1,000+ protesters gather outside Lib Dem meeting to demand PR

By the looks of it over a thousand demonstrators have gathered in Smith Square, outside the building being used today for party talks, demanding the party sticks to its guns on PR:
PR protest

Photo via Will Straw.

Meanwhile, the latest news on the inter-party talks is that Liberal Democrat and Conservative teams will meet at 11am on Sunday morning in the Cabinet Office. The Liberal Democrat team includes a broad cross-section of political views from the Parliamentary party along with deep experience of similar negotiations at other levels of government: …

Posted in News | 21 Comments
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Opinion: Is there grand gesture to reform which would make coalition with the Tories acceptable?

I am not someone you might expect to back a deal with the Tories. I come from a traditional Labour-voting background, and I am more suspicious of the Tories, and their motives, than many in our party.

But while this makes me cautious – almost to the point of paranoia – about a deal with Cameron’s Tories to form a majority coalition in the new Parliament, it does not make me rule it out altogether. The Parliamentary arithmetic alone – the lack of a majority for a Lib/Lab pact – and Labour’s internal division over voting reform means it deserves serious …

Posted in Op-eds | 48 Comments

Deal or no deal? Here’s what I think

Who would want to be in Nick Clegg’s place today? For all the talk during the campaign that the Lib Dem leader would end up as ‘Kingmaker’, that now looks the least enviable position imaginable.

I’ve read and absorbed lots of the commentary of the last 24 hours – both on this site and elsewhere – and am amazed by the striking naivete of those who appear to imagine there is an easy option for the Lib Dems, that whatever choice we make in the days ahead won’t involve compromise and pain. Sorry guys: it will.

Nick Clegg has just three realistic choices, and all of them are unappetising in one way or another.

A deal with the Tories:

Posted in News | Tagged | 300 Comments

Opinion: They’re bidding for Lib Dem support!

Let’s get the most we can – especially on voting reform!

The Tories say, quite rightly, that Labour (about 29% of the votes) and Lib Dems (about 23%) lost the election but then they go on to claim they won with only about 36% (just over one in three)!

The fact is that the public decided collectively that it did not trust any one party to govern.

In terms of votes any two of the three main parties has a moral right to govern by coalition. It is nonsense to say that a Labour/Lib Dem coalition has no right to form …

Posted in Op-eds | 36 Comments

Did Trident, Europe and immigration make the difference?

We all know the Lib Dems achieved a result we would have been reasonably happy with at the start of the campaign, but one that came as a bitter disappointment after the highs of Cleggmania.

But why did the Lib Dem vote fall back to 23%, seemingly at the last gasp?

Speaking to Lib Dem supporters on the doorstep in the last week, I was struck by how often the issues of Trident, Europe and immigration came up – and our supporters were genuinely concerned.

In the main, it wasn’t that people disagreed with our policies when I took a couple of minutes …

Posted in Europe / International and Op-eds | Tagged and | 41 Comments
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Opinion: The frame we need: freedom

Jack Newfield once wrote, “We learned that we shall not overcome. The most compassionate leaders our nation could produce had been assassinated. The stone was at the bottom of the hill and we were alone.”

Those words of penetrating despair referred to the deaths of two leading American liberals in 1968. In the aftermath Richard Nixon seized the presidency and Democrats fell into a dark period of infighting and indecision that lasted off and on until at least 1992.

No-one in our party, in our country has been killed. Yet there is a sense of loss. MPs we …

Posted in Op-eds | 7 Comments

Grown-up politics means sometimes working with your enemies

The Lib Dems have always argued that the country should elect MPs using a fair voting system – a form of proportional representation. Hopefully this hasn’t passed too many of our activists by. Certainly, in the 22 years I’ve been a party member I don’t recall meeting many Lib Dem activists who were under the illusion the party favoured First Past the Post.

Fair voting systems normally lead to balanced, or hung, parliaments and frequently to coalition governments. We’re used to them in Scotland and Wales, not to mention in the majority of successful western nations.

So I would …

Posted in Op-eds | 45 Comments

David Steel on the last time there was a hung parliament

Lord (David) Steel recalled his involvement in the various negotiations during the 1970s, the last time there was an election which produced a hung parliament, in a letter to The Times during the campaign – it seemed worth dusting down in the current circumstances …

Sir,

Your leader today on hung parliaments contained a number of dubious assertions.

