We’ll end this splendid day with a summary from Ed Davey:
This has been an historic victory for the Liberal Democrats with our best result in decades.
It’s little wonder Rishi Sunak is running scared of a General Election, because he knows the Liberal Democrats are set to take swathes of seats across the Conservative Party’s former heartlands.
The message from these elections is clear: people are fed up with being let down and taken for granted by this Conservative Government – it is time for a change.
Voters have sent a political shockwave to dozens of Conservative MPs right across the blue wall. Our great country deserves so much better than this out-of-touch Prime Minister and his chaotic and careless Conservative Government.
With just three Councils, and one Mayoral contest (the one we hope to win!) left to declare we have won 1608 council seats, 415 more than the last time they were contested. That is not so very far behind the Labour net gain of 527 seats. In contrast the Conservatives have lost 1061 seats. And we now control a dozen more Councils than we did before.
Huge congratulations to all the campaign teams across the country! You have made us all proud to be Liberal Democrats today.
Update: A few minutes after this was published we heard the sad news that Dave Hodgson had lost in the Mayoral contest in Bedford. The Conservative majority was just 145.
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Sad news from Bedford though. I assume this was under the new rules that fair democratic elections are to be avoided at all costs?
Indeed Jock, Cons just scrape through – Labour celebrate. The two party axis of evil is restored.
This is a magnificent set of results. Condolencies to those who did not make it. We now need to concentrate on levelling out our resources so we win in all areas of the country.
A shout out for the win in Boston, from Acorns grow….
There seems to be some positive activity in Lincolnshire so well done the Lincolnshire team.
Peter, I hope you realise that a major reason we were so successful was because we did not level out our resources. While making sure local parties remain viable in difficult areas is important, we all need to accept that levelling out our resources for elections simply means we win lose in all areas of the country.
David Evans. Well said. An old wartime adage said that he who tries to be strong everywhere will end up being weak everywhere. We cannot match the other party’s pound for pound so we must put our resources into where we can do the most damage.
Thank you Tim. We have to be practical when it comes to everything we do. Doing the ‘right thing’ (in the opinion of some of our more idealistic members) with no concern for the practical consequences leads to sort of disaster that happened in coalition. Some good stuff (done by us, but successfully claimed by the Conservatives e.g. Raising Income tax thresholds) lots of bad stuff (done by the Conservatives because it was popular with their voters, but blamed on us by Labour because it was unpopular with thier voters AND our left leaning support) led to loss of all but 8 of our MPs.
It isn’t rocket science, but it is politics and we need to win to do good stuff. Doing badly thought out, theoretically good stuff means we lose and can do even less good stuff in future.
Might we have a definition of “left leaning support”?
While not wishing to detract in any way from the excellent results on Thursday, a careful perusal of the results reveals that there are still a large number of councils with no LibDem councillors at all. Focussing resources is all very well, but continuous targeting over many years has hollowed out some local parties that are not targets to the extent that many of them are just not able to run campaigns any more. Winning seats in those areas now requires fanatical candidates willing to devote an inhuman amount of their time, possibly over several elections. In the 1970s, I had to stand 3 times to get elected.
A major aim of the party going forward must be to increase our resources, both in terms of finance and activists so that it is possible to fight successfully on a wider front. Also we need to be much more careful when targeting. In 2015, I was being asked to travel 30 miles to help in Leeds, when there was a held seat, Burnley, 7 miles away, which was only narrowly lost and might not have been if it had had even a small amount more help.
Steve, Of course you can. I suggest you look down the back of the sofa. That is probably where you had it last.
Interesting piece in BBC by John Curtice saying LibDem advance came from drawing Conservative voters. Tactical Labour votes were not won over. We must spend the next year thinking how we can succeed in this.
That’s actually quite good news. Tactical voting is one of the easier messages to put across in a general election. If it’s something we under-performed on this time, it can be fixed.
Now is the time to start working for the general election, with a special emphasis on those seats in which we came in second in the last election.
John Curtice wrote that piece before he could have analysed ward-by ward votes. I suspect he is looking at Labour votes we would need to take tactically in the general but in many cases did not need to target in the locals.
He also wrote it before the late results in the south east which the LDs gained several more councils and 150 more seats.
I suspect his idea was based either on guess work, or an a reading of what had happened in the small number of key wards the BBC uses to gauge its national vote share.
Either way, I think he’s wrong. The labour vote clearly DIDN’T match the pre-election opinion polls: part of the reason for that was tactical voting.
The results on Thursday were good. But an area which has not been talked about is Devon. The Lib Dems taking South Hams for the first time , Central Devon , Teighbridge , and holding North Devon . This follows on from the gain of the unitary authority in Somerset last year. Is the Lib Dems now in a position, to really challenge again in the South West! A very interesting comment from Wes Streeting this morning , about acknowledging that the Lib Dems winning in the Blue wall and West Country will to quote Streeting”Pave Labour’s path to government”. Its beginning to feel like the run up to 1997! Lib Dems on 12% but when it came to that election ,a 16.7% vote, and 46 seats. In 1997 Willie Rennie organised the South West campaign, and 10 gains were made in the South West. I think Ed Davie is being cautious , unlike Swinson who was totally OTT on expectations of gains. The Lib Dems need to be clever at putting the resources into the right seats. In the case of Scotland East Dun, and a political come back in Ross, Sky , and L.
