The Liberal Democrat family has been knocked sideways by disastrous election results. We’re also all cream crackered after working all hours for months.
But over 2,000 people joined the party yesterday.
And here on Liberal Democrat Voice you have helped to smash records. Yesterday this site had 14,923 visitors and 55,185 page views!
That’s a staggering achievement! – Our highest viewing figures since we were founded in 2006!
But it shows that we are a family and, when we are buffeted by ‘outrageous fortune’, we huddle together.
Here at Liberal Democrat Voice we are surprised but really, really grateful ad honoured that this is the place where many people in the family choose to huddle!
As the polls closed, we wanted to provide a live blog so that Liberal Democrats could come here to get the best up-to-date picture of what was happening with the party’s results.
In between sleeping, taking in horrible results and stepping in dog poo in a darkened living room, we managed to provide, as a team, a results and reaction service.
Our election live blog has received a staggering 13,659 hits!
Thank you so much for trusting us and for coming to us as “our place to talk”!
Written by Paul Walter on behalf of the Liberal Democrat Voice team
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26 Comments
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We certainly need you more than ever right now. Keep going.
The party needs to give some thought as to how we reach out to the other 20,000 members of the family who drifted away and gave up their membership over the last five years.
Could they be contacted or encouraged in some way to help the rebuilding process?
I was very hurt and angry yesterday and desperately wanted to thump all the triumphal, yahooing Tories at the local election count but restrained myself 🙂 So many fantastic, committed, hardworking local councilllors lost. But this morning after a good sleep (always helps) beginning to start to think about how we recover and fight back. For me the key has to be telling people loudly and often what we believe in and stand for. Becoming the Value brand if you like 🙂
Nick Clegg resigning and MP’s like Alexander and Laws losing their seats will encourage many of those 20,000 members to return to the LibDems. It’s time to rebuild and regain the voters trust, many of those who left will want to be involved in that.
I reckon you need to become more accepting of those who are Eurosceptic and who would prefer controls on European immigration, notwithstanding EU rules. You lost 4.4 million votes in this election while UKIP gained 2.95 million. Lib Dems have been prepared to cross to UKIP.
Well done LDV. I needed to come here to find out how LibDems were faring. I thought I was ‘in the know’ but I don’t know the constituencies of at least 2 of our remaining MPs. Once you have go your breath back, it would be good to know that and why they in particular went against the trend. Oh and what happened to the women?
Philip….you are talking to the wrong people….many of us are eurosceptic in that the their are things that require changing
but isolationist little englanders we are not
…………………..That’s a staggering achievement! – Our highest viewing figures since we were founded in 2006!……………..
“Misery loves company”……I know it seems strange but I feel happier today than for many years… Over the last 5 years we have suffered “the death of a thousand cuts” and May 7th, hopefully, has shown us that all the “Steady as she goes”, “Don’t rock the boat”, “It’ll be all right on the night” was, as many of us said, just wishful thinking…. I hope, I really hope, that we just accept that we got things drastically wrong and don’t revert to, “We just didn’t get the electorate to understand the message”
I just want us to put the last few years behind us;, accept that, under Clegg, we have taken the wrong road; we have just lost another 100 councillors and have been removed as a voice in parliament. Things couldn’t be much worse….
Why am I happy? Because things can only get better…
Thank you LDV
Little I can say that hasn’t already been said; crushing nationally, and we thought we were ok in our council ward after working it into the ground, but got swept away in the national Tory tide.
But thank you for giving us that place to talk – we’ll need it in the coming months.
Records were indeed smashed.
To compound the annihilation of our Parliamentary party, I believe our loses in councillors is another 282.
And three of our most significant and long standing areas of local government strength have lost their control if not all of their influence: as South Somerset, Three Rivers and Watford councils have moved to No Overall Control.
As many of us warned , the former leadership and its strategies have put the cause of Liberalism back forty years.
A couple of generations of campaigners gave them a wonderful legacy which they have gambled away like some C18th son of a Duke.
