Welcome to my latest update on work in the House of Lords. This time it’s back to parcel delivery services, as well as a quick update on a political finance loophole.

The regulation of parcel delivery firms is not up to scratch

I never did get to debate my motion earlier this year about the state of parcel delivery services. But I came out lucky in a recent ballot to get to debate the topic in a ‘question for short debate’.

So here is what I said earlier today with the minister responding, Anas Sarwar, being very fresh in post having only been introduced to the Lords earlier in the day:

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. In so doing, I particularly welcome the noble Lord, Lord Sarwar, whose maiden speech I look forward to hearing in this debate. I hope that a short Lib Dem-initiated debate about parcels, if not perhaps the realisation of a long-standing dream item on the noble Lord’s bucket list, will at least provide a congenial forum for his debut. I am sure he will rise admirably to the challenge of the very rapid turnaround between his introduction and maiden speech.

Parcel deliveries are a central part of modern life. They can bring fun and joy to our lives, such as with a well-timed gift. But they are also essential for our economy, both for sales and for supply chains. They are essential for health too, with many being dependent on parcel deliveries to receive medicines and other health assistance. They give a vital lifeline to the wider world for those who are greatly restricted in their mobility. Yet, the state of the parcel delivery sector is, in some key respects, far from happy. Citizens Advice estimates that 15 million people suffered a problem with their most recent parcel delivery.

The 2025 Parcel Theft Report estimates that nearly five million homes were affected in a year by parcel theft, with over £650 million-worth of goods being stolen. I recently found one such stolen package dumped near my own home, presumably because the thieves had discovered that it contained a very large bottle of vinegar and nothing else. I was able to reunite the vinegar with its owner, but of course most victims of theft are not nearly so lucky. What is more, these problems have all the greater impact on those who are less mobile, who are therefore all the more dependent on parcels arriving on time and in the right place.

So up against all this, what is Ofcom, the regulator, doing? Not enough. What have the Government done in their recently signed-off statement of strategic priorities for Ofcom? Again, not enough. Unfortunately, prior to the summer, the Government did not find time to debate my regret Motion on that Ofcom strategy. I hope today’s debate will re-focus attention on it, particularly as Ofcom’s own data shows that, of those who contacted a delivery company about an issue, only 45%—less than half—were satisfied with the outcome. Of course, not everyone will be happy in such cases, but the Institute of Customer Service finds that, on average, 63% of people are satisfied with complaint-handling. So, with all due caution about definitions in each case not being exactly the same, it is fair to say that not only do you have less than a 50:50 chance of coming out satisfied if you raise an issue with a delivery firm, but the sector’s overall performance is well below that of other sectors.

Ofcom’s data does show that the 45% figure is up one percentage point on the previous year, but that pace of improvement means it would take 18 years for the sector merely to get to the average. Despite being 18 years off merely getting to average, Ofcom’s own commentary, published alongside this data, imparts no real sense of concern or urgency. The Government’s strategy statement merely gives a “welcome” to Ofcom’s approach, along with the suggestion that Ofcom

“should take enforcement action where it considers it appropriate”.

Given that we are never going to call for inappropriate enforcement, that is about as tepid a form of words as we can get.

There is a further reason why Ofcom’s approach is problematic: its requirements for complaints processes are poorly specified and, judging by people’s experiences, not properly followed by parcel delivery firms themselves. The specification problem is that Ofcom requires complaints processes for the sender and the addressee, yet you are neither if you have someone else’s parcel dumped on you. You are neither if you see bad driving or atrocious parking from one of the parcel delivery firms. In fact, these problems will get worse. The Government’s strategy for Ofcom rightly encourages experiments with drones and robot delivery of parcels. But what if a robot heading to someone else’s home crashes into you on the pavement? What if a drone, flying to deliver a parcel somewhere else, crashes into your garden? You are neither the sender nor the addressee, so Ofcom says that there is no need for an adequate complaints process that you can have recourse to.

Now, you might think that delivery firms are happy to accept complaints anyway in such circumstances, but outside of Royal Mail, which has its own regulatory structure, that is not my experience, nor that of many people I have spoken to. Worse, there is also the widespread experience that, even if you are the addressee, but you have, say, bought something from an online shop and are therefore not the parcel delivery firm’s customer—the online shop is the customer—the parcel delivery firms will say, “No, you can’t complain to us”, even though Ofcom’s rules say you should be able to.

Perhaps most strikingly, the website for InPost—one of the largest delivery firms—which I checked again last night, explicitly says:

“Where you have ordered our Services through a retailer or other third party, all queries and complaints should be raised with them directly. Their complaints process will apply.”

But that is not what Ofcom’s rules say it is allowed to do. So the complaints process is broken: the regulators’ rules are too narrow and do not appear to be being properly enforced. Moreover, when the Government signed off the strategy for Ofcom—admittedly, before the Minister took up his post—they did not say that things need to get better.

Nor are market forces the remedy here, unfortunately, because the operation of market forces is hindered by obscurity. You may have a delivery firm that you particularly wish to avoid—I certainly have my own shortlist. You may have one that you are particularly keen to reward with your business; perhaps you are a great fan of Royal Mail, for example. However, there are no transparency requirements—there is no transparency good practice—for the firm you order from to tell you who it will use to deliver your goods to you. The potential of consumer power is deliberately hindered by obscurity. Again, the reaction from both Ofcom and the Government in their strategy statement has been to say, in effect, “We are happy with the status quo”, rather than to push for transparency and change.

In conclusion, we have the problems for the victims of widespread crime; the problems for businesses having to shoulder the costs of those crimes; the problems of a complaints system 18 years away from even getting to average; and the problems of a complaints system that is flawed by design and implementation. It is fair to say that the Ofcom strategy statement was a missed opportunity for the Government to be tough on crime, to promote growth and to help people. Perhaps, however, the cavalry has arrived. A new Minister certainly has arrived, and a maiden speech is about to arrive. Of course, I acknowledge that some of the detail I have raised may best be addressed in a follow-up meeting or correspondence. I hope too, perhaps, that we will hear from the Minister a commitment to have a renewed look at these issues, because they certainly need looking at again.

As the minister’s response was also his maiden speech, understandably it didn’t get into all the detail of the issue this time – but he did say that he will follow up on them. So watch this space for more parcel news.

The loophole that stops political finance allegations being properly investigated

This week I also had a go again at the loophole that protects those accused of many political finance offences from full investigation. But the government stonewalled, again:

Lord Pack: My Lords, successful investigations require the right powers to be available, yet both the National Crime Agency and the Met Police have warned that they cannot use their full sweep of powers because the maximum sentences for many political finance offences are too low and do not trigger them. Both the Rycroft review and the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy have highlighted this loophole. Can the Minister reassure us that the Government will be using the Representation of the People Bill to table amendments to close this loophole so that the full power of law enforcement can be used against politicians who might or might not be breaking the law?

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage: We want to see all the loopholes around this issue closed, and we are taking very strong and clear action. We have accepted all of Philip Rycroft’s recommendations, and we are taking forward a comprehensive package of reforms to strengthen the safeguards against foreign political influence and interference in our politics. I look forward to debating this Bill with Members of your Lordships’ House – we start on 14 September.

For all the minister’s words, the reality is that the government has not tabled amendments to the Representation of the People Bill to tackle this issue. The government taking action in this case means kicking the issue into the long grass.

In other news from other Lib Dem peers…

Previously on this newsletter…

Government says it won’t tackle election turnout blindspot

The two skills politics forgets to teach

Elsewhere from me…

The Death of Stalin: Armando Iannucci’s 2017 black comedy

Market Research Society upholds complaint against pollster

Thank you

I hope you enjoyed reading this, and if you did please do encourage others to have a read too: Share

Best wishes,

Mark

If you’d like to find out more about how polls work, how reliable they are and how to make sense of them, check out my book, Polling UnPacked: the History, Uses and Abuses of Political Opinion Polls, or sign up for my weekly email, The Week in Polls:

General election voting intention polls

– indicates that party didn’t feature in the polling questions separate from ‘Others’ or that the data is not yet available.
nc = no change from previous comparable poll.

