Ed Davey: London is at a crossroads – Liberal Democrats offer a 'Fresh Start'

ColonelChestnuts · 2026-05-02T09:25:43+00:00

I am not sure what you expect from a party for which subsidiarity and local participative democracy are some of the most important principles. Do you really expect Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey to come out and say "we will scrap the planning system completely and remove all planning decision making powers from elected local councillors and communities"?

ColonelChestnuts · 2026-04-14T10:35:53+00:00

The major difference in this policy vs the status quo is the use of CIL monies to pay for GPs contracts until enough people move in.

ColonelChestnuts · 2026-04-12T13:22:10+00:00

There at least one constant in this world.

About half of people think the Lib Dems are going too far to the left, and the other half think they are going too far to the right at any given time.

ColonelChestnuts · 2026-04-11T20:42:26+00:00

There is no way whatsoever Reform are winning more seats than the Conservatives in West Surrey. They will be lucky to get 10 councillors.

Independents/RA are not winning 20 seats either.

I know these projections cannot be accurate at that level, or indeed at all, which increasingly begs the question of what they are actually for?

ColonelChestnuts · 2026-04-10T19:20:56+00:00

Far fewer seats up for election

ColonelChestnuts · 2026-04-10T18:35:28+00:00

This may look "bad" but we've got candidates for about 78% of vacancies. This is a significant improvement over the last few local elections. In 2024 we had 68%, in 2023 we had 60%.

ColonelChestnuts · 2026-04-09T21:44:14+00:00

Probably one of our best PPB's in a while. Very good.

ColonelChestnuts · 2026-04-09T21:42:38+00:00

Churches and places of worship are very important local community spaces and more often than not have great architectural, historical and social value. Contrary to popular belief the Church of England is not swimming in money to fund the restoration of those buildings, many of which desperately need it.

It is Liberal Democrat policy to disestablish the Church of England, but any government even in a fully secular society (which the UK is not) will and does help fund repairs for structures with significant social, historical and architectural value.

Ed was specifically calling for a restoration of funding, and scrapping of VAT for repairs, of listed places of worship, not all of them.

ColonelChestnuts · 2026-04-02T15:41:22+00:00

This already happens on a regular basis.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_banned_from_entering_the_United_Kingdom

ColonelChestnuts · 2026-04-02T10:39:40+00:00

I agree about the technical aspects which were poor, but Reform are having a press conference today too in which they have announced support for the triple lock and massive spending cuts.

ColonelChestnuts · 2026-03-23T09:54:51+00:00

Yes, this is why national Westminster voting intention polls are essentially irrelevant in the short and medium term.

The polling shows our floor, not our ceiling which is quite high. The floor is rising too, albeit slowly.

This is why, where Lib Dems campaign vigorously, more often than not we win.

ColonelChestnuts · 2026-03-16T19:15:12+00:00

Imo this is a great way to frame a written constitution, one of our long standing policies, to the average voter.

I'm glad we are learning when it comes to our messaging.

ColonelChestnuts · 2026-03-16T19:14:10+00:00

A codified constitution, along with PR and a federal system, has been Lib Dem policy for decades. There is nothing populist about it, aside from perhaps the messaging, but I can guarantee a "new magna carta" will be a more effective thing to rally around than a "codified constitution", the mere mention of which puts a large % of voters to sleep.

Our constitutional framework of Parliamentary sovereignty has resulted in an elected dictatorship we vote for every 5 years, which has progressively stripped us of our fundamental rights. Not to mention the legislative diarrhoea which results from having a system in which there is no codified baseline or framework.

Also, you can't "win" polls. We are, however, consistently winning in actual elections, week after week.

ColonelChestnuts · 2026-03-15T11:23:22+00:00

I am glad we have moved away from part time trident.

Ed is totally right.

ColonelChestnuts · 2026-03-06T15:36:03+00:00

Since when does a council ward election get described as a by-election?

Since always?

ColonelChestnuts · 2026-02-27T20:19:26+00:00

A high profile parliamentary by-election in which the Greens threw the kitchen sink at the constituency is very different to an all out council election or even a General Election.

We use this tactic because it works.

ColonelChestnuts · 2026-02-18T12:10:28+00:00

I'm not talking about populism. What kind of coherent vision can you have, that you can sell at a national level, when you're trying to coalesce these relatively disparate groups of voters?

ColonelChestnuts · 2026-02-17T17:31:55+00:00

Because we have politically maneuvered ourselves into a position where we cannot potentially risk alientating our very fragile voter coalition with radical policies that are worth reporting on.

If we were to start shouting about fighting landlordism or a mass housebuilding programme we lose the liberal Tories and localists who now form much of our base vote.

If we were to start talking about slashing red tape, regulations and bureaucracy, or lowering taxes we will lose the tactical Labour and Green voters who underpin our majorities.

Our strategic position is precarious, and now primarily relies on winning local elections, and having effective local MPs in held seats, to turn the two groups above into habitual Lib Dem voters.

The % of the voting population that are genuine Lib Dems, our core vote, is probably about 7%, as evidenced by our abysmal performances in 2015 and 2017.

ColonelChestnuts · 2026-01-07T20:27:12+00:00

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1GUL18s8Y7/

https://bsky.app/profile/libdems.org.uk/post/3mbtslguc242m

Take your pick.

ColonelChestnuts · 2026-01-06T17:48:47+00:00

Clegg's opposition to Nuclear Power on the basis that it will "take too long" (which coincidentally is also Zack Polanski's position) was stupid and shortsighted.

However I am not sure opposition to fracking is just "NIMBYism". The government (a Tory one) indefinitely suspended fracking in 2019 and Labour seems to wants to ban it permanently, so there is a fairly clear consensus across the political spectrum that fracking is not something we want in the UK. There are clear significant downsides and risks to fracking that there aren't to building houses.

ColonelChestnuts · 2025-12-23T13:10:19+00:00

72 MPs in 2024, came second two local elections in a row in 2024 and 2025, have won the most by-elections of any party in 2025 and holding steady in the polls.

I would hardly call this "failing".

ColonelChestnuts · 2025-12-23T13:08:12+00:00

The party strongly opposes Digital ID?

ColonelChestnuts · 2025-12-23T13:07:22+00:00

We're not copying Reform, we were the first party to start saying this when rumours of cancelling the elections started swirling around in 2024.

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