@malc, I feel like chasing after members who left us because they couldn’t hack us as a party of gov will lead us only back into permenant opposition. The failure of this campaign was that the liberal democrat message was uninspiring. “Vote for us because we are nicer than the Tories and more competent than labour” is not how you win votes. We need a radical social and economic liberal vision for the country. We need to stand for something. Regrettably every time I look at this forum it seems to me clear that the membership, in their diversity, don’t actually agree on who we are are and what our purpose is. This is the great challenge of the next leader. I can assure you chasing after members who left us will be a step backwards not forwards.
Bill Le Breton
Watford is NOT NOC. On the Council there are 37 seats (including the mayor) and we hold 19 of them.
There is majority Lib Dem Control.
“….A couple of generations of campaigners gave them a wonderful legacy which they have gambled away like some C18th son of a Duke.”
We need a new generation and we need them fast.. The least we can do is guarantee them that their efforts will not be gambled away by the son of a Duke.
Building upwards from 8 MPs and one MEP needs to start one activist at a time. Memberships all very well but we need activists, who know what they are doing.
Great to have new members, great to have people returning to membership because the reason for their recent absence has now gone. But a passive membership required only to give money and be cheerleaders when an mportant person comes on a infrequent visit is ot what will build the party.
We need inspired, enthusiastic, idealistic activists whose idea of politics stretches beyond tapping on a keyboard or blinking at a screen.
We need the top of the party to encourage and foster such activists rather than denigrate and belittle them.
Caspian, you are right in some aspects, but in others you couldn’t be more wrong. They left because they saw us for want we were, a minor add on, a prop to a Tory government, sadly not a party of government. Nick in the Rose Garden, Nick following David Cameron around hospitals, factories and Nick sat next to David Cameron on the front bench. That was not Liberal Democrat government, it wasn’t even Liberal Democrats in part of government, it was Liberal Democrats being exploited as a necessary support to David Cameron, being allowed to do things that (to the Conservatives) were either fine “Let Cable sort out some industrial problems, we will get the reward,” a useful tool “Let Laws/Alexander make the nasty announcements: they will get the grief”; or at worst a minor irritation “Let Webb do pensions reform: we don’t understand it but old people vote for us anyway”.
They saw what was happening early on and acted, some of us saw it and tried to rectify it from the inside, but whatever route they took, we need those people with foresight and judgement, to help us rebuild a better party, because for five years, we have allowed a nasty and malevolent party to hollow us out and nearly destroy us, and it happened on our watch. We have to put that right. We need them and they will help us do it.
@Caspian Conrad
” I can assure you chasing after members who left us will be a step backwards not forwards.”
Those members left for the same reasons that all those voters left you. Are you not interested in getting those voters back? Clegg thought he knew what the party members and party voters (like me) really wanted if only we were as clued up as him. He was wrong. Only a small percentage of Lib Dem voters wanted a centre-right party.
After all these interesting points I am still baffled. Just who is the lady with the Hames poster? What is she doing? Did she go round Sainsburys with her poster?
Oh – and why is there a police officers hat on the wall? And are thoise others hiding their liberalism or just embarrassed?
Hi David
If you roll your mouse over the photo it gives the caption, also pasted below. If you click on the photo it willtake you to the photo on Gettyimages.co.uk and allow you to look at other photos in the set.
Who is the lady? She is you and me. She is waiting for the Prime Minister to arrive at an event in Corsham. I doubt she went round Sainsburys with her poster. There is not a police officers hat on the wall. There is a tall police officer standing behind the wall so that only his hat is visible. The others, I suspect, are Tories or civil servants of some sort waiting for David Cameron.
Photo caption:
David Cameron Speaks At The Conservative Party General Election Rally
CORSHAM, UNITED KINGDOM – MARCH 30: A Liberal Democrat supporter waits for British Prime Minister David Cameron to arrive to speak at a rally to mark the start of the general election campaign at Corsham School in Wiltshire on March 30, 2015 in Corsham, England. Campaigning in what is predicted to Britain’s closest national election started today, after Queen Elizabeth II dissolved Parliament. (Photo by Matt Cardy/Getty Images)
Credit: Matt Cardy / stringer
Caspian Conran 9th May ’15 – 9:45am
Sorry Casper but I am with (in order of posting) John Barrett, Malc, expats, Bill le Breton, John Tilley and Steve.
