Tag Archives: 2025 local elections

Mark Pack

Mark Pack writes: The biggest prize in May’s local elections

By Mark Pack | Mon 14th April 2025 - 10:52 am

Lib Dems in sunshine with Mike Ross, Mark Pack and Shaffaq MohammedThere are hundreds of important prizes at stake for us in the May local elections.

Wards where we are standing our first candidate in years. Wards where winning would give us our first breakthrough in an area. Wards where winning would make us the main opposition on the council. Wards where winning could give us leadership of the council for the first time. Wards where winning would cement our record in power locally.

But perhaps the biggest prize at stake for the Liberal Democrats is one that has never been on offer before: the new Hull and East Yorkshire Combined Authority Mayor.

It brings together two areas with impressive local Liberal Democrat teams: the Hull team that took power from Labour even while the Conservatives were in power in Downing Street, and the East Riding team that has ridden an impressive run of by-election wins to be a growing political force locally.

There is important political power at stake to improve the lives of residents in the area.

For the party more widely too there is the chance to show our relevance in northern England, to get a new Liberal Democrat in important local and regional media markets and to show how we can win against Labour.

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Samuel Jackson

The Liberal Democrats are more than the new ‘Party of Middle England’

By Samuel Jackson | Thu 3rd April 2025 - 8:51 am

Ed Davey and Lib Dem MPs and activists with many diamonds launch election campaign On Monday, as our leader Ed Davey launched the Liberal Democrats’ 2025 local election campaign in Oxfordshire, he said that he wants our party to replace the Conservatives as the ‘party of Middle England’. This year, elections will be held in nineteen counties and local authorities whose councils are controlled outright by the Conservatives, most of which are located in southern England. These communities last voted for their local governments in 2021, when the Conservatives nationally had been buoyed by the fulfilment of Brexit and the coronavirus vaccination rollout but before Partygate, the mini-budget, the cost-of-living crisis and assorted scandals by their MPs.

We cannot fault Ed for wanting to pursue this strategy: it has a proven track record. Following our by-election gains in Chesham and Amersham, North Shropshire, Tiverton and Honiton, and Somerton and Frome, we got a total of seventy-two MPs elected to the Commons in 2024 by targeting Conservative constituencies primarily in the South of England. The Conservatives’ new leader Kemi Badenoch has done little to reposition the party either as an effective opposition or a government-in-waiting and is under the Damoclesian threat of removal in the face of losses in the local elections. We can understand the rationale behind this, but this should not be the be all and end all of our campaigning.

We must endeavour to extend our party’s geographic reach. As we targeted Blue Wall seats in 2024, eighty-two per cent of our current MPs represent constituencies in Southern England, a lopsided distribution that cannot be tenable in the long term. As there is a huge power and economic imbalance within the UK weighted in the South’s favour, our party may well come to be viewed as out of touch or elitist if we maintain this imbalance within our own parliamentary party.

While there is work to be done in Scotland and Wales – for which I will let more experienced and qualified voices speak – we should  consider the North of England. We have demonstrated our desire and ability to expand in the North. In 2024, we flipped the Conservative-held Westminster seats of Harrogate and Knaresborough, Cheadle, and Hazel Grove, centred on relatively affluent market towns similar to typical Southern Blue Wall seats. Despite the seeming focus on the south during this year’s local election, it is the North where we may bring a boon for our party. Hull City Council Leader Mike Ross is campaigning to become the first metro mayor of Hull and East Yorkshire, a position through which we can enact policies on a countywide scale and garner the same visibility and clout as Labour figures like Andy Burnham and Tracy Brabin. As there are local elections taking place in Conservative-controlled Northern authorities including County Durham and Lancashire, should we not be challenging them there as well?

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Mike Ross

We can win in Hull and East Yorkshire. But only with your help 

By Mike Ross | Wed 2nd April 2025 - 11:55 am

Lib Dems in sunshine with Mike Ross, Mark Pack and Shaffaq Mohammed

If you were at our recent Spring conference, you will hopefully have heard all about my campaign to become the first Mayor of Hull and East Yorkshire. 