The Find Out Now Polls using their standard methodology (only) are included in this table.
Numbers in brackets show change since the previous comparable poll (i.e. by the same pollster with the same methodology). Note that natural random variation between samples means a change of a couple of points may well be just statistical noise rather than a real change in support. Very occasionally, a large change will also be noise rather than real change.
For all the voting intention polls and not just the latest ones, see PollBase, the largest collection of UK voting intention polls, which is updated quarterly.

MRP seat projections

Poll ratings for party leaders

The net figure is given for each leader, i.e. their positive score minus their negative score.
The net figure may appear to be slightly different from the difference between the positive and negative scores due to rounding (e.g. +2.7 and -1.6 would be rounded to +3 and -2 but the net difference would appear as 4.3, rounded to 4).
Where a pollster appears more than once, that is because they use more than one leadership wording question.
Some pollsters have other wording that they use only rarely and/or only for a small set of names, the results of which are therefore not included.

Frequently Asked Questions

Get the books

As well as covering some books in the podcast, we also mention others in the newsletter’s bonus content. You can browse all the books mentioned and get them for yourself via my Bookshop.org page (affiliate link), such as in this case the graphic novel which inspired the film.

The Death of Stalin

Our latest podcast heads east for a film about Russian politics:

Mark and Cory talk about Armando Iannucci’s 2017 black comedy The Death of Stalin. You can watch the film for its exploration of the nature of evil, think about whether the license that is taken with the truth is completely appropriate, or just wait for the amazing memes to appear on screen.

The Guardian article on the film’s accuracy which Cory mentions can be found here, whilst the academic critique that Mark was looking forward to reading so he could disagree with it can be found here.

Cory’s email newsletter is Paperback Rioter and Mark has a family of email newsletters.

Subscribe to our newsletter for some additional bonus content and to get alerted whenever a new episode comes out.

Our theme tune is “Monkeys Spinning Monkeys” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) and licensed under the Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

You can also listen to our episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, the web, or YouTube.

After last week’s emergency episode on The Absence of War, we’re returning to fortnightly episodes. In two weeks’ time we are talking about The West Wing episode “Let Bartlet Be Bartlet”, which is the 19th episode of series one.

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Two snippets on the the 1992 election

We’ve got bonus content from both of us in this week’s newsletter. First, Mark has been rummaging around in the archives…

As we discussed in our podcast about David Hare’s The Absence of War, in the immediate aftermath of Labour’s defeat the debate was whether the Labour Party had changed too much or not enough ahead of that election.

Tony Blair of course very much took the ‘not enough’ line, but that wasn’t what Ken Livingstone had said on TV on election night as Labour’s defeat become clear:

Peter Sissons: Where does the blame [for Labour’s defeat] lie? Put your finger on it.

Ken Livingstone: The whole party has moved too far to the right. Been too frightened to challenge vested interests … We didn’t say we were going to cut defence spending. We didn’t say we were going to have any constraints on the export of capital abroad.

We also mentioned how Neil Kinnock’s failure to win has looked better with age because the fact that Labour did then go on to win three times in a row makes his efforts look like a successful preliminary, saving his party and putting it on the right track before Tony Blair came along to finish the job.

The Spectator has just run a piece which cites Neil Kinnock’s own reflections on this point in a letter to one of its journalists. He said he had “enabled the party to rebuild and thrive and laid the basis for Tony Blair’s landslide victory in 1997.”

What other people think

Now over to Cory with news of on past, present and future Political Fictions episodes…

Looking to the future, we were both intrigued by The Guardian’s list of 50 TV shows which are heading to our screens this winter. In particular Steven Moffat’s ‘ludicrously anticipated comedy drama’ Number 10, which stars Rafe Spall and Jenna Coleman and apparently ‘could well be the British West Wing’. Is there higher praise? [yes there is – Mark]. We’ve added this show to the list to discuss when it’s broadcast on Channel 4.

Speaking of things which are ludicrously anticipated, we’ve just finished recording a two-parter on the classic mini-series State of Play. That’s coming out in October, in which we’re going to break with our normal fortnightly schedule and put out an episode a week in a special mini-series. We’ll also be covering The Lives of Others ahead of the stage version appearing in London, as well as hopefully an episode on The Thick of It with a special guest. Look out for details of that in future newsletters.