First, you say that in February 1974 Mr Heath’s offer of coalition foundered on his refusal to include electoral reform. As a survivor of those discussions I have to say that this was not the most determining factor. One was that even with the

…

Posted in LibLink | Tagged and | 4 Comments

Proportion matters – the diagram that shows the election result is balls


(Hat-tip http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/).

Posted in General Election | 4 Comments

What should the party do next? Have your say by 2pm on Saturday

On Saturday afternoon the party’s Federal Executive is meeting to discuss how the party should handle the Parliamentary situation. There’s no pre-set, universally supported answer to this so the FE’s discussion is going to be meaningful and important. It’s only one part of the party’s consultative process, which also includes – for example – a meeting of the Parliamentary Party. But it does mean that now is an excellent time to let the FE know your views.

Because many members of the Federal Executive are scattered around the country – sleeping, travelling back from election counts, making their way to …

Posted in News | 396 Comments

LibLink: James Graham – A cruel result for the Lib Dems

Over at The Guardian’s Comment is Free website, Lib Dem blogger James Graham looks at what the results mean for the party:

What can I say about this result? I’m bereft. It isn’t even a result so awful that the Lib Dems could sit by the sidelines and let everyone else sort out the mess the country is in. That, at least, would be easy. In fact, just to make things even more galling, we seem to have actually increased our share of the vote to a level that we would have been delighted with a month ago. What a cruel

…

Posted in LibLink | Tagged | 6 Comments

Cameron offers … er, not very much really

Update: the party’s Federal Executive and Parliamentary Party are both meeting on Saturday to discuss what the party should do next. As I understand it there’s no intention of the party leadership publicly proposing a position until before then.

David Cameron has just made his pitch to the TV cameras outlining the approach he wants to take to forming a government and reasons the Liberal Democrats should have for supporting it.

He outlined several areas of possible policy agreement. Some are ones where the parties clearly already agrees, such as in opposing ID cards. Some are one where although the parties have …

Posted in News | 74 Comments

What do you make of David Cameron’s “offer”?

I’ve not seen a transcript yet, but here’s ConservativeHome’s paraphrase of David Cameron’s supposed “offer” to the Lib Dems:

I thank Nick Clegg for recognising that the Tories won most new seats and I will now talk to the Liberal Democrats about delivering the kind of government Britain needs.

I offer reassurances to the Liberal Democrats so that they support a minority Conservative government but I am also willing to discuss other possibilities.

There are some non-negotiables. No government can give more powers to Europe. We must be strong on immigration. It is reasonable that the bulk of the Tory manifesto is

…

Posted in General Election | Tagged | 45 Comments

The final results trickle in …

Here are the headline figures currently:

    Conservative 36%, 306 MPs
    Labour 29%, 258 MPs
    Lib Dems 23%, 57 MPs

As many have pointed out, how absurd is it that the Lib Dems can increase its share of the vote, but lose 10% of its MPs? As Ben Goldacre tweeted:

lib dems get 6.6m votes and 53 seats, labour get 8.4m votes and 252 seats, our voting system is broken

You can find a full list of Lib Dem MPs here.

2.20 pm

Three results have come in over the last hour or so, all Lib Dem HOLDS (phew). So congratulations to:

Martin Horwood in Cheltenham, who gained …

Posted in News | 8 Comments

The morning after the night before: 10 questions we need to answer (but maybe not today)

Here’s a few to ponder … Or perhaps best to sleep on them.

1. What happened to the predicted Lib Dem surge? Did people change their mind at the last minute? Did young people not turn out? Did floating voters turn their back on us?

2. How did the opinion polls get the Lib Dem share of the vote so badly wrong? They were pretty accurate in terms of the Labour/Tory vote, but all nine of the final polls put the Lib Dems in the 26-29% range when in fact we scored 23%.

3. What happened to our targeting strategy? Given our share of the vote was higher than in 2005, how did we lose so many seats? Did we over-reach ourselves? Or did we underestimate the residual Labour/Tory vote?