Many of those who left may simply have had weaker stomach’s or simply been less bloody minded than those of us who stayed.
As myself and many others have said people won’t walk the streets for a ‘keep things as they are party’ – or if they might, other parties are available.
We should now welcome back former comrades with open arms.
Potential new members should however be issued with a warning though – Do not join this party if you do not agree with its ideals as set out in the Preamble! Post-Clegg Liberal Democracy may offend!
Paul Walter 9th May ’15 – 11:16am
” … Who is the lady? She is you and me …”
Nothing wrong with that Paul – that is exactly why we are proud to be LIBERALS!
Thinking of joining up myself. See myself as a radical centre left liberal. But one who thinks that the decision to go into Government was the right one. Surely the Lib Dems believe in coalition and working with others, to turn your back on power and the chance to influence Government for me would have been a disaster. I don’t think an other option would have worked, Labour did not want a coalition and another election would probably have meant a Conservative majority. Having 50 seats and no influence is not success in my book.
That said I think mistakes were made in Government and allowed too many bad policies to go through, NHS reform, free schools, the Bedroom Tax, student fees. This was the mistake and we should admit it. However there was also much to be proud of; dealing with the deficit, gay marriage, overseas aid, raising income tax threshold, pension triple lock and a whole lot more.
Time to debate but respect the diversity of those in the party. Surely we want as many to join the Liberal Democrats whatever label some want to put on them. Stop the factionalism and reach out to people like me who could be persuaded to join.
“Believing in coalition” doesn’t mean “believing that the Party has to be part of any coalition on offer” or even believing that coalition government is the best form of government. It just means that we don’t think coalitions are some sort of horrendous un-British abomination that will result in us all eating tinned seaweed.
You can believe in coalition as an acceptable form of government, and yet still be able to discriminate between good coalitions and bad coalitions.
Or maybe we left because we felt betrayed by a leadership who had repeatedly said at conference that it would never go into a coalition with the Tories and would never betray students. .. And yes, I was an activist, a PPC , canvassed with Vince in Bromley etc. I have the stomach for it but didn’t recognise the party I joined.
I have just rejoined. I didn’t stop voting LD or donating to the campaign but the last 5 years have been very hard to stomach as a lifelong opponent of the Tories.
I too felt the party had to go into government. The alternative was a worse option. Huge mistakes were made – the leadership looked too content with being in bed with Tories. The Student Loans debacle did for the parties chances I am afraid. It was loss of trust. That could not be overcome, just as Black Wednesday did for the Major Government. We should not have defined ourselves as not them or them, that was a very ill thought out campaign.
I am optimistic though for the future – although it will take some time to rebuild. What needs to be done is
1. We must reaffirm WHY we want to change things – we have talked far too much about what we will do. The Tories are clear about why they want to govern. Labour’s why defines itself. So does UKIP’s and the Greens. I commend you to watch Simon Sinek – “people don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.”
2. We have a record in Government that we can use to illustrate why we want the opportunity to make a difference to peoples lives. Unlike earlier low points where we could opine wistfully about the 1910 Government and Lloyd George knowing our father, we have a modern day track record to defend.
3. We need to rebuild at a grass roots level – back to the pavement. We can make a difference again to peoples lives.
4. We must rebuild from the centre left.
@David-1
‘ “Believing in coalition” doesn’t mean “believing that the Party has to be part of any coalition on offer” or even believing that coalition government is the best form of government. ‘
There were two coalitions possible: Con – LibDem and Con – Lab
The third possibility was Conservative minority followed rapidly by a second election on the terms set by the well-financed Tories.
Joining or not joining doesn’t seem to affect the fortunes of the smaller party of two all that much.