Just a quick note for those sensible people who don’t follow Opinion Polling obsessively like what I do.
We are currently averaging between 10% & 11% with all but one of the Dozen Polling Firms putting us in a range of 9% to 12%. We have been going up since March after longish period on a plateau.
There has been some discussion on the news media about how we, the Liberal Democrats are unable to mount successful campaigns in all the 80 seats where we are 2nd to the Tories and the handful where we are second to Labour.
Surely now, after such great success in these local elections, is the time to go out and raise significantly more money so we can recruit more campaign staff who in turn, along with local parties, can recruit more volunteers to enable us to take the fight seriously to all the seats where we are second. If not, why not? If not now, when?
Who knows, I might even be tempted to spend the next GE in the UK as an organiser or agent in such a target seat.
@Ashley Charles Pragn – we did cover Devon in some detail. See https://www.libdemvoice.org/update-73122.html Well done to everyone involved.
I do hope that fairly soon, someone in the position to have an overview can provide some detailed analysis of the results from Thursday. Over 400 seats gained (strangely I have seen different numbers) is fantastic, however there are bound to be lessons to learn.
Opinion polls have concerned me for sometime now. I guess the heyday for opinion polling was in the early 2000 when fixed telephone lines could give a good approximation of a random sample, however I don’t think current estimates with many polling firms relying on what is effectively online focus groups are so robust. Not so long ago, according to the pollsters, we were more or less neck and neck with the shadowy UK Reform Party: it did not look right. On Thursday while we were gaining over 400 seats, the Reform Party could only muster 2, on a par with the SDP and the Liberal Party. Meanwhile it is estimated that our vote share was 20% (Cons and Lab on 26 and 35% respectively), significantly more that the polls would have. I know that voting patterns can vary between local votes and overall poll data and that we do often perform better than the polling predicts in local elections, but this still requires an explanation.
I doubt tactical voting accounts for the discrepancy, tactical voting, by definition works both ways. According to the polling, Labour are around 44%, but not in these elections.
@Mick Taylor…
‘Surely now, after such great success in these local elections’ …..
History tells us that local elections are not the best indicator – given the low turnouts….The Tories in 2017 after Labours very poor local election results – went for a GE – Labour polled 40% at the subsequent election..
The only real indicator of public opinion will always be a GE …
The reality is that our main resource is our members. There are huge areas of the country where we have very few. There is a strange idea that we have a team at the centre distributing resources in an election campaign is merely silly. We know we’re are strongest – and the evidence is there in local election results and by-election results – so why are we pretending otherwise?
We should have learned from the coalition. We did not have a worked out plan for what we would do if we ran the country. This showed.
We are now in the same position. Why do we get a smug look from our leader when coalition is mentioned? How about a very direct answer to say what our priorities are for the country? And that we will take any action needed!
I suppose I cannot blame those who have worked hard, but I do not see why a national movement should be sacrificed to become a fan club for a few.
It seems that Tories have been consoling themselves by casting doubt on the relevance of local elections to national elections, even though they have lost 1000 seats on top of the 1000 they lost when they previously contested the seats. I doubt their election strategists will be so complacent though.
The first Opinion Poll to come out since The Results of The Local became known (Redfield & Wilton ) has us up 4% on 16%, the extra Votes seeming to come from Labour.
Its just one Poll of course.
This latest poll suggests to me the 2 points from Labour to the Liberal Democrat’s, could be a sign that Labour voters may be willing to lend Liberal Democrat their vote. We did see this in 1997! I think it will help the Lib Dem’s in Blue wall, the South West, and places like Hazelgrove , Cheadle , and Harrogate . It’s one poll, but the results on Friday suggest a base being laid for 2024. I suspect come the 2024 GE , we will see the Liberal Democrat vote disappear in seats where the Labour Party are taking on the Tories, and the Lib Dem’s are in a distant third place. The three exceptions might be Portsmouth South, Southport , and Sheffield Hallam in which only needs a small swing to the Lib Dem’s. I suspect tactical voting will be more extensive than 2019, No Corbyn for a start !
I don’t agree because the voters deserve a choice wherever they live and are entitled to know what all the candidates intend to do on local issues. I was speaking to a someone I know who lives in Basildon who wanted to vote lib dem. But as the party did not bother to post a leaflet saying what they would do locally so this person voted for another party instead. A candidate who stood as an independent came 3rd beating the LDs into 4th.
I have a friend who lives in Bedford and the result was nothing to do with the new voter ID but down to local issues some of which rebounded on the party/mayor. In fact Labour increased their number of seats.