4. Why were there such differences between results in individual Lib Dem seats, sometimes making gains against the Tories (eg, Wells, Eastbourne), sometimes suffering horrendous swings (eg, Oxford West & Abingdon, Montgomeryshire). Incumbency seems to have helped in some places, not in others: why?

5. Should Nick Clegg have ruled out any form of coalition before the election to avoid a week of the campaign getting bogged down in the usual hung parliament media process stories? Was it a mistake to state openly the party wouldn’t work with Gordon Brown if Labour came third?

Posted in General Election | Tagged | 101 Comments

Seat we just missed / just won

Thanks to Duncan Brack of the Liberal Democrat History Group for pulling this list together so near wins / misses spotted so far and to various commenters who have added to it:

NEAR MISSES

Ashfield 192 (0.4%)
Edinburgh South 316 (0.7%)
Hampstead & Kilburn 799 (1.6%)
Hull North 641 (1.9%)
Oldham East & Saddleworth 103 (0.2%)
Sheffield Central 165 (0.4%)
Swansea West 504 (1.4%)

Camborne & Redruth 66 (0.2%)
Chesterfield 549 (1.2%)
Oxford West & Abingdon 176 (0.3%)
Rochdale 889 (1.9%)
Truro & Falmouth 435 (0.9%)

ONLY JUST HELD/GAINED

Bradford East 365 (0.9%)
Mid Dorset & Poole North 269 (0.6%)
Norwich South 310 (0.7%)
Solihull 175 (0.3%)
Wells 800 (1.4%)

Posted in General Election | 11 Comments

BBC reports Sarah Teather has won Brent Central

Apparently by 2,000 votes – if so, that will be a super-human effort given general disappointment of Lib Dem vote in London seats. More news as we get it …

Yes it’s true: Lib Dem GAIN from Labour in Brent Central on a huge 11% swing. An absolutely fantastic effort from Sarah Teather, who selflessly put herself up for election in the harder of the two seats she could have contested. Much kudos.

Sarah Teather Liberal Democrat 20,026 44.2% (+13.1)
Labour 18,681 41.2% (-8.9)
Conservative 5,068 11.2% (-1.9)

But disappointment in Streatham, despite a 5.3% swing from Labour:
Labour 20,037 …

Posted in News | 10 Comments

+++ Nick Clegg speaks – up to Tories to seek to form government

Courtesy The Guardian, here’s the transcript of Nick’s remarks:

Last night was a disappointment for the Liberal Democrats. Even though more people voted for us than ever before, even though we had a higher proportion of the vote than ever before, it is of course a source of great regret to me that we have lost some really valued friends and colleagues and we have returned to parliament with fewer MPs than before.

Many, many people during the election campaign were excited about the prospect of doing something different. It seems that, when they came to vote, many of them in

…

Posted in News | 48 Comments

Full list of Lib Dem MPs

Here’s the list – let me know any omissions …

Lib Dem MPs:
Danny Alexander, Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey
Norman Baker, Lewes
Alan Beith, Berwick-upon-Tweed
Gordon Birtwistle, Burnley – NEWLY ELECTED
Tom Brake, Carshalton and Wallington
Annette Brooke, Mid Dorset and North Poole
Jeremy Browne, Taunton
Malcolm Bruce, Gordon
Paul Burstow, Sutton and Cheam
Lorely Burt, Solihull
Vincent Cable, Twickenham
Menzies Campbell, North East Fife
Alistair Carmichael, Orkney and Shetland
Nick Clegg, Sheffield Hallam
Michael Crockart, Edinburgh West – NEWLY ELECTED
Edward Davey, Kingston and Surbiton
Tim Farron, Westmorland and Lonsdale
Lynne Featherstone, Hornsey and Wood Green
Don Foster, Bath
Andrew George, St Ives
Stephen Gilbert, St Austell & Newquay – NEWLY ELECTED
Duncan Hames, Chippenham – NEWLY ELECTED
Mike Hancock, Portsmouth South
Nick …

Posted in News | 26 Comments

Opinion: Let’s challenge Cameron’s hype – this is NOT the Tories’ “best result for 80 years”!

“It looks like the Conservatives have won more seats that we have for 80 years.” – David Cameron

That clip may well be played again and again today, as his spin doctors would have hoped when they wrote the line. But what would those words mean to you if you were not one of the political cogniscenti?

