Welcome to Lib Dem Newswire #191, the last edition before Christmas. And so perhaps the last edition too before Ed Davey goes skydiving:
You can help make that happen by getting the song here.
If you still have some last minute present shopping to do, I have a few gift suggestions.
Before we get stuck into this edition, congratulations to our councillors newly elected since last time, along with their agents: Linda Chatfield, Andrew Baxter, Nick O’Donnell, Matt Pickard, Willis Marshall, Richard Watson, David Goodwin, Crispin Topping and Andy Waters.
Happy reading,
Mark
P.S. If you haven’t had a chance to read the previous edition of Lib Dem Newswire it is online here: A guaranteed way to lose votes. If you are not a yet subscriber you can sign up to get future editions direct to yourself:
What next for the Liberal Democrats?
There is, quite rightly, a lot of discussion - and a lot of working - going into analysing the lessons from the last Westminster Parliament and the new political landscape now in front of us. There is the policy review being run by the Federal Policy Committee (FPC), the general election review headed up by Tim Farron and the start of our next party strategy process, which will hopefully include a session at our Harrogate Conference in March.
As a contribution to these debates, I’ve co-authored a pamphlet with policy review member, and former FPC member, Jim Williams. We dig into the lessons of what worked for the party so well in July - and in May - along with what the electoral landscape tells us about where the party might want to go next.
It is available in full for free online:
(When you open it up, you can go to File/Download to get a pdf version if that is how you prefer to read longer documents.)
And once you have read it, by all means hit reply to share your views or questions.
Beating Labour and seeing off Reform in Sheffield
Here’s my latest report for Liberal Democrat members and supporters. These reports also appear on the party website.
Happy Christmas and New Year
Once again, we end the year with more Liberal Democrat MPs, more Liberal Democrat council leaders and more Liberal Democrat councillors than we started the year. We also have in Ed Davey the main party leader who consistently comes out best in the polls.
You have already heard many statistics from myself and others about that progress, so this time I will simply share perhaps my favourite. There are now 25 Liberal Democrat MPs with a majority over 10,000… and just 5 (!) Conservatives.
That is a huge tribute to the personal vote built up by so many of our campaigners, supported by people’s kind collective efforts across the party … and a sign of just how much political trouble the Conservatives are still in. Trouble that Labour has been remarkably quick to run into too. It is impressive how many Liberal Democrat campaigners have been out in the cold and rain, winning council by-elections and building support with campaigns on topics such as the Winter Fuel Allowance.
Willis Marshall’s dramatic win for us in Sheffield recently captured much of the current state of our politics. A cracking Lib Dem campaign and candidate, scoring a 27% vote share increase to take a seat off the Labour Party in an area where we had not won before - and in the process, seeing off Reform - who surged up into second place - by just 10 votes, while the Conservative vote fell by three-quarters. In other words - our areas of success spreading, holding Labour to account and winning ourselves, rather than leaving the political space for the populists to fill.
Such successes are only possible thanks to the generous combined efforts of our members, staff, donors and volunteers. A deep thank you to everyone who has contributed to our successes this year, and the very best of luck for the challenges to come next year. But before that, I hope everyone gets a good break over Christmas and New Year.
Next steps in the party’s strategy
Work is starting on developing our new strategy for this Westminster Parliamentary cycle. How do we build on our success in electing 72 MPs this July and making gains in every round of local elections in the last Parliament? How do we spread our success more widely? And what do we need to change about how we operate to achieve that?
The answers to those and other questions will draw heavily on the work of our General Election Review, chaired by Tim Farron, which is on course to be finalised at the end of the year. Look out for news about their findings and recommendations early in 2025.
But those questions also need your input, which is why we are starting up a round of consultation Zoom calls with local and regional parties to gather views and share some initial thoughts.
You can book a 75 minute Zoom call for the members of your local or regional party to discuss our strategy plans with me by dropping an email to president@libdems.org.uk.
Your views, please
After our last big set of internal Federal Party elections, there was a review of the whole process, which consulted with members and candidates and made a wide-ranging set of recommendations.
The Federal Board is now consulting on the details of how to implement a batch of them that would require rules changes to go to the Federal Spring Conference in March (and so need to be submitted in January).
We have published most of the proposals in draft form, such as technical wording changes to make the rules clearer. We are also consulting on the question of whether or not to raise the nominations threshold, an issue the review recommended to be considered. If you have not seen it yet, you can read more about this and submit your feedback here.
The deadline for responses is 3 January so that the views can be considered at the January Board meeting ahead of that conference submission deadline.
Other party news
Our constitution provides for a leadership election after each general election. The one for this time around was kicked off a few weeks back, with the Federal Board having agreed a timetable and expense limits, based on consultation with the Returning officer. At close of nominations, there was one candidate, Ed Davey, who was therefore declared re-elected unopposed.
In related internal election news, questions quite often come up during internal elections about whether members who have opted-out of fundraising emails or similar are still being sent online voting instructions. Our data and data protection teams at HQ have confirmed that such ballot emails can be sent to all members who have given the party their email address, excluding only those who have explicitly opted out of ballot emails. The party’s central Iterable email system is set up to use this selection for ballot emails. If you are a Returning Officer using a different email system for a party ballot that is not run via Iterable, you can confer with the HQ team to ensure that the right email list is being used.
The written answers to all the committee questions tabled at our last Federal Conference were published on the party website. You can find them here.
