Our electoral system cannot cope
Securing 30% of the vote in a general election used to be a general election losing vote share for Labour or the Conservatives. But it is now quite possible that the winner of the next Westminster general election will not top 30%, and that we will have four political parties within 10-15 points of each other. First past the post is really not designed for that…
This comes with two important implications for ourselves. One is the continuing importance of local elections, both in their own right and also as a way of establishing credibility for Westminster Parliament (and indeed Scottish Parliament and Welsh Senedd, along with Mayor) contests. Even if we finished a long way back on vote share in the previous election, gains at local election level can put us in the race – and show voters that we are in the race.
The other is the continuing importance of bar charts. Tactical voting was not just a one-off to remove the Conservatives from 10 Downing Street last year. As we have seen in council by-elections since last summer, it continues to be important – just as it continued to be so after the 1997 Conservative landslide defeat too. (In fact, anti-Conservative tactical voting was still a big factor in 2005, two general elections and one Iraq war on from 1997.)
So don’t mothball those bar chart templates quite yet.
Speaking of bar charts, here is one that shows how impressively our local campaign teams over-perform in council by-elections:
Federal Conference…
Many thanks to everyone involved in putting on such a well-run Federal Conference in Harrogate. Another impressive team effort by staff and volunteers!
Among the important measures passed were F9, Free to be who you are, which reaffirmed our support for trans rights and F10, about reforming our Parliamentary candidate process. This reached the two-thirds majority required (it looked like it passed about 80%-20%) and so now moves to the stage of state party approval.
I know it is an issue which raised many passions, and people were particularly heartfelt about the need for consultation – an important point for us all as we move on to the next stage.
Much of the debate focused on the two-thirds of constituencies which did not get to select their own candidate in the last Parliament. Helping more of them select, and in enough time to train and support their candidates, is an important task for this Parliament. Helping more of our non-target seats get candidates in place sooner, and then properly supporting and training those candidates, could be a massive step change in how we spread the breadth of our success across the country.
Conference also ratified the new set of election regulations for our big internal elections due this autumn (timetable here). The Board has also reappointed David Crowther to a new three year term as Federal Returning Officer.
If you did not make it to Conference – or did but want to relive any of the moments – you can watch again on the party’s YouTube channel.
Extra thanks to Jeremy Hargreaves, Nicholas da Costa and Daisy Cooper for kindly stepping in to cover things for me after I had to miss the event due to a bout of ill health.
See you all in Bournemouth in September!
Our fabulous Party Awards winners
Harrogate also saw our latest round of Party Awards, with a fabulous quartet of colleagues having their contributions recognised:
Albert Ingham Award
Named in honour of one of our party’s election agent greats, this award goes to Ed Thornley for his work on a cracking by-election win in Edinburgh in November. Thanks to Ed’s dedication, skill and commitment over five long months, we started in fourth place on 12% of the vote and ended up with more than treble that – with nearly double the vote of the second place candidate.
Bertha Bowness Fischer Award
This award is named after the pioneering female Liberal election agent and this time is awarded to someone who has already made their mark despite only recently joining us – Lou Timlin. Lou joined in 2023 but has already been a campaigner, diversity officer, Fleet super user, press officer and elected a councillor too. Following someone’s bereavement, she even stepped in at no notice to be agent in Wokingham for the general election – helping us win the seat on a 19% swing.
Laura Grimond Award
Dedicated to those who do unsung work behind the scenes, this award went to Dawn Davidson, who has, for over two decades, played a major role as an assessor, returning officer and regional candidates chair. Dawn has led the work on finding and encouraging a more diverse range of candidates, led on moving assessment online during Covid and has designed and delivered numerous assessment centres.
Leader’s Award
Awarded to someone who has shown exemplary leadership skills – this time to former leader of Bath & North East Somerset Council, Paul Crossley. Paul has been a councillor across five different decades, twice council leader for two full terms, being hugely supportive of his colleagues and steering a newly formed council through many difficult decisions to bring lasting benefit to the area, including the Thermae Bath Spa, Britain’s only natural thermal Spa and a major draw of visitors to Bath.
Congratulations also to…
Thank you also for the fabulous efforts put in by the local parties who were the top recruiters in the last month:
- England: Central Birmingham (again!)
- Scotland: Central Scotland
- Wales: Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe
A reminder if you are recruiting members locally: if you use libdems.org.uk/join-local then your local party will get extra payment to recognise the local recruitment. (If someone joins via another route, you can also get the membership team to tag them as a local recruit by emailing [email protected]).
Party decisions upheld
The High Court has ruled in the party’s favour, upholding the decision of our independent complaints process to expel Jo Hayes over her treatment of a member of staff and her attempt to stop a complaint against someone else. The court has now also ruled that she will have to pay the party’s costs for this case which she brought against us, with an initial payment of £250,000 required.
The Federal Appeals Panel (Case 64) upheld the power of the Federal Board to agree definitions for use by our complaints process, in this case one related to bullying.
* Mark Pack is Party President and is the editor of Liberal Democrat Newswire.
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3 Comments
The First Past the Post system, more accurately called ‘Single Member, Simple Plurality’, by giving seats to the most favoured candidate in each constituency, generally works in favour of parties with voters concentrated in geographical areas and against those parties whose voters are evenly spread around the country. As we head into the next election with 4 national parties seriously competing, it is becoming almost impossible to predict how many MPs a party may win by winning a certain percentage of the vote – 25% could lead to winning half of the constituencies or none depending how clumped or evenly spread the party’s voters are round the country. This could work well for the Liberal Democrats if it targets well. It could leave to the Conservatives being almost completely wiped out if Reform can beat it in most places where they compete. Almost any outcome becomes possible.
I would advise the Liberal Democrat leadership to unofficially or even officially agree a targeting policy with Labour to ensure that, together, we win a majority of seats, and thereafter, a coalition government. Labour may not be interested at present but that may change if the opinion polls show Reform wiping out huge numbers of Labour seats as the next election approaches.
Today’s Daily Mail tells us that Reform are raring to win the next election, based on a poll which has them at 25% and Tories and Labour at 23%. That could make for a horrifyingly messy result, most probably on a low turn-out, with the number of seats won by different parties dependent on effective targetting. It’s astonishing how confident or complacent both Labour and Tory parties at Westminster remain about the strength of our ‘two-party’ system, with government and official opposition, when their combined support in polls has been below 50% for several months.
While accepting that we need local parties to elect more Westminster candidates in a timely manner, it is also important that we select local candidates when possible. Local candidates know and care about their constituencies in a way that even the best intentioned parachuted candidates cannot. Local Parties should be given more help to find appropriate local candidates and give them the training to succeed.