Tag Archives: campaign strategy

This election has revealed issues with the Party’s messaging approach, policy approach, and electoral distinctiveness. These need to be reckoned with very soon if the Party is going to remain relevant.

This election cannot be regarded as a victory

Many senior figures are calling this a victory. That we have “held off Reform, won more councillors than the Greens, and trounced the Conservatives.” – quoting directly from Ed Davey’s Instagram page. This take feels detached from reality.

We haven’t held off Reform; despite only gaining overall control of a handful of councils, they’ve elected over 1000 new councillors. We haven’t won more new councillors than the Greens, they’ve elected a net-gain of 441 councillors compared to our 155. In an election year where the Tories and Labour combined lost over 2000 councillors, it is appalling that we did not win more. What’s even more shocking is that many of these races were won by our opponents with far less observed work in the ward.

The Lib Dems can no longer depend on the progressive vote

In many inner-city areas, the Lib Dem campaign put in a monumental shift. People I personally knew in those areas spent the last year canvassing and delivering yet found themselves really struggling on polling day. In one area where I had fully anticipated a LibDem win, we ended up coming third. The Greens, who had done no serious work in the ward, came second, and the Labour incumbents held on. Many of our wins were holds, suggesting that we enjoy incumbency bonus, but there is little penetration of our messaging, despite all this work. Months of work yield little meaningful payoff, and our candidates come away demoralised and defeated. In summary, in the eyes of progressively minded people, the Lib Dems are no longer perceived as a progressive party and cannot command a tactical vote sufficient to dethrone Labour and hold off Reform.