Finally, The Times recently put out a listicle of Five brilliant films you probably missed which included Election. This Reese Witherspoon and Matthew Broderick high school comedy was the topic of the second episode we ever recorded. Listen to that episode here before you catch up on the film.

Previously on Political Fictions…

The Absence of War: David Hare’s fictionalised version of the 1992 general election

Jeffrey Archer’s ‘First Among Equals’, with Shane Whaley (part 1)

Elsewhere from us…

The politics of the climate crisis

Market Research Society upholds complaint against pollster

Happy listening

Thank you for reading and hope you enjoy the episode. Feedback is always very welcome!

Best wishes,

Cory & Mark

Congratulations to new councillor Fred Hulls and the team.

Turning to the further five contests held on Thursday, we had another successful Lib Dem defence, one which gives the party majority control of Oxfordshire County Council:

Congratulations to the new Lib Dem councillor James Hartley and their team.

The ward is in Calum Miller’s constituency, again extending the run of good Lib Dem results in the key general election battlegrounds.

Thanks here go to Artie Khovanov for being the Liberal Democrat candidate.

The Liberal Democrat here was Liss Owen; thank you.

The Liberal Democrat here was Drew Gardner – thank you.

Note also the continuation of two patterns we’ve seen in recent weeks: Reform’s progress in by-elections stalling, and Labour’s tide of defeats in by-elections being stemmed.

For what all this means for the running total of council by-election results since the last May elections, see my council by-elections scorecard here.

These by-election results round-ups cover principal authority by-elections as it’s only those for which comprehensive results are available.

What do the polls say?

The results above may tell us what voters are deciding on ballot papers, but not everywhere voted. So what’s the overall picture in the polls? Find out each week with my newsletter, The Week in Polls.

What’s happening in the Lib Dems?

Sign up to my monthly newsletter, Lib Dem Newswire, to find out:

The next election for the Mayor of London, and the London Assembly, will be in May 2028.

Keep up with news about Lib Dem selections

If you’d like to hear about future selections, just sign up for my monthly newsletter, Liberal Democrat Newswire, with its regular selections round-up:

Here’s her letter in full:

Here is the Channel 4 report in full:

It is also written up here.

UPDATE

There is also this from Ed Davey:

He had also previously written to the Prime Minister calling for action over dodgy money in British politics:

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1. Jay Cooper, Sefton: declared “not welcome” by Nigel Farage following reports of him calling the Holocaust a hoax and then resigned from the party (May 2026).
2. Stuart Prior, Essex: expelled by Reform and resigned as a councillor after “he was accused the week before the elections of creating racist and Islamophobic posts on social media” (May 2026).
3. Stuart Prior, Rochford: as above; he had been a councillor on two different councils.
4. Ashley Monk, Redditch: resigned to sit as an independent following a dispute on Worcestershire Council, to which he’d been elected in 2025 and for more on which, see the other list below (May 2026).
5. Nathaniel Menday, Sheffield: suspended by Reform as he had “shared pictures of swastikas, Adolf Hitler’s book Mein Kampf and other far right iconography like the Sonnenrad, or ‘sun wheel’.”
6. Stephen Mousdell, St Helens Council: “A newly elected Merseyside Reform UK councillor has resigned just a day after the ECHO reported on his separate life appearing in porn videos online” (May 2026).
7. Daniel Devaney, Bradford: “One of Reform UK’s councillors elected in Bradford last week is no longer a representative of the party, the group’s leader on the council has said” (May 2026).
8. Danielle Cavanagh, Gateshead: resigned as a councillor (May 2026).
9. Nick Farmer, Wakefield: no longer listed as a Reform councillor (May 2026).
10. Robin Perry, Walsall: suspended by Reform (May 2026).
11. Mick Lee, Sheffield: “Mick Lee left the Reform UK party earlier this week over alleged arguments during the Sheffield branch’s leadership elections” (May 2026).
12. Joseph Soper, Thurrock: resigned as a councillor citing family illness (May 2026).
13. Marc Stanley, Thurrock: resigned as a councillor citing “a change in personal circumstances” (May 2026).
14. Mark Tucker, Norfolk: “Just 25 days after he was elected and having attended just one meeting” (June 2026).
15. Billy Burke, Trafford: suspended after being charged with possessing an offensive weapon (June 2026).
16. Rhys Carr, Wakefield: left Reform to become an independent (June 2026), later joined the SDP (August 2026)
17. Rebecca Waters, Birmingham: suspended by Reform “for breaking rank and voting for a Lib Dem [council] leader” (June 2026). She was later expelled.
18. Alex Clarke, South Tyneside: “resignation comes after a Hope not Hate investigation found he had made what appear to be sexist comments on his own podcast Clarke Out Loud” (June 2026).
19. Steve Lewis, Wakefield: left Reform to become an independent (June 2026).
20. Craig Wiles, Kirklees: resigned as a councillor (June 2026).
21. Tony Nelson, Huntingdonshire: resigned as a councillor (June 2026).
22. Susan Maxfield, Kirklees: left Reform to become an independent (June 2026).
23. Jennifer Gerrard, St Helens: “A Reform UK councillor – who held a cabinet position – has resigned from St Helens Borough Council, less than two months after the local elections” (July 2026).
24. Steven Deakin, Cannock Chase: now listed as an independent (July 2026).
25. Amy Hunter, Newcastle: resigned as a councillor (July 2026).
26. Kay Hughes, Barnsley: resigned as a councillor (July 2026).
27. David Hoey, Solihull: joined the Conservatives (July 2026).
28. Bella Simon, Walsall: now listed as an independent (July 2026).
29. James Fletcher, Luton: elected for Reform in an April 2026 by-election but now an independent (July 2026).
30. Glenn Gibbins, Sunderland: suspended by Reform following allegations of racism making him the first councillor from the May 2026 cohort who Reform lost (May 2026) but then reinstated after apologising (June 2026). However, back to an independent after being charged by the police (July 2026).
31. Matthew Elder, Hillingdon: now listed as an independent (August 2026).
32. Alex Barr, South Tyneside: left Reform to become an independent (August 2026).
33. David Rowan, Kirklees: suspended by Reform because he “said John Bercow should be hanged … [and he] also praised Tommy Robinson and said gay people should not have children” (August 2026).
34. Robert Hanson, Sheffield: “A Reform UK councillor is now serving as an independent after he said he would not renew his membership of the party … A Reform spokesman said that ‘despite being given repeated opportunities to join the party by email and telephone, he refused to do so'” (August 2026).
35. Christine Duffy, Newcastle-under-Lyme: who intended to resign, sent her resignation to the wrong council, apparently changed her mind but then successfully resigned from the correct council (August 2026).
36. Lawrence Davies, Swindon: “I cannot with clear conscience continue to fight for Reform UK in Swindon when members are told how to vote and what to say by their officers and whip and every question and every speech is rewritten with AI,” although it is also reported that he was “suspended from the party after he was charged with a series of driving offences” (August 2026).
37. Peter Reeve, Peterborough: suspended by Reform after being charged with drink-driving (August 2026).
38. Jacob Padget, Wakefield: suspended by Reform – though there is some dispute over that (August 2026).
39. Tanya Brasted, North East Lincolnshire: “Reform row erupts over allegations of fund misappropriation … A North East Lincolnshire councillor has left the local Reform UK group following her removal from the council’s Cabinet” (September 2026).
40. Andrew Crumplin, Plymouth: left Reform for Restore (September 2026).
41. Mark Hadfield, Plymouth: left Reform for Restore (September 2026).
42. Grace Stickland, Plymouth: left Reform to become an independent (September 2026).
43. Mark Hill, Chorley: now independent (September 2026).

Thank you to all the readers who have contributed to the list.

Gone, but back again

1. Ben Rowe, Plymouth: suspended by Reform after he had been “called out on multiple occasions for his offensive posts” (May 2026) but reinstated subsequently (June 2026).

