All political parties are now used to the endless scrutiny of electoral pundits. With a seemingly endless tranche of data to trawl through, psephologists are forever asking how each party is doing – with even a drop of just 1% or 2% in the polls often leading to earnest debates about whether a bounce has come to an end or whether momentum is slipping away.
But if most parties (in a very crowded field) are used to dealing with questions about how they are performing, the Liberal Democrats are often faced with being asked: “Why are you here at all?” That’s if anyone can even bother to lob a question in their general direction.
There’s a paradox about the situation the Lib Dems find themselves in. After their near-death experience following the coalition government with the Conservatives, they have built an impressive bridgehead of 72 seats in Parliament. You have to go back more than a century to find a time when there were more MPs in the Liberal interest.
They have also finally managed to crack the First Past The Post electoral system, with their tally in the Commons almost identical to what it would have been had we voted under proportional representation.
Since 2024, they have perhaps dipped a little in the polls from the 12.6% vote share they secured at that election – but only by a tad. They remain a strong, if geographically patchy, force in local government. The personal ratings of their leader, Sir Ed
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It always makes me laugh that this moron goes on about fighting populism. The lying deceivers have always been about bandwagon populism, campaigning for something in one constituency and against it in the neighbouring one – many will remember the Newbury bypass shenanigans. In this area we have a LibDem council rubber stamping inappropriate housing development while the MP campaigns against it. This weekend, they called for a reduction in fuel duty, while last year pushing the climate and nature bill, to end car use. Finally, I am sure we were all entertained by the live footage at 9:00am yesterday on GBNews of campaigners lining up to welcome the moron who was going to serve fish and chips (why so early??) and having to rehearse how to applaud him on arrival. You would think they admire him so much that the applause would be spontaneous.
“… they have built an impressive bridgehead of 72 seats in Parliament.”
That’s a fluke. 80% of the electorate didn’t bother to vote. The Lib Dems has always been a vote-park for disgruntled Labour voters wanting to vote but not Conservative, ditto for disgruntled Conservatives not wanting to vote Labour – and others who say “a pox on both houses”.
Reform UK had only just started up.
To say they “built” their electoral success is a bit of a stretch. They got there by default, nothing they actually did. We’ll see what happens next time.
When choosing a leader they need to consider what Reform might do to their election results. Surrey Heath for example ought to be winnable for Reform.
I’m surprised that the members haven’t fled the party in droves after the debacle of Ed Davey overseeing the Post Office.
He certainly isn’t at all serious – other than in the sense that he has caused serious harm to many. I’m surprised that he hasn’t been charged with malfeasance in a public office.
Never heard of any of the three names mooted by Mark as possible leadership contenders.
Daisy Cooper does get some airtime but stands out as one of the worst dressed MPs in the house, looking like a lesbian but apparently isn’t.
“This all combines to mean that we will probably face a Lib Dem leadership election at some point in the next 12 months.”
There’s probably more interested in the outcome of Strictly, than in who the next LibDem leader is going to be
I cant for the life if me see the point in the LibDems. Their policies such as they are, are covered by other parties, they will never see power again, not for the foreseeable, so they are irrelevant. Davey is a dreadful idiot, but in the light of my earlier comment, what difference dies it make.?
Ah, yes, the wide open gob that says “I am a fun person”, and “I enjoy making a tit of myself and pretending to have fun”.
The end of Ed Davey cannot come soon enough but then that applies to the whole of the LD party. Too many people are conned into thinking they’re somehow conservatives with a conscience when they belong in the same category as Lab and Green, ie wrong about pretty much everything.
ed davey received a knighthood for ‘political and public’ service and not as widely believed for being ‘a clown in Billy Smarts circus’.
just shows how useless the honours system is. Taking thousands from the solicitors who incorrectly pursued the PO managers for a start.
I feel sorry for those who have worked hard and been awarded a knighthood when along come Ed The Clown. Most of his ‘public service’ has been against the public good.
you’re not wrong there.
To be honest I’m against people being awarded honours just for doing the job they’re paid for in the first place. The salary is the reward. But I take your point.
aye, it needs a good overall, but we know it won’t happen. they are all aiming for the same goal, a seat in the lords. best old folks home in the country.
I thought it was hundreds of thousands
£275,000 I understand.
Frankly a fiver and a Tesco meal deal would have been immoral but yes I believe you and GasBoy75 below are correct.
Until ‘None of the above’
appears on a ballot paper I guess the LibDems have a role to play?
They often seem to be a halfway house for Tory voters who cannot make the whole step to voting Labour, particularly in the Southern part of England. This shows up in councils as in Surrey we will be going from a Tory county council to two LimpDumb councils replacing our district councils, which in our case was run by independents/residents after ejecting the Tories.
In my constituency they literally campaign on ‘it’s either us or the Tories, we are the only ones who can stop them’.
Just as Clegg never recovered politically (though he’s been very well looked after elsewhere) over reneging on student fees, Ed Davey is permanently damaged by his failure to address the Post Office/Horizon scandal.
I don’t know, he seems to have got away with that, somehow.
The Lib Dems are mainly a none of the above comfort zone. Thanks to 14 wasted years of the Conservatives’ left wing prime ministers we ended up with a Lib Dem MP in a once safe Conservative seat.
Needless to say our MP just votes along with Labour every time.
When you have a LibCON Party, you don’t leave much space for a LibDem one.
Which is precisely the calculation which the CON Party grandees and Cameron made and has resulted in neither of them capable of gaining a majority and winning a General Election.
Their problem is that the Tories stole Centrism, and they became a sump for identity nutjobs who weren’t quite Communist. Even Polanski was a LibDem.
Their recent electoral successes is just a byproduct of the public’s dissatisfaction with the mediocrity of the two main parties.
They are just another section of the Uniparty.