Election Success for the Lib Dems: What Now? 

The bungee jumping was actually a metaphor for people who never voted Libdem to vote Libdem in the election as he hadn't ever bungee jamped in his life before with him trying to use that to get people onboad to vote Libdem! Davey said it himself in an interview.

@@polishraspberriesSome may say their election strategy is silly and unserious, but it makes the party as a whole extremely likeable. Ed Davey just seems like your fun uncle.

@@user-df1ns1ob8y He seems like the mentally challenged uncle.

Seriously, their extra million in short money should just go to more stunts ;)

@@jeffgilmour1107 this fr next election I expect Ed Davey doing a sick wheelie over a jump with all this funding

She's pissed they're not already in CA

Right?! 😂 She looks like the spectre of death come to reap his soul! Shame there isn't much of one to collect

She's like a ghost from Bly Manor

Yes I thought the same. The Ghost at the end of a long feast

Yes. I really hope they can become the main opposition party. Let's work to get rid of the tories once and for all.

Well it was unconventional

His campaign was a brilliant piece of political satire. Made a complete mockery of our electoral system by refusing to campaign and going on a water sports holiday instead.

​@@IAMMARTICUS1470having fun while campaigning is hardly refusing to campaign, it was more a commentary on how drab the politics of his opponents can be

The Lib Dems definitely campaigned really hard in the seats they thought they could win.

The Commons is named after commoners, y'know, us plebs. However, the Barnett Formula (for devolved adminstration budgets) is a temporary measure (1978) named after Joel Bernett.

Sandwiches are named after the Earl of Sandwich.

@@glyngreen538 I thought you were messing with me but that seems to check out; Next we are going to find out that Land's End is named after Arkhan Land

General Elections were invented by Harry General.

​​@@guybrushthreepwood362 the Emperor's real name is Jimmy Space, and they are his Space Marines

Congratz.

Democracy is so beautiful, isn't it?

Exactly, the system is a joke. You should be able to vote for who you actually want to win

Well done Stratford! Hopefully we can eventually change to a proportional system so that tactical voting won’t be as necessary... But I don’t see it changing anytime soon.

@@craigewen7542 choosing to tactical vote literally is democracy lmao

Only if you think the theatrics he performs are somehow genuine. I'm sure the people who suffered when he didn't bother looking into the post office scandal are thrilled.

We don't need a father figure as a leader. Post office scandal.

@@0w784g I'm sorry but the right wing smears have failed.

Lol it's funny to see leftists simping for a right wing party

Not being contrary but that's literally what they try to do, all politicians wanna seem like "One of us".

In a good way

He is the daddiest dad to have ever dad. I can imagine Ed has top tier dad jokes.

Yesss, and hopefully the Greens and pro-Palestine independents will do the same!

​@@robo3007 you are genuinely evil

@@robo3007 The independents are just a joke really, most of them will lose their seats next time.

@@robo3007 The greens need to get their act together first. They only won 4 seats this election, despite coming second in a further 48, and they won't win many more while they're still openly in conflict with themselves on such basic points of their platform as **building green energy infrastructure.**

As if they’ll change anything.

They can’t. It’s incredibly unlikely they’d replace Labour.

​@@gameofender4463 I think they mean the tories.

@@Charliebob159 I know, but what I’m saying is that since the Lib Dems share the same political ground as Labour. Any gains for the Lib Dems would come from Labour losing ground. TLDR, your average Tory voter isn’t going to switch to a left-wing party. They’re going to vote for who’s more like them. And that’s Reform. So, they can’t replace the Tories as they’re not on the same “team” as the Tories, only Reform is. Meaning that the only other party that can realistically affect/convince Tory voters is Reform.

​@@gameofender4463Not necessarily true. Many centre right tory voters do not like reform so they may vote lib dem

@@thysupremematrix4327 Or not vote at all. Put it this way, if the Tories disbanded or really declined substantially. The vast majority would go to Reform.

"The Lib Dems’ first step should be to try and outshine the tories as opposition." Shouldn't be quite THAT difficult, if you'd ask me!!!

​@@gunorijssel7987I agree. 😅😅😅😅😅😅😅

The tactics they have to fight most now will be against the Greens and Reform. However in many areas their vote was built on a solid base of experience of good councillors.

I don’t see them replacing Labour though. Imo, there’s always going to a left-wing bloc and a right-wing bloc. The Lib Dems can’t be the opposition to Labour while also being on the left.

@@gameofender4463we trying to replace the tories not labour

@@jacobconcannon4677 Except you can’t while being on the opposite side of the political spectrum. That’s like trying to replace the Republicans with the Greens. That’s not how it works. The Tories are the largest right-wing party. The only party they’d change to is probably Reform. As there’s always going to be a big party on both the right and the left. TLDR, the Lib Dems share the same ground/base as Labour. As they’re the most ideologically aligned. Meaning any LD gains would come from Labour loses.

@@jacobconcannon4677 That’s not how it works. You’re not looking at it properly. The Lib Dems are too similar to Labour. Tory voters are very unlikely to switch to a party that’s ideologically different to them. So any gains the Lib Dems make would come from Labour, not the Tories.

​@@gameofender4463Thats not necessarily true. Many tory voters vote lib dems when they are dissatisfied with labour, and if they are not far right wing enough to vote reform

The Lib Dems increased their vote share by roughly 0.7%, and were 2 points behind Reform. FPTP worked well for the Lib Dems, very well, and you may not like Reform but they make up a bigger proportion of the vote share despite losing to FPTP

​@@OliverRPendleThink the point of the comment is that historically they've focused on parties with more seats eather than according to vote share, by focusing disproportionately on the Tories and Labour. Or at least that's how I interpreted it, it's hard to tell.

@@OliverRPendleI wouldn’t say FPTP worked well for them. They got 12% of votes and 11% of seats.

@@2Links I think that's part of the problem, the constant focus on seats over vote share perpetuates FPTP which emboldens the 2-party system. Lib Dems only got seats because of the collapse of the Tory Vote, to focus on them now because they happen to have a hugely disproportionate number of seats to their actual number of votes would be counterintuitive

@@OliverRPendle Yeah, how I read the original comment they're saying "if you're going to continue covering according to seats, at least cover Lib Dem more than Reform now". Definitely agree that media coverage plays into it. Reform does deserve its fair share (although personally I do think they've been getting a decent amount recently). Greens are probably covered too little as well, even though they have a much smaller vote share.

This. The rabid press frothing at anything Fartage did while *ignoring* longstanding, established and productive parties was disgusting. TLDR not as bad as some but they were all guilty of it.

@@distinctdipole You sound obsessed with Farage. Perhaps if you spent less time looking him up you'd get less recommendations about him in your feed. 😂

Farage party is the renamed UKIP party, it's not new. ​@@distinctdipole Farage is a despicable human and I am glad some media is covering him as so, yet the right wing media hails him, hey ho.

@@0w784g Obessed how? And certainly haven't been looking him up. He's been unavoidable.

Translate to English "LOVE ME" What?? Lol.

This has a translate option on it that translates to LOVE ME 🤣🤣🤣

LMAO love that translation xD

Having a pint with? I'm sure he's great. Dealing with serious PM shit? Absolutely not.

It’s pretty brave considering how toxic and polluted our water ways are these days (partly what he was trying to link / highlight with it too).

I'm not a Lib Dem voter, I actually voted for the Greens, but I do hope the Lib Dems can overtake the Tories someday. We need someone other than the main 2 parties in opposition and Ed Davey comes across as a good bloke who actually cares, especially regarding his son. I think that unless the Tories stop this infighting and actually get a leader who's electable or at least popular enough, the Lib Dems could at least be very close to becoming the party of opposition one day if not actually becoming that. However, it'll sadly take a long time due to the broken FPTP system, but I of course could be wrong. I thought the Tories would retain about 150 seats and Labour would win around 350, so I was definitely a bit far off there lol.

They tend to make a lot of mistakes like that. These guys are pretty ignorant for wannabe journalists.

@@MS-tg6hc “Wannabe” journalism is greatly preferable to most “journalism” most know of.

Actually dark, really dark. If you wannt me to say colored.

Just commenting here, waiting for the replies.

in the uk ? no

Yeah. If they can't manage to switch some labour voters into lib dem voters, they'll have wasted a great opportunity to grow and be a real candidate for opposition

Despite this, they had a majority of the votes together (52%). Obviously, we can't know how people would have voted in a system where individual people are represented instead of regions. Still, if such a system was in use, and a majority of people thought they were the party that represented them best, then they would indeed have had an parliamentary majority :)

That's true, but they were close enough that a coalition would have been feasible, albeit with a tiny majority like much of the later 1970's. With reasonable incentives, it is very likely the SDLP MPs would have joined a coalition with their longtime Labour allies, especially with the Lib Dems onboard too. Getting the SNP to join would have been harder, but surely achievable, e.g. in exchange for a referendum on Scottish independence. That would have made 258 Labour + 57 Lib Dem + 3 SDLP + 6 SNP = 324. Excluding 5 Sinn Fein and the Speaker, that would give a majority of 4. It's understandable the Lib Dems chose Cameron as Plan A, with a working majority and no other partners to worry about. But they definitely had an alternative, and that gave them a stronger hand in negotiations.

I agree. The move here is definitely to work towards becoming the opposition to a Labour government (if they don't fumble this and win again)

@@merlumili the other thing we can speculate about is how the lib dems will manage the changes in popularity of the two main parties going forward. For instance, we know they can be successful in combination with a popular Labour Party and an unpopular Tory party (1997,2024). We know they can be successful with an unpopular Labour Party and an unpopular Tory party (2005). What we don’t yet know is how they would fair with an unpopular Labour Party and a popular Tory party (because coalition had ruined their chances when this was the scenario). The scary labour leader definitely screws the lib dems when labour is in opposition - but isn’t a factor when labour is in power. However, I’m not certain we will be testing this any time soon as the Tories look like they might go through a couple of William Hague’s and Michael Howard’s again before coming to their senses - and given the difference in numbers between the Tories and lib dems now as compared to 1997 - that might just be enough time of the Tories looking like wing nuts for the lib dems to usurp them.

​@@goldboy150 On your final point, It definitely looks like the Tories wil lbe going further right and go all in on the culture war anti-woke rhetoric in terms of its leader and direction to try and hoover up reform votes rather than going more to the centre to try and hoover up labour. Which could lead to the remaining moderate tory vote (if they even still exist) going to the Lib Dems.

Coincidentally, I think an exception to that would be the Liberals and Labour Party once or twice in the early 1900s.

@@wildfire9280 an exception to what? Too much has been said in this thread for me to know precisely what you’re referring to. Let me know and I’ll address it

The Liberals abandoned their laissez-faire (or what would now be called "libertarian") origins a long time ago. But then in the UK that kind of "Let the market do as it likes" ideology has a very dark history, being blamed for the extreme poverty much highlighted in Charles Dickens' novels and in the horrific mass starvations laissez-faire ideology caused in the Irish potato famine of the 1840s. Traditionally, Tories were the party of ancient continuity. They served the aristocracy, the country gents and the landed classes. The Whigs (proto-Liberals) were the party of merchants, entrepreneurs and empire builders. As Britain's electoral franchise (for men) widened out by degrees between the 1830s and the 1880s, the middle class and even some working class voices began to have their say in politics. Since the Tories had less to offer these "new money" voters, the Liberals proclaimed themselves the party of the common people. In order to chase down more new-franchise votes, the Liberals began to build ever-more progressive policies aimed at attracting them. That's how they ended up being about liberalism but not about libertarianism. When Labour emerged in the 20th century, that popular working class support evaporated from under them. The current Liberal Democrats are a merger of the old Liberal Party that survived as a hollowed out ruin (and I think still survives in small enclaves), and the 1980s political rebels, the "Social Democratic Party" (of whom my Dad was a member!) which broke away from the right wing of Labour. They combined forces, planting their flag on the hybridist centre ground. Their ticket has been to offer a capitalist free-market economy often distrusted by the left, but with a strong social conscience, often lacking in the right.

none at least not in the uk

There are no (Classical) Liberal parties in the UK... considering the history of the country, I doubt it would be particularly popular to advocate limited government and the complete abolition of Monarchy. Most of the European countries are too socialist for us (Classical) Liberals.

⁠​⁠@@Historia.Magistra.Vitae. Very _liberal_ use of socialism there.

⁠@@CountScarlioni That hybridism you’re describing sounds a lot like Georgism. And wouldn’t you know, coincidentally, the their once official (now unofficial) anthem is a Georgist protest song. Odd they didn’t campaign on reviving that with arguably the best time for it to strike a chord.

Meanwhile in reality the world these politicians created was that England became pretty much the only country on Europe to force THEIR OWN CHILDREN to come out of university with 50 grand debts. If that doesn't tell you the nature of the rulers we've had then nothing will, I believe Blair was a intrinsic part of that initialive... And the Lib Dems did nothing to moderate it.

and the time before (WW2 coalition of 1940-45) where they nearly disappeared after, and the time before that (WW1 coalition of 1916-18 government) when they split into 2, then 3, parties and stopped being a party of government.....getting into government with the Conservatives has never worked well for the Liberals/LibDems!

The other choices would have been to prop up Gordon Brown (who was wildly unpopular) or chicken out of government altogether. Both worse choices than going with Cameron , who they did agree with on most social issues it was that government that brought in gay marriage for example.

@@royw-g3120 Nah, they should've just propped up Labour but on the condition that Brown step down as PM in favor of...anybody else.

Given the direction the Tories have gone. The current Tories are no where near the likes of the Cameron era. The Cameron Era was much more centre-right than now. So we are definitely never going to work with the Tories. Especially given how the Lib Dems are probably one of the most Pro-EU and Trans positive parties and the Tories look to be going all in on the whole Culture War Anti-Woke stuff.

They can try confidence and supply agreement.

Central Time?

Labour are not currently the Reform opposition? It's the Tories, as the number of Labour voters who would swing all the way to Reform while skipping the Tories is very low as they are on completely different sides of the political spectrum. (Labour centre left, Reform far right)

Labour and reform may be more different than tories and reform. But this means that reform takes votes off the tories not labour

@@thedoye1239 Thank you for your answer but I slightly disagree. Tories are merely a nuisance, collateral damage, to ReformUK. 1). The Tories have incompatible sections. Two thirds of the parliamentary party have left social conservatism behind and are effectively neo-liberal. The remaining parliamentary party and the bulk of the membership are social conservatives very similar, small "c" conservatives as ReformUK who have taken up the vacuum left by the Conservative Parliamentarians. 2). ReformUK are centre right not "far" right. If "far" right means loving their country and trying to preserve it is "far" right then 98% of the country is "far" right. It is an adolescent form of abuse by the left, including some elements of the main steam media, to decry people they don't agree with and are unable to debate with. 3). ReformUK came second to Labour in 98 seats. ReformUK is THE challenger to Labour, not the Tories, in those seats. Those seats tend to be non-metropolitan England. Any by-elections outside metropolitan England will be instructive. Existentially the Tories will have to look for a way forward. Do they become LibDem Lite or go back to being socially conservative again? If the former, geographically they won't be much of a problem for ReformUK. If the latter they could be a problem for ReformUK, probably not geographically but I see the neo-lib 2/3rds winning for the future of conservatism. Thank you for your interest.

@@in5linesofcodeorless552 Thank you, yes currently but medium term Labour is the quarry. The Tories are in a mess as to their future. Do they carry on on their neo-liberal path or do they return to being socially conservative again? My guess is the former. That leaves an open-goal for ReformUK to park on the centre-right ground left behind. One third of the Conservative Parliamentary MP's and practically all members are social conservatives and they have a dilemma. Do they fight a losing battle and stay in the Conservative Party controlled by the neo-liberal {2/3rd} or join ReformUK? ReformUK second only to Labour in 98 constituencies. This is non-metropolitan England and will be interesting following any by-elections in eventualities where it could be a straight fight, ReformUK and Labour. Much obliged for your thoughts.

Agreed. Reform may be right-wing but people keep forgetting that they're taking votes away from would-be Labour voters, I.e., the working class right who are concerned about immigration and cultural erosion

I think Reform got over four million votes and the third highest number of votes overall. They were apparently 2nd place in nearly 100 seats.

4 seats and 4.1million votes means they'll get around 997k pounds in money

@osgur9636 they got 5 seats though.

They are historically both centre left or right depending on their leader and state of the nations politics. They actually took seats from the Conservatives this time; moderate Conservatives and the moderate left are usually who vote for them. They do very well at local elections, too.

If either of the main parties falter, it's usually them the middle of the electorate turn too

My understanding is that the Liberal Democrats tend to be more socially liberal and more supportive of a stronger relationship with Europe then Labour.

You must be new here

TLDR has a video on their manifesto,in some things they are leftier than labour

Yeah I know. Their problem is no one knows about what they stand for.

The Lib dems stand left on social issues, like proportional voting, lowering voting age, saving the environment, helping care workers and funding the NHS. On economics' they want to fund more social programs and increase spending (They say without major tax increases). Also the Liberal party is a different party which used to be the opposition to the Tories in the early 1900's before the Labour party got big. The Liberal party then merged with another party to become the Liberal Democrats. (Although some Liberal candidates still exist)

it's kinda complicated, but they are different - they're generally further 'left' than labour, but that's largely 'cause labour's a big tent movement focused on big tent movements like unions (and by extent more generalised ideology) than because they libs are intensely left in british political tradition - they do after all manage to take seats from tories. the libs do have something of a 400 year tradition to their politics, too - hell, you can draw a straight line from them to the _roundheads_ and the 'centrist' levellers, even the proto-socialist movements like the diggers. the tories, labour and the libs are all similar products of the same mongrel intermingling of people who can find common ground on general ideas, but the internal politics vary WILDLY, so they both overlap and diverge in strange ways, the divisions between them are created in particular ways, etc. libs aren't a wasted vote, they're an established party with a solid support base - they ruined their rep over the coalition, rightly, but their political tradition is one many voters actually prefer - abundantly clear in this result.

You should read their manifesto. Because they don't have to care about the far left or right they end up with the best policies. Unfortunately, their marketing is very very bad if it exists at all.

Yep. With that kind of Labour majority it is about as “unhung” as it gets. The U.K. parliamentary system has been described as an “elective dictatorship” - ie with a very large majority the governing party can do pretty much what it likes.

well...yeah. why would they need a coalition if they have the numbers already

@@davidpaterson2309 Time for Breturn then!