Other Reform councillors who have gone

Turning to councillors on principal authorities who became Reform councillors before May 2026 but who have also been shed since the May 2026 elections, here is a list of them, but note the reason for the first entries on the list, which makes them rather different from the rest of the list:

1. Carmelo Colasanto, Carmarthenshire: resigned as a councillor on being elected to the Senedd (May 2026).
2. David Hughes, Merthyr Tydfil: resigned as a councillor on being elected to the Senedd (May 2026).
3. Jo Monk, Worcestershire: “A former Reform UK council leader has been suspended by her party … for ‘refusing to accept the democratic decision of the Reform UK group'” (May 2026).
4. Ashley Monk, Worcestershire: alongside Jo Monk’s departure, “Her son and fellow councillor, Ashley, has also been suspended for reportedly bringing the party into disrepute” (May 2026). He also left Reform on Redditch Council, to which he was elected to in May 2026; see the main list above.
5. Barry Martin, Staffordshire: “Two formal complaints against Mr Martin, both relating to his social media activity, were upheld by the council last year … Council leader Martin Murray said that Mr Martin had taken the decision to resign due to health reasons and a recent family bereavement” (May 2026).
6. Andrew Harrison, County Durham: suspended by Reform and then quit to become an independent (May 2026).
7. Kenny Hope, County Durham: suspended by Reform and then quit to become an independent (May 2026).
8. Matthew Jones, Worcestershire: left to become an independent councillor (May 2026).
9. Andy Osborn, Cambridgeshire: convicted of breaking the law and disqualified as a councillor (May 2026). Also in my previous list as the story spans the May local election date.
10. Kate Rowland, County Durham: resigned to become an independent (May 2026).
11. Trevor Bridgwood, Lincolnshire: in the news last year over his social media posts, he has now become an independent after a ultimatum from Reform (May 2026).
12. Trevor Bridgwood, West Lindsey: same story as above, but included twice as he has left Reform on two councils (May 2026).
13. Jamie Hanlon, Cornwall: “A Reform UK Cornwall councillor has left the party, just a month after two other councillors” (May 2026).
14. James (Jim) Sidlow, Cambridgeshire: resigned as a councillor (May 2026).
15. Jasmine Fox, County Durham: now listed as an independent (June 2026)
16. Charlotte Kelly, Staffordshire: joined Conservatives “citing as reasons for her move her experience of bullying and sexism within Reform” (June 2026).
17. Dan Glover, Warwickshire: defected to Restore Britain (June 2026).
18. Rob Aitkenhead, Warwickshire: defected to Restore Britain (June 2026).
19. Leon Graham, Lancashire: joined Reform from the Conservatives and then elected as a Reform councillor in 2025. Now back with the Conservatives (June 2026).
20. Robbie Lammas, Medway: “A councillor who quit the Conservatives [in October 2025] to join Reform UK has now left the party, calling his decision to defect ‘the biggest mistake of my life'” (June 2026).
21. Cameron Emery, West Northamptonshire: defected to Restore Britain (July 2026).
22. Karl Perks, Worcestershire: defected to the Conservatives, among other reasons “because nobody was prosecuted for painting roundabouts with the cross of St George” (July 2026).
23. Joe Garner, North Northamptonshire: now an independent councillor (July 2026).
24. Steven Deakin, Cannock Chase: now an independent councillor (July 2026).
25. Bruce Craze, Cornwall: defected to Restore Britain (July 2026).
26. Carol Ney, Plymouth: joined Reform from Labour in April 2026 but then left Reform to become an independent (August 2026).
27. Helen Butler, Leicestershire: resigned as a councillor (August 2026).
28. Ian Catchpole, County Durham: left Reform to become an independent “after accusing council leaders of treating mental health with ‘“’blatant disregard’ … However, Reform said Cllr Catchpole resigned while the party was investigating the unauthorised disclosure of private group material” (August 2026).
29. Robbie Withey, Aberdeenshire: having previously been a Conservative councillor he joined Reform in 2025 but has now left Reform too (September 2026). (Note: as the local press explains, he had continued to sit in the independent group while he was with Reform.)
30. Eleonora Gough, Solihull: “Reform UK councillor quits Solihull group with scathing ‘toxic’ attack” (September 2026).
31. Nigel Swales, Lancashire: joined Labour after “growing concerns about Reform’s ability to deliver at a local level”(September 2026).

In addition, John Allen, Northumberland, had his seat declared vacant after he didn’t attend council meetings for six months (August 2026). He had been suspended by Reform last year (and so was included in last year’s list of departures).

Further Reform troubles

Alan Dennison, who was elected as an independent in Pembrokeshire but then joined Reform, was in May 2026 suspended for four months for breaking the rules over a planning application.

Town councillor Daniel Bleeze left Reform in June 2026 while Stacy Bolton resigned from Scarborough Town Council during her term as Mayoress. Parish councillor John Bell in Cornwall resigned from both the council and from Reform over its plans to cut welfare benefits (August 2026).

A Reform parish council by-election candidate, Paul Heyward (Winterbourne Parish Council) was also suspended in May 2026. He went on to lose the by-election.

In addition it was revealed that, “A Reform UK councillor who vowed to try and address anti-social behaviour and ‘people feeling unsafe’ during her campaign was convicted of assault four months before the local elections” (BBC).

NN Journal reports that, “North Northamptonshire Council chairman Maurice Eglin has announced his resignation today after our investigation uncovers offensive historic tweets”. Note – the resignation is from his role as council chairman, and he remains a councillor (June 2026).

Taylor Smith (a Reform candidate but not a councillor, despite some social media reports) “unsuccessfully ran to represent South Oxhey on Three Rivers District Council on May 7, shared a video last week stating that he had officially become a member of Restore Britain” and has been suspended by Reform (June 2026).

Town councillor Olivia Westcott failed to sign her paperwork in time, triggering a by-election in which she stood again – and lost.

Rob Kenyon, Reform’s unsuccessful candidate for the Makerfield Parliamentary by-election, has a track record of unsavoury comments.

Although not a councillor or candidate Tim Montgomerie was a prominent defector to Reform from the Conservatives. However:

Reform UK has suspended a high-profile supporter and one-time Farage ally after he criticised the party’s home affairs spokesperson Zia Yusuf for not being a “team player”. [The Independent, August 2026]

Finally, the story about a Reform councillor being an AI-generated fake is not true.

For Reform councillors who were shed before May 2026, see my previous list.

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The net totals in the right hand column give the overall political lay of the land, as shown by local council by-election results.

But it is the details in each row of how a party’s performance varies against its different rivals that is the most useful in my book. That shows us what’s happening below in the surface in a way that national voting intention polls often struggle to do because they give total support levels rather than vote switching figures.

Contests counted include delayed elections from the the usual May round of local elections (usually delayed due to the death of a candidate). Contests held on the same day as the main May local elections are excluded. The figures are for seats rather than wards, e.g. a double vacancy in a ward will count as two in the table.

The Lib Dem win in Chelmsford Springfield (June 2026) has been counted as a Lib Dem hold although it was a deferred contest on new boundaries.

Much of the source data for this table comes via Election Maps UK or ALDC. Thank you to them both.

What do the polls say?

The results above may tell us what voters are deciding on ballot papers, but not everywhere voted. So what’s the overall picture in the polls? Find out each week with my newsletter, The Week in Polls.

What’s happening in the Lib Dems?

Sign up to my monthly newsletter, Lib Dem Newswire, to find out:

Council by-election scorecards for previous years

The local by-election scorecards for previous years are also available: 2025-26, 2024-25, 2023-24, 2022-23 and 2021-22.

A former Reform UK cabinet member on West Northamptonshire Council (WNC) has now joined the Liberal Democrat group.

Cllr Kathryn Shaw previously stepped down from her role as portfolio holder for children, families and education at the start of 2026. In March, she quit the Reform UK group completely, becoming an independent.

The political shift will now make the Liberal Democrats joint second-largest opposition group …

Speaking about her decision, Cllr Shaw said: “Over the past eight months, I’ve had a lot of time to reflect on what matters most to me, both as a councillor and as a person.”

Welcoming Cllr Shaw to the Liberal Democrat group, the Lib Dem leader on West Northamptonshire Council, Cllr Jonathan Harris, said:

We are delighted that Kathryn has decided to join the Liberal Democrats. It is clear that Kathryn is passionate about making a difference to the people of West Northants. We welcome her energy, enthusiasm, commitment and experience to the team and we are looking forward to supporting her in her work. She joins our group as another community-focused councillor; Lib Dem Councillors work hard to support their communities and have a strong desire to make a difference to people’s lives”

Sign up to get the latest news and analysis

If you’d like to help them, a great way to start is by joining the party or by pledging to vote Liberal Democrat.

What’s happening in the Lib Dems?

Sign up to my monthly newsletter, Lib Dem Newswire, to find out, including regular updates on selections:

Selected PPCs

You can jump to the constituency you want:
A-D / E-H / I-L / M-P / Q-T / U-Z

Liberal Democrat PPCs A-D

• Beaconsfield: Anna Crabtree
• Bracknell: Jo Hawley
• Brentwood and Ongar: Edward Sainsbury
• Bridgwater: Graham Oakes
• Cambridge: Cheney Payne
• Cheadle: Tom Morrison
• Chester North and Neston: Carol Braithwaite
• Chippenham: Sarah Gibson
• Daventry: Jonathan Harris
• Derbyshire Dales: Barry Holliday

Liberal Democrat PPCs E-H

• East Hampshire: Dominic Martin
• Exeter: Jonnie Beddall
• Exmouth and Exeter East: Charlotte FitzGerald
• Farnham and Bordon: Khalil Yousuf
• Guildford: Zöe Franklin
• Hamble Valley: Prad Bains
• Hampstead and Highgate: Katie Mansfield
• Harrogate and Knaresborough: Tom Gordon
• Hazel Grove: Lisa Smart
• Hinckley and Bosworth: Michael Mullaney

Liberal Democrat PPCs I-L

• Kenilworth and Southam: Louis Adam

Liberal Democrat PPCs M-P

• Maidenhead: Joshua Reynolds
• Maidstone and Malling: Michael Stephens
• Melksham and Devizes: Brian Mathew
• Mid Buckinghamshire: Anja Shaefer
• Newton Abbot: Martin Wrigley
• North Cotswolds: Paul Hodgkinson
• North Dorset: Gary Jackson
• North Somerset: Janey Little
• Portsmouth South: Charlie Murphy

Liberal Democrat PPCs Q-T

• Romsey and Southampton North: Thomas Gravatt
• Runnymede and Weybridge: Chelsea Whyte
• St Ives: Andrew George
• Salisbury: Victoria Charleston
• Sevenoaks: Tara Matthews
• Sheffield Hallam: Sophie Crossthorn
• South Cotswolds: Roz Savage
• South Northamptonshire: Stewart Tolley
• South Shropshire: Matthew Green
• South West Hertfordshire: Matt Sanders
• Spelthorne: Harry Boparai
• Stockport: Alice Delemare Tangpuori
• Thornbury & Yate: Claire Young
• Torbay: Steve Darling
• Torridge and Tavistock: Phil Hutty

Liberal Democrat PPCs U-Z

• Westmorland and Lonsdale: Tim Farron
• West Worcestershire: Dan Boatright-Greene
• Wokingham: Clive Jones
• Yeovil: Adam Dance
• York Outer: Andrew Hollyer

Related candidate information

After a list of current Liberal Democrat MPs? That’s here.

What is a Prospective Parliamentary Candidate (PPC)?

Way back, the law around election expenses made it very advantageous to avoid officially declaring someone to be your candidate until a few weeks out from polling day. Doing so delayed the point at which campaigning costs had to count against the fixed constituency election expense limit. The later the limit started, the more campaigning you could get in beforehand and then the more campaigning per day you could do during the controlled period as the limit had to stretch over fewer days of campaigning.

As a result, all parties took to using the phrase “Prospective Parliamentary Candidate” or PPC to describe the people they had selected who were going to become their candidate but had been selected sufficiently far in advance that they didn’t want to be called candidates yet. There was then usually an official adoption meeting much closer to the election at which the PPC would be adopted from a field of one and transformed into an official candidate.

These days, there is much less benefit from going through these legal hoops. That’s partly because the variation in time period which your constituency expense limit has to cover depending on when you start calling yourself a candidate has been greatly reