Tag Archives: mid bedfordshire by-election

I’m not going to lie. I’m disappointed this morning. Like many of you reading this, I wanted to wake up to Emma Holland-Lindsay becoming our 16th MP.

As a party we’ve put a huge amount of effort in to Mid Bedfordshire and we didn’t do it to become third. It’s a decent, double-our-vote third, not a squeezed till our pips squeak third, but even so, we’re allowed to feel a bit gutted.

Part of the reason I am so sad is that Emma is a huge talent and has been a magnificent candidate. I’ve heard of so many doorstep encounters where people knew who she was and really liked her.

She has spent pretty much the last year campaigning at full pelt. First of all to pull of her audacious gain in her Council ward with colleagues Chris Leaman and Shaun Roberts, and, since June, as by-election candidate. She should never, ever have to buy herself a drink at any Lib Dem event for the rest of her life.

Everyone who’s met her should add helping her get elected to Parliament one day to their to-do lists.

Emma, thank you for being one of the best by-election candidates we have ever had.  We have been very lucky this Parliament to have found such wonderful people to represent us.

While I can see the sense in the party’s messaging, that our surge in the villages took votes off the Tories and helped Labour over the line, none of us were put on this earth to help Labour win, so the fact that it rankles a bit is to be expected.

Labour’s new Shadow Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology showed that yesterday on the News Agents that he knows absolutely fine that Labour can’t win Mid Bedfordshire.

He made the bizarre claim, on the News Agents podcast that:

“If our candidate was gay, they’d be doing a family values campaign.”

He said that the we were running a “deeply personal” campaign against the Labour candidate in the by-election.

Labour can’t win there, but they can stop us. Is that really their aim?

Our response was:

People in Mid Bedfordshire are disappointed that Labour have chosen a London councillor as a candidate to represent their rural towns and villages. After Nadine Dorries, people want a local MP, not someone who has been parachuted in.

The Labour candidate resigned as a councillor on Waltham Forest Council last week, having been a Cabinet member there until 3 months ago.

Layla Moran took to Twitter to condemn Kyle’s comments:

Disappointing from @peterkyle. Lib Dems are proud to have brought in equal marriage ten years ago almost to the day and are allies of the whole LGBT+ community. To suggest we would weaponise equality issues is a utterly against our values.

And Tim Farron had news direct from the doorsteps in Mid Bedfordshire:

I was in Mid Beds today to support @EmmaMidBeds. On the doorstep, Labour voters were volunteering to me that they were going to switch to vote for Emma this time because she can beat the Tories and Labour clearly can’t. I’m even more convinced now that we can do this.

Of course my take from Mid Beds is partisan, but it’s based on solid evidence. 1) Labour voters are deciding for themselves to vote tactically for us. 2) Disillusioned Conservatives and others in this rural seat are keen to vote for Emma, but would never vote Labour.

The Lib Dem by election campaign team know what they’re doing. It’s by far the smarter, bigger and more engaging campaign. 4) Labour won’t win but they probably won’t lose their deposit and they could stop us winning. 5) Lib Dem activists need to go there en masse!

North Shropshire by-election winner Helen Morgan sent an email to party members: