The last few years have been extraordinary for Liberal Democrats in local government. We have taken control of councils we hadn’t held in a generation, broken Conservative dominance in places that looked permanent, and built a base of councillors larger than at any point in recent memory. The May 2024 general election was the visible peak, but the local story has been running longer and deeper.
Now comes the harder part. Winning is one thing. Running things well, year after year, in a way that makes residents glad they voted for us and councillors proud of what they’ve built, takes more.
I’ve been thinking about this from a particular angle: how we work together when we deliver. The culture inside a Liberal Democrat council group shapes everything that comes out of it, and we don’t talk about it enough.
The group is the engine
Most of what residents see is the leader, the cabinet or portfolio holders, and the policies. Most of what makes those things possible is invisible. The group meetings, the WhatsApp threads, the corridor conversations, the informal conventions about who gets heard and who doesn’t. A council group is a working community of dozens of people, often with very different backgrounds, who have to make collective decisions under pressure for four years at a stretch.
Every group has good weeks and bad weeks, and the difference shows in how the administration operates. When the group is working well, messaging holds together, scrutiny is sharper, and people bring problems to the room rather than nursing them quietly. When it isn’t, the administration carries the cost.
What a liberal group culture looks like
We are Liberal Democrats. Our values should describe how we treat each other, not just sit in a manifesto.
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The Joy of Six 1556
Westminister needs to tackle its drinking culture
Andy Daer 
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Stephen Robinson 
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nigel hunter 