Overall I think Thursday night was very positive for the Liberal Democrats. We made four net gains, taking us up to twelve seats. This was in the face of a race to Number 10 where more than eighty per cent of voters backed the two main parties. We’ve had some excellent ‘big beasts’ like Jo, Vince, Stephen and Ed returned to Parliament, as well as fantastic new faces like Layla Moran and Christine Jardine. This article is going to focus on the lessons to be learnt, but let’s not lose sight of the fact that this was a result which did us credit.
Sadly we lost our only seat in Wales, and Sarah Olney lost out narrowly in Richmond Park. However, from my experience campaigning in Yorkshire I’d like to put forward some ideas about what went wrong in Labour-facing seats.
First of all, and most frustratingly, the legacy of the coalition is still doing us damage. That is to be expected – on areas like the Bedroom Tax many left-leaning voters can’t forgive us yet. Of course, in seats where Labour is our main opponent this effect is exaggerated. We must continue to show voters they can trust us again. Further to that, what can we offer Labour voters that Corbyn can’t? Polling shows that Brexit isn’t yet the electorate’s biggest concern, especially for Labour voters who care about the NHS far more. So where do we have or could we have policy to set ourselves significantly apart and appeal to Labour voters?
Another key issue was the party’s national literature sent from HQ. This seemed to be badly targeted and was perceived as very negative by some voters I spoke to in Leeds. Sending Labour supporters leaflets warning about Corbyn in Downing Street did not help us at all. Sending Brexiteers literature about a hard Brexit was never a good idea.
The other problem with our focus on Brexit is we can’t provide a significantly beefier opposition to Brexit than the handful of anti-Brexit Labour MPs. They were able to run pop-up anti-Brexit campaigns in seats like Leeds NW, Cambridge and Hornsey and Wood Green, making it difficult to squeeze Remainers.
Targeting was another problem. Why were we targeting Vauxhall, with a massive Labour majority, only to lose nearby Richmond by forty-five votes? Manchester Gorton was always a long shot, so why did we divert resources there away from Withington?
Most painfully, Tim felt he had to resign on Wednesday after persistent attacks on his religion. Would John Humphrys ask MPs of other faiths if they ask God for political guidance? Does atheism determine Corbyn’s ideology? These attacks put people of faith off going into politics. I feel Tim could perhaps have been clearer about his position earlier, but Tim was understandably reluctant to discuss his faith knowing the vitriol it would unleash. Anna Soubry, whose colleagues in the Tory Party mostly opposed gay marriage, attacked Tim’s response as ‘appalling and bad’. Why is there one rule for Tim and another for her mates?
Overall I think Tim’s resignation was necessary, but it was sad to see him step down. The bottom line is this: Tim said we’d win eighteen seats and we won twelve. He made the right choice with an understandably heavy heart. I look forward to seeing his continued hard work in Parliament campaigning for a better Britain and of course an even better Lake District.
What do you think? Have I misjudged how Labour voters felt? What else could we improve on? I’d be interested to hear what you think.
* A Liberal in Leeds is the pseudonym for a Lib Dem member. His identity is known to the LDV team.
Follow @libdemvoice.org on Bluesky
Like us on Facebook
Subscribe to our feed
Sign-up for our daily email digest
12 opening scenes from Malcolm in the Middle
Reform drop council by-election candidate Irene Davidson
HERA - Harris Education and Recreation Association updates #dundeewestend
Mick Scholes
Dominic
Andy Chandler
Lyell Yardarms
41 Comments
We definitely need optimism, Tim Farron’s resignation was badly timed and came across a bit ‘look at me’. I only ever thought of him as
an interim leader until some heavy weight returned to Westminster.
The problem more generally is trajectory – overall vote share down again, 350 lost deposits, yes more seats, but a high proportion of losing seats we were
defending, and finally, a total wipe out in Wales – the first time no Liberal returned here since I think 1832. Even in Scotland, with 3 gains as the orange wing of the pro-union faction there are problems – being in fourth place, missing NE Fife by 2 votes and coming a dismal third in Charlie Kennedy’s old
Seat.
The good news is that Jo Swinson’s back, and we have a leadership vacancy
🙂
“”””Manchester Gorton was always a long shot, so why did we divert resources there away from Withington?””””