Last weekend, we were joined by Party President Mark Pack in Hessle, East Yorkshire, to formally launch our campaign for the mayoralty. 

It was an honour to be joined by Lord Pack and by so many activists, both from across the region and further afield, such as Lord Shaffaq Mohammed and a team from Sheffield. We’ve also had a visit from Ed Davey and many front-bench MPs. 

It’s clear the momentum is with us here, and it’s clear that local people want to send the Labour Government a message on 1st May. 

But we must not be complacent. The region is vast, comprising the city of Hull with the mostly rural East Riding, which spans almost 2,500 square kilometres, with hundreds of thousands of people registered to speak to. We must deliver to and speak with as many people as possible, as many times as possible, between now and 1st May. 

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The Voice

WATCH: Mike Ross’s speech to #ldconf

By The Voice | Tue 25th March 2025 - 11:30 am

Mike Ross is one of our best hopes of winning a mayoral election in May.

The Hull Council leader is our candidate for Hull and East Riding Mayor.

We run the Council in Hull and have a long track record of vigorous, incessant campaigning there.

Here is Mike’s keynote speech to Conference this weekend.

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Mark Valladares

19 March 2025 – yesterday’s press releases

By Mark Valladares | Thu 20th March 2025 - 7:30 am
  • US-Russia call: Putin is “stringing Trump along”
  • NICs vote: Labour MPs vote for “health tax” on GPs, pharmacies and care homes
  • Conservative local election launch: “buck stops” with Badenoch
  • “Time for a fair deal for farmers” – Carmichael to introduce Food Supply Chain Fairness Bill
  • Scottish Government admits it failed to conduct safeguarding review
  • Minister visited Skye House just months before cruelty allegations surfaced
  • Severn Estuary Commission Report – Get on with Building the Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon
  • Rennie responds to damning evidence session on funding crisis at Dundee University

US-Russia call: Putin is “stringing Trump along”

Responding to Putin’s phone call with Trump, Calum Miller MP, Liberal Democrat Foreign Affairs Spokesperson, said:

Donald Trump’s fawning call with Putin couldn’t be more different to his and JD Vance’s shameful bullying of Zelensky in the Oval Office.

It’s clear Trump is being played by Putin – stringing him along and currying favour even as his savage war machine continues to push deeper into Ukraine.

Now is the time for the UK and our allies in Europe and the Commonwealth to redouble our efforts to support Ukraine’s defence and achieve a lasting peace.

NICs vote: Labour MPs vote for “health tax” on GPs, pharmacies and care homes

Responding to the Government voting to reject a Liberal Democrat amendment which would have exempted health and care providers from the national insurance rise, Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesperson Daisy Cooper MP said:

Labour MPs today have voted for a health tax on GPs, dentists, pharmacies, hospices and care homes, and it is patients who will pay the price.

The Liberal Democrats are proud we have led the fight to exempt health and care providers from this misguided tax hike, and we will not give up now.

On April 6th worried social care providers and GP surgeries are going to be hit with bills they simply cannot afford. Rachel Reeves must finally see sense, U-turn on this disastrous policy and exempt health and care providers from this damaging jobs tax.

Conservative local election launch: “buck stops” with Badenoch

Commenting on the Conservatives’ local election launch tomorrow (20th March) a Liberal Democrat spokesperson said:

The buck stops with bungling Badenoch. If she fails to deliver in the local elections, the writing will truly be on the wall for her and for the Conservative Party.

Whilst they compete with Reform and tilt ever further to the right, the Liberal Democrats are focused on delivering for residents on issues including the cost of living, sewage in our rivers and the emergency in our NHS and care.

We’re hearing on the doorsteps that people haven’t forgiven the Conservatives for all the damage they’ve done. If Kemi speaks to voters tomorrow, she will doubtless hear the same. Voters have a clear choice in May, and across the country, including in Buckinghamshire, they are turning to the Liberal Democrats as community champions who will stand up for them.

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