
“And that means committed Liberals starting work in places where there is no record and certainly no memory of (recent) Liberal activity, and getting “stuck in” with little prospect of success before several years of work has been put in – maybe even a couple of electoral cycles. Please learn the lesson – there are no quick fixes!”
Isn’t it party Campaigns dept and the president who need to be told – in no uncertain terms?
Because in a derelict area there may be no money and/or activists to do any campaigning. And if there is no LibDem activity in an area expect the greens to step in.
Hello Mark Park,
If you are reading this, what steps are being taken by the national HQ to help start activity in derelict areas?
The problem is where there are good LD candidates they are not given any resources to put out a leaflet. That’s where the Greens step in and hoover up disillusioned labour voters which is now happening. Many of their policies promote ableism.
Typical. We get very good results and a minority moan about the strategy that delivered those very good results. It was ever thus.