The question is not Gorton, but why was Withington allowed to ignore being de-targeted, and continue to draw in activists, when it was so obviously a hopeless case early on. Sorry for those who dedicated time there, it was a noble effort, but not hugely useful
Thomas, this was a useful article because it explored things that you know from direct experience … then you spoilt it by saying Tim said we’d win 18 seats and we won 12 and so should go. The previous leader said we’d win a 100 !
The difference in treatment offered to each of these leaders is revealing of a kind of snobbishness that is fundamentally illiberal.
You know who had smashed the Party and lost 5 million votes (never to be regained) by August 2010 and was cosseted and protected for 4 and a half more years of decline and fall.
Come on – you are better than that. You don’t need to show how loyal you are to the dark side.
The problem with ‘Labour voters’ was largely that they did not see their Liberal Democrat candidates understanding and/or representing their needs and aspirations. Was that really surprising?
The most obvious lesson is not to employ anyone responsible for the national campaign in any campaign-related role ever again.
The national campaign was very helpful to retaining a LibDem MP in my area so please let’s not throw out the baby with the bathwater. We must learn constructively from mistakes that were made and ensure that it works even better next time.
Thomas
The other thing about saying Tim’s target was 18, and we only achieved 12, was that we so very nearly took 16. It could hardly be blamed on Tim personally that we didn’t quite manage it in those 4 seats!
Nick Clegg actually targeted 120 (well double 62) for what was to be the 2015 election in the run up to his leadership bid. I remember trying to extract from Chris Bones what the target was for the then next election, if that for 2 elections away was to be 120+. That was at a working group at Conference – like getting blood out of a stone! Quite amazing that a target could be set for 2 elections away but not for the next one!!
He must be the Orange Bookers new cheer leader, but his own leader lost his seat in Sheffield Hallam, at least there the students worked out why they will be saddled with debt in years to come.
@ Bill le Breton & Ian
Bill especially – I’ve never met you, but have become very fond of your comments and insightful analysis (in my view) over the last few months.
I tend to find myself agreeing with 90% of what you say
Everyone is very angry at the moment (justifiably so).
I don’t know any of the people responsible for the National Campaign personally, I’ve never met any of them and don’t even know who they all are.
However, there is a possibility (some may say even a probability), that when the 48% strategy was initiated, it was worth the risk, for this reason:
If you accept that the quickest way of building the core vote (and I appreciate everyone won’t) is not to choose the economic dimension, that has split the party so badly over the last few years, but to take the view that maybe, just maybe the majority of “open and tolerant” members of the electorate (your target audience) probably voted Remain.
Many would agree I think, that is not an unreasonable position to take, even though the downside of this is that you alienate (for now) members of your own party and those ‘targets’ who voted leave.
Remember at the time the party was facing possible extinction, irrelevance, a new leader and desperately needed a USP that would grab attention.
Also, there was very limited resource and no chance of distributing that resource more widely than the target seats come the next election especially a snap one.
The community politics, as many have highlighted, that could “fine tune” local needs was on its knees and the parliamentary party was decimated.
I do not believe it was an unreasonable stance to take and had it worked, in the same way Corbyn’s risk did (for now), it may well have been a way to fast track the Lib Dem vote back to around 15-20%.
Therefore to call, for the heads of possibly very sound people who took a calculated risk could be argued as baby/bathwater?
I know some may say the direction should have been changed sooner, but to be fair, to my knowledge, the polling was still saying right up to election day that the “hard remain” vote was OK not 48%, but maybe 15-20%.
The labour squeeze may well have been real and impossible to predict.
There is an argument to be made that the risk was playing to the section of the electorate most likely to vote Lib Dem based on their VALUES, which is what was and still is needed so badly, without risking splitting the party on the economic dimension.
Sorry Bill, just realised, my eyes are getting tired, it wasn’t you calling for the heads of the campaign team – apologies.
I think the lesson regarding national campaigns is that the people running the target seat have to have 100% control over national campaigning material in that seat. I was a bit shocked to discover that was not the case
However I went to Leeds NW as well, and also know the seat quite well. At the start of the campaign with Labour on 25%, it was going to be an easy hold. By the end of the campaign with Labour on 40% and stealing our tuition fees policy that has never been changed by conference (as far as I know) it was always likely to be a loss, and I really don’t think whatever the national campaign did there will have made much difference. I remember only too well how Labour came from third place to win Leeds NW in 1997, the last time they got a swing to over 40%
I do think though that we need a strategy in target seats that allows everyone who is experienced at canvassing to go out canvassing. Sending all our most experienced activists out delivering leaflets cannot be the best use of their time.
If we want to ever get Leeds NW and Hallam back we need a new policy on tuition fees, and we should take a leaf out to Corbyn election manual and not worry too much about whether we will be implementing it in government… If we had a for students and young graduates that was actually as attractive as Labour’s then national campaign materials (especially online) promoting that and pointing out Labour’s two-faced policy on brexit might have made a difference
@ Mike S
I agree with you that seeing the 48% Remain voters as a pool for us to try to win over made sense. It worked in Richmond Park. I didn’t expect us to keep Richmond Park and I also thought the pool was less than 48%. I think in May it was reported the pool was only about 20-25% and therefore at that stage the Brexit only strategy should have been dropped and our other policies talked up. Also Vauxhall should have been removed from our targets. I even heard Tim on LBC saying we could win Vauxhall (I think in the last two weeks of the campaign).
@ Andrew McCaig
“with Labour on 40% and stealing our tuition fees policy that has never been changed by conference (as far as I know)
“a new policy on tuition fees, and we should take a leaf out to Corbyn election manual and not worry too much about whether we will be implementing it in government”
You are correct our tuition fee policy is to scrap them. I can’t remember if we want to replace them with a graduate tax or not. It is possible this is not the case because it would be unusual for us to have a spending policy and identify how we would pay for it in a Conference motion (a major fault with our policy making process).
We should worry about how we would implement our policies, especially on tuition fees as this seems to have been a problem in 2010 and we don’t want to go there again.
A lesson not mentioned in the OP is not to attack the character or competency of the Labour leadership, leave that to the Tories and not put up attack posters on Tory policies without clearly giving a reason why our policy is better. Maybe the lesson is really don’t go negative!
If you are trying to get Labour voters to vote for us to keep a Tory out I can’t see why attacking Labour would help. If you are trying to get Conservative voters to vote for us to keep Labour out I can’t see why attacking the Conservative Party would help. I think the best squeeze message is that we were second last time, or stating which other party was second last time if we are defending.
“Would John Humphrys ask MPs of other faiths if they ask God for political guidance?”
Paxman once asked Blair he he and George W prayed together
“These attacks put people of faith off going into politics.”
Evidence? It didn’t stop Charles Kennedy or Steve Webb. Ben Bradshaw doesn’t seem to have any problems. David Cairns was a Catholic priest turned MP (and had to get the law changed do to so!) “David Cameron has insisted that being a Christian helps make him a better politician” said the Telegraph on 17th June 2014
Was there any conceivable campaign that would have won a lot of left-leaning voters this time around? Corbyn was offering a soft socialist’s dream list of policies and even May moved leftwards with the cap on energy prices. The opportunity was more with centrist voters who reluctantly voted Labour or Tory, either tactically or because the LDs didn’t offer them a compelling alternative.
Given that the vast majority of LD seats and target seats are now Tory facing, isn’t the real challenge to find policies and messages that will persuade left-leaning voters in those seats to forgive the coalition, and cast tactical votes again? Thus it’s more about detoxifying than trying to compete with the hard left on spending promises.
That could well mean something fresh and generous on tuition fees, but simply promising to scrap them will seem like a flip flop – further harming trust – as well as sacrificing valuable credibility on the public finances. A graduate tax is one option but there are several others.
The West country (Cornwall) in particular was a big disappointment, great candidates (Tessa M, Andrew G) and winnable seats but little to show for it except Bath. I hope that we really get to the bottom as to where our voters from 2001, 2005 and 2010 have gone in the SW, I know the demographics explain a bit but Cornwall was 100% LD just over a decade ago and now LDs have nothing. BREXIT is too simplistic an answer.
We failed to target Labour on their unrealistic economic promises, looked like “Corbyn lite” and as a result didn’t attract centrist voters from either Labour or Tories. We need a robust attack on the waste of money that renationalisation represents.
Badly targeted literature: I received two leaflets, the second was bilingual, and about the Welsh Health Service. This was in Yeovil.
Abolishing tuition fee, simple. 1% increase in basic rate, 1-2% increase in higher rate, and 2.5-5% increase in top rate (over £150k income), similar to our NHS funding. This will beat Labour policy to trash.
Next, I am toying with the reduction of working hours to 6 hrs per day without reducing wage accordingly like in Sweden. Long working hour is found to negatively affect our productivity. Meanwhile, we will invest, say, £50 billion in automation to make up the working hour loss.
For Wales, where our largest steel mill is located, the best policy, I am sure, would be anti-dumping tariff. ANTI-DUMPING. We will also argue that the revenue from anti-dumping tariff will be used to invest in public services. Looking at the way Theresa May vehemently opposed EU anti-dumping, I realize that this is a gap for us. Sometimes we should be flexible on our free trade principle, because anti-dumping will be popular in Wales.
For South West, policies to develop local manufacturing supply chain and to boost full-time employment (the level of full-time employment on SW is lower than national average) will be popular, as well as policy to stimulate tourism.
Oh wait, a pledge to prioritize British steel and components in infrastructure projects will be more realistic than Labour economic dreamland, while allowing us to bash the Tories hard (but only after gaining sufficient media coverage).
For NHS, the most radical policy by far is abolishing internal market.
Colin,
The privatised utlilties are very unpopular and are “foreign” (all that money going abroad), attacking taking back control well lets say few if any votes in that. I know it may be hard to take but privatisation is not popular and it will be even less popular as they privatise the NHS, hitching a ride on lets campaign against nationalisation is swimming against the tide. We need a policy on how we can prevent utility companies ripping off the common man and protecting the NHS. Just one final thought May didnt suggust capping the power companies because they are popular.
@RBH “Given that the vast majority of LD seats and target seats are now Tory facing, isn’t the real challenge to find policies and messages that will persuade left-leaning voters in those seats to forgive the coalition, and cast tactical votes again?”
To what end?
The party should stand for something. Either the party has a vision, policies and messages in which it believes and which it hopes to persuade voters are best for the whole country, or it does not.
Why would anybody in any seat want to support a slippery party that cynically and opportunistically presents itself, chameleon-like, as a repository for tactical votes against whichever of Labour or Conservatives or SNP are the incumbent. It might put bottoms on seats in the Commons to yah-boo-sucks at whoever is on the Government benches, but just like 2010, if the party then has the opportunity to be part of Government it will have to make decisions which will inevitably alienate those people who believed they were voting for the opposite.
By all means, depending upon the audience, emphasise different aspects of a consistent overall set of policies, but simply campaigning negatively in order to appear anti-Labour in one seat and anti-Tory elsewhere is dishonest and, ultimately, futile and damaging.
@Andrew McCaig
I think the lesson regarding national campaigns is that the people running the target seat have to have 100% control over national campaigning material in that seat. I was a bit shocked to discover that was not the case.
That would appear to me sound advice.
A National vision is essential which will hopefully be emphasising key values.
However local intelligence on the ground should gather be experience Campaigners should determine which part of that Campaign are most relevant to individual seats.
Gladstone had religious views. David Lloyd George wanted to disestablish the Church in Wales, which was taxing people who did not attend that church.
Alan Beith had religious views as a Methodist lay preacher and was able to be deputy leader and leadership candidate, losing to Paddy Ashdown. Simon Hughes had religious views in the Church of England.
US Senator John Fitzgerald Kennedy faced a problem in that Protestants were saying that he was “the Catholic candidate”. He went down to the Bible belt and made a speech saying that he was the candidate of the Democratic Party and if elected President he would not be taking orders from the Pope.
Freedom of religion is the best policy as Thomas Jefferson said, appropriate to a multi-faith society and reducing the risk of civil war.
One of our peers was a choirboy at the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth the Second and said that it was a Protestant ceremony and the next coronation should be very different. The title of defender of the faith was not deserved by Henry VIII (probably written by Cardinal Wolsey) and was awarded by a Catholic Pope from which the Church of England separated.
Colin Paine – people dislike the foreign private utilities, because they overcharge British customers to suck money out of Britain to invest in their home infrastructures.
Worse, these foreign utilities are state-owned. For me, this is really stupid. And based on what you’ve said, I think you are an Orange Book cheerleader.
That’s why Corbyn’s policies are popular.
We should promise to renationalize at least water and railway. But, well, we can promise to change the laws so that we can renationalize them with a bunch of gilts instead of paying hard cash.
@Peter Watson
I fully agree on standing for something. I think that should be liberalism. What I question is the wisdom of adopting illiberal, socialist policies in a vain attempt to appeal to left-wing voters in Labour-facing seats. Won’t they just go with Corbyn anyway? The challenge is to propose liberal policies with popular appeal and I think there are many ways to do that.
@ RBH “The challenge is to propose liberal policies with popular appeal and I think there are many ways to do that.”
Such as ?
What’s illiberal about taking Southern Rail out of the hands of incompetent management and other private rail companies out of the hands of an offshore non dom and foreign nationalised operators ?
The fact that our railway is dominated foreign state-owned enterprises is a pure stupidity.
@RBH “I fully agree on standing for something. I think that should be liberalism.”
I’ve been visiting this site for long enough to realise that all Lib Dems agree with that statement.
And then they fall out over what “liberalism” means.
I think the party needs to define more clearly what being a Lib Dem means. Being in Coalition made it apparent that it means different things to different people.
I believe that Lib Dems share a vision of “a fair, free and open society, in which we seek to balance the fundamental values of liberty, equality and community, and in which no one shall be enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity” but they disagree over the extent to which economic liberalism is necessary or desirable to deliver that. Sometimes the distinctions can be quite nuanced but often it is the difference between appearing to be a right-of-centre or a left-of-centre party.
Surprisingly, events over the last few days have also highlighted that even the party’s approach to social liberalism is far from settled. This makes it all the more vital for the party to define itself clearly and consistently in terms of what it stands for and what it will fight for if it finds itself supporting a minority government of either colour, or sadly I fear that it will look increasingly irrelevant.
I didn’t think Tim had to resign because of his religious beliefs but clearly people he talks to did. I think the electorate would actually have been far more impressed if he’d stood by his Christianity from the get go, acknowledged that he understood not everyone agreed, but that it was irrelavent to deciding tax/Brexit/NHS policy. By sidelining the topic he put out the impression that he didn’t have any properly held beliefs and that he was a generic politician who for the sake of votes was willing to say or do whatever a focus group of metropolitan types told him to.
My cartoon on the week
Peter Watson, David Raw – What do you think about these following policies:
– Repeal Health and Social Care Act.
– Abolish NHS internal market.
– Income tax hike to abolish tuition fee: 1% increase on basic rate, 1-2% increase on higher rate, 2-5% increase on top rate (over £150k).
– Converting student debt into government debt.
– Renationalize natural monopolies (begin with water and railway).
– Anti-dumping (will be popular in Wales, whose steel industry was devastated by Chinese dumping two years ago). Anti dumping tariff is a potential source of revenue.
– Export-oriented policies combined with regional supply chain development to balance current account by boosting export earnings.
– Expand the British Business Bank to £25 billion in capitalization, and allow it to raise funds on capital markets by issuing state-backed bonds. The current capital of BBB is only £700m, a total joke.
– Borrowing £200 billion (twice the £100 billion figure in 2017 manifesto) investments in infrastructures, including an £50 billion investment in automation. Investing an additional £1.2bn in automation has the potential to add as much as £60.5bn to the UK economy over the next decade; this represents a return on investment of £49 in economic output for the every £1 invested in manufacturing automation.
http://www.newsroom.barclays.com/r/3273/investment_in_manufacturing_robotics_could_boost_british
– Extend the £100 startup allowance to a full year.
– Land value tax
@A Liberal in Leeds “What do you think about these following policies:”
My own ignorance is an obstacle to commenting on the details, but my gut-feeling is that broadly speaking they do sound like Government interventions that would be trying to make things better.
Perhaps somebody wiser than me could measure them against a scorecard based on the Preamble, something that should probably underpin all Lib Dem policy choices.
@Peter Watson
I think we actually agree on approach. We’d like the party to decide what it means by liberalism, draw policies from that and then argue for them. What I was reacting to above was the implication that because lots of people voted for Labour, more left-wing policies are needed to appeal to them. That seems like an error of tactics and principle.
@David Raw
On the railways, I think the issue is the insane franchise system – splitting track and train – rather than who owns the franchise operators. Instead, why not have some integrated rail lines in the private sector and some in the public sector, then see which work best? Switzerland’s railways are publicly owned and they’re great. Japan’s railways are privately owned and they’re great. Ownership is not the issue.
I think our policy of campaigning for a referendum on “the deal” was right. I reckon the reason why it failed to gain enough traction was that the allegation that a “comprehensive free trade deal” providing virtually all the benefits of the single market without free movement, any jurisdiction by the ECJ or any substantial payment would be achievable while at the same time all of the 27 would continue to impose all these obligations upon themselves. You only have to write that to realise how ludicrous that is – yet it was peddled by both Tories and Labour. However the election came too soon – before reality had set in.
Here is a prediction – that “second referendum” will prove unavoidable and the Lib Dem view will be vindicated. At least in this election we survived and can play some part in the ongoing process. But to do so we must be vocal and not be afraid to press our case.
Looks like a lot of people on this thread need to join the Labour Party! As someone who works for a despised foreign wined utility company I see high quality employment being created and prices being driven down by competition, not regulation. That sounds more liberal to me..
Andrew McCaig
If we want to ever get Leeds NW and Hallam back we need a new policy on tuition fees,
What new policy? When did our party ever withdraw from its policy of opposing tuition fees?
The policies put forward by the Coalition were NOT Liberal Democrat policies. So why use language that suggests they are? Oh sure, Labour does that, but we should have actively argued against that.
The reality of the Coalition is that it had to agree on compromise solutions, with the balance of parties and the lack of any alternative government meaning the Liberal Democrats were in a position of weakness and could only really swing things if there was a fairly even balance in the Conservative Party.
Tuition fees were not “Liberal Democrat policy”, not something we initiated because we really wanted it. The decision was made by those LibDem MPs in government (and opposed by most who did not have government positions) to accept it in order to fight for an agreement that loans would be available to all and would not have to be paid off until income made it possible. Had this not been done, the alternative would have been big cuts in order to be able to continue subsidising universities.
I think the first thing we should have done is abolished interest payment on the loans. Then made it clear what tax rises would be necessary to pay for the alternative – which, of course, Labour has not properly done.
Colin Paine
As I posted during the referendum debate “Let’s hear it for regulation”!
How many more events like Grenfell Tower will it take before people in this party start to realise we NEED regulation – and we need enforcement. I too would like to believe people left to their own devices will work practically and cooperatively together, I know these days that if you have one or a small number in it “for themselves”, before you know it everybody is doing it (whatever breach of sensible behaviour / rules it is).
We need to copy what both the Tories did in 2015, when they didn’t expect to win, and what Labour have just done when they didn’t expect to win, and be utterly shameless in our policies. Double the income tax threshold, scrap both tuition fees and social care fees, give everyone under 25 the latest iPhone and iPad. Don’t worry about how it will be paid for, the voters don’t care. Enough of them will fall for it to resurrect the Party!
@LibDemDavid – even the Labour party in Sheffield Hallam disagree that Nick Clegg lost his seat due to students! Most of the students were gone or doing exams and the Labour vote only went up 2%. However the Tory vote went up 10% as Tory to LD tactical voters were lost. That’s how Labour won. They didn’t expect it and neither did anyone else. See article here: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jun/10/nick-clegg-loss-surprises-lib-dems-and-labour-alike
I am a Conservative living in a very strong Conservative seat which has long been the subject of failed LibDem campaigning. I get very regular LibDem leaflets. However, they are always negative – always making the lead item an attack on local conservatives. It’s really daft, because in attacking the Conservative representatives you’re also attacking the voters themselves! Even Labour leaflets sometimes acknowledge Tory successes locally but you never do. Try a bit of positive campaigning – you may find it works!
How many of the new Lib Dem MPs identify themselves as Christians (of any kind)? And how many of the new Lib Dem MPs believe in the traditional Judeo-Christian teaching on homosexuality and marriage?