When David Cameron stood up in his Oxfordshire constituency last night and said these words, he was surely attempting to spin the result as a great Conservative victory.

They were hoping that many ordinary people would think the Tories had ‘won more seats’ …

Posted in General Election and Op-eds | 27 Comments

The LDV Election Morning Live-Blog & Open Thread … 8am Edition

8.00 am

Here’s where we’re at:

The Lib Dems have made SEVEN GAINS: Bradford East, Burnley, Norwich South, Eastbourne, Redcar, Solihull and Wells.

And THIRTEEN LOSSES: Camborne and Redruth, Chesterfield, Cornwall South East, Harrogate & Knaresborough, Hereford & Herefordshire South, Montgomeryshire, Newton Abbot, Oxford West & Abingdon, Richmond Park, Romsey & Southampton North, Truro and Falmouth, Winchester and York Outer.

The Tories are projected to score 37% (+4%) of the vote and win 308 (+98) MPs; Labour to score 30% (-6%) of the vote and win 260 (-89) seats; and the Lib Dems to score 23% (n/c) and win 53 (-9) MPs.

8.08 am

Lib Dem …

Posted in News | 36 Comments

The LDV Election Morning Live-Blog & Open Thread (6-8am)

6.00 am

Here’s where we’re at (and it’s not pretty):

The Lib Dems have made FOUR GAINS: Burnley, Norwich South, Eastbourne and Redcar.

And ELEVEN LOSSES: Chesterfield, Cornwall South East, Harrogate & Knaresborough, Hereford & Herefordshire South, Montgomeryshire, Newton Abbot, Oxford West & Abingdon, Richmond Park, Romsey & Southampton North, Winchester and York Outer.

The Tories are projected to score 37% (+4%) of the vote and win 308 (+98) MPs; Labour to score 30% (-6%) of the vote and win 260 (-89) seats; and the Lib Dems to score 23% (n/c) and win 53 (-9) MPs.

6.09 am

Lib Dems’ Mike Hancock has HELD Portsmouth South.

6.15

…

Posted in News | 27 Comments

The LDV Election Night Live-Blog: 4.30 – 6.00 pm

5.55 am

Here’s that Lib Dem LOSS in Richmond Park on a 7% swing to the Tories:
Conservative 29,461 49.7% (+10.1)
Susan Kramer Liberal Democrat 25,370 42.8% (-3.8)
Labour 2,979 5.0% (-4.2)

5.50 am

Brighton Pavilion is a gain for the Greens’ Caroline Lucas.

5.46 am

Susan Kramer has LOST Richmond Park to the Tories’ Zac Gldsmith.

Lib Dems’ Stehen Gilbert has HELD St Austell & Newquay.

5.42 am

Terrific result for Nick Radford in Salisbury, but it’s another NEAR MISS:
Conservative 23,859 49.2% (+2.8)
Nick Radford Liberal Democrat 17,893 36.9% (+10.0)
Labour 3,690 7.6% (-11.0)

Vince Cable HOLDS Twickenham with a majority of 12,000:
Vince Cable Liberal …

Posted in News | 45 Comments

The LDV Election Night Live-Blog: 3.00 – 4.30 pm

4.23 am

Horrible news: Lib Dems’ Evan Harris LOSES seat of Oxford West & Abingdon to Tories on a 6.9% swing:

Conservative 23,906 42.3% (+9.6)
Evan Harris Liberal Democrat 23,730 42.0% (-4.1)
Labour 5,999 10.6% (-5.2)

Malcolm Bruce HOLDS Gordon.

4.19 am

Lib Dems’ Paul Holmes LOSES Chesterfield.

Bob Russell HOLDS Chesterfield, 6,982 majority.

4.14 am

Fantastic result for Tom Brake in Carshalton & Wallington, with a 4.3% swing from Tory to Lib Dem:

Tom Brake Liberal Democrat 22,180 48.3 +7.9
Conservative 16,920 36.8 -0.6
Labour 4,015 8.7 -8.6

More good news (this is all relative, I realise): Danny Alexander HOLDS Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey.

4.10

…

Posted in General Election | 119 Comments

The LDV Election Night Live-Blog: 1.30 – 3.00 pm

2.55 am

More bad news … Lib Dems have failed to take Swansea West and Liverpool Wavertree and Totnes.

We have HELD Taunton. And there’s a recount in Ashfield.

2.50 am

Jo Swinson has held Dunbartonshire East.

Confirmation of the LIB DEM LOSS in Harrogate and Knaresborough, with a large 9.1% swing from Lib Dem to Tory:

Conservative 24,305 45.7% (+9.8)
Claire Kelley Liberal Democrat 23,266 43.8% (-8.4)
Labour 3,413 6.4% (-2.7)

2.47 am

The Tories’ Jeremy Hunt holds in Surrey South West, with an 8.6% swing from Lib Dem to Tory.

2.43 am

Chris Huhne HOLDS Eastleigh.

Confirmation of the Lib Dem GAIN in Eastbourne, with 4% …

Posted in News | 105 Comments

The LDV Election Night Live-Blog: 12 midnight – 1.30 pm

1.25 am

Disappointing result for the Tories in Vale of Clwyd, where they fail to gain from Labour with a swing of only 3.6%. Intriguing results in Wales: Plaid failed to gain Ynes Mon from Labour, but did take Arfon.

Hearing of Lib Dem holds in Yeovil (David Laws) and NE Fife (Ming Campbell) – but Labour have held on in Wrexham, a hoped-for gain.

1.21 am

Tweet from Nigel Ashton of a likely Lib Dem hold in Southport:

We are confident of holding Southport but the result is hours away

And interesting news from Ashfield via The Guardian:

Gloria De Piero, the GMTV

…

Posted in News | 56 Comments

The LDV Election Night Live-Blog: 10.30 pm – 12 midnight

11.55 pm

The BBC has – belatedly – recognised the story that’s been staring them in the face … thousands of voters disenfranchised:

Hundreds of voters across the country have been turned away from polling stations as long queues formed ahead of the 2200 BST voting deadline.

Turnout was predicted to be higher than recent elections, including 2005.

There were three-hour queues in Sheffield, voters were turned away in Manchester and police said one London polling station was open at 2230 BST.

The law says polling station doors must close at 2200 and no-one can be issued with a ballot paper after that time.

…

Posted in General Election | 23 Comments

The LDV Election Night Live-Blog: 9.30 – 10.30 pm

I’ll be providing running commentary throughout the night. First off, a reminder of how you can follow our coverage and help contribute to it:

Our best source of information about how the Lib Dems are faring up and down the country will be you, our readers. Please let us have your latest titbits and tips no matter where you are in the UK.

You can contact us in the following ways:

  • By email: [email protected]
  • By direct message via Twitter: @libdemvoice
  • By text/SMS: my number is 07976 629166. But please confirm your mobile number with me by email so I can be sure you are who you say you are!

Or of course you can leave a comment on the site at any time.

For those of you are at election night counts, or otherwise not able to access a computer, please remember you can access LDV’s mobile-friendly site at m.libdemvoice.org.

Posted in News | 23 Comments

The Lib Dem 2010 general election campaign: punching above our weight

Much of the focus, understandably enough, has been on Nick Clegg’s TV debates performances boosting the party’s standing. But actually that’s not what has most impressed me about the Lib Dem campaign: it’s been the disciplined professionalism shown by Lib Dem HQ.

Let’s start off with the two key campaign themes … Change that works for you, and Building a fairer Britain. They received a fair amount of derision when they first appeared – and yet they worked, and worked well. (I wonder if we’ll read that in the next issue of Liberator?)

First, by recognising that this would be a …

Posted in General Election and Op-eds | 6 Comments

The significance of May 27th

One of the tragedies of the general election campaign was the death of John Boakes, UKIP candidate for Thirsk & Malton. As a result polling in the general election there has been delayed until May 27th.

These sorts of delayed polls happen thankfully rarely and are not usually of wider political significance. However, if the election result is as close as the polls suggest it will be, May 27th could turn into one of the first significant political tests for whoever is Prime Minster and whatever arrangements they’ve made (or not made) to get that post.

The notional result in 2005 …

Posted in General Election | Tagged and | 10 Comments
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