Do you have questions on any of this report, or other Lib Dem matters? Then please drop me a line on president@libdems.org.uk. Do also get in touch if you would like to invite me to do a Zoom call with your local party or party body.
Podcast: Lessons from a century of Labour-Liberal (Democrat) relations
The latest episode of Never Mind The Bar Charts takes a look at a book that has made me rethink several things I thought I knew about the history of the Liberal Democrats and Liberals before them.
It also contains some wonderfully acerbic photo captions and some not terribly kind words about David Lloyd George.
It is a book from another David – David Laws – and is a history of Labour – Liberal (Democrat) relations over the last century.
Listen to my discussion with David on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube or on the web.
Get the book: Serpents, Goats and Turkeys – a century of Liberal-Labour relations: Amazon, Waterstones or Bookshop.org.
🎧Find all the episodes of Never Mind The Bar Charts here.
📟 Sign up for a dedicated email notification each time a new episode appears here.
How Labour could have fuelled growth: Lib Dems in the news
Health and social care
Ed Davey calls for cross-party talks on how to reform the social care system in the long-term along with immediate measures.
“I needed life-saving surgery and without it I only had four days left to live”: Daisy Cooper talks with Nick Robinson.
Hundreds of thousands hit by ruinous carer’s allowance penalties, audit shows.
David Chadwick presses Labour over ambulance waits.
Economy and cost of living
Daisy Cooper writes for the New Statesman: “This is how Labour could have fuelled growth”.
Winter fuel cut to put 50,000 into poverty next year.
Environment and water industry
"This latest shocking rise in sewage spills must be the final straw for Thames Water. The government must put this broken firm into special administration,” says Tim Farron.
“I left COP29 with hope in my heart” - Pippa Heylings.
Europe
“The Government needs to be more ambitious about rebuilding stronger ties with our European allies. It’s difficult to understand why they are failing to pursue the UK-EU Youth Mobility Scheme.,” says Daisy Cooper.
Housing
Josh Babarinde does Channel 4’s Political Slot on the Lib Dem vision to tackle hidden homelessness.
“We have to reverse, not just freeze, the flow of homes out of the social housing stock. We must build 150,000 social homes every year if we are to eliminate homelessness and restore affordability” - Vikki Slade.
Lib Dems getting housing built, part 94: Winchester council leader Martin Tod opens six new Passivhaus Plus homes built by the council.
Other issues
Ed Davey responds to the International Criminal Court issuing arrest warrants for Israel PM Benjamin Netanyahu, ex-defence minister Yoav Gallant and Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif: “The UK Government must uphold and enforce the ICC's ruling”.
MPs back Sarah Olney's bill for proportional representation - by just 2 votes!
Ed Davey: Now is not the time to turn our backs on family farms.
Josh Babarinde criticises Conservative MPs for voting against plan to keep abusers and murderers locked up.
Danny Chambers’s Puppy Smuggling Bill (against, not for) took a huge step closer to becoming law.
People news
Former Sutton Council leader Ruth Dombey appointed to Committee on Standards in Public Life.
Wendy Chamberlain made a Vice-President at Carers UK as well as winning an MP of the Year award from the Patchwork Foundation.
Floella Benjamin to be a guest editor of the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.
Ed Davey: After I was orphaned my family forgot it was my birthday on Christmas Day.
The Guardian’s obituary for former SDP MP John Cartwright.
📲 You can get updates like the above in real time through my WhatsApp updates 2-3 times a week. Sign up details here.
What really goes into election leaflets?
In case you missed them first time, here is a selection of posts from my websites and newsletters since last time:
What the polls are saying
Votes
Leaders
For more details on both the above tables, and for updates in-between editions of LDN, take a look on my website here.
Issues
In other polling news…
Selection news
Mike Ross has been selected for next May’s election to the new post of Mayor of Hull and East Yorkshire.
Council by-elections round-up
The by-elections since last time have seen one week with a cluster of disappointing Lib Dem results in contests with the Conservatives, but then a wonderful gain from Labour in Sheffield, a return to form against the Conservatives and an impressive victory over a big Reform push in Barnsley.
The net seat changes are Conservative +6, Reform +3, Green +/-0, SNP +/-0, Plaid +/-0, Lib Dem -2, Labour -3 and Independents/Others -4.
This brings net seat changes since the last May local elections to Conservative +22, Reform +6, Green +4, Plaid +/-0, Lib Dem -1, SNP -1, Independent/Others -8 and Labour -22.
On vote share, the picture is:
The historic context for these numbers has been worked out by the New Statesman.
In other changes, there was an unfortunate sequel to an earlier Lib Dem win in Edinburgh and councillors have switched to non-aligned in Durham and independents in North East Derbyshire. But councillors have also switched to the Liberal Democrats in Buckinghamshire and The Highlands.
Can you help?
Liberal Democrat Newswire is provided for free but isn’t free to run. Thank you so much to all the kind readers who donate to help cover its costs. It's quick and easy to sign up for a small regular donation with your debit card using GoCardless:
£10 per month / £5 per month / £2.50 per month / £1 per month
Thank you! (Other donation options, including by PayPal or cheque, are here.)
And finally…
I did have to double-check with Cllr Paul Hodgkinson that this photo of some road markings is real. It is.
If you enjoyed this newsletter, why not forward it to a friend or share it online:
Thank you and best wishes,
Mark
Note: Links to books in the newsletter are usually affiliate links that generate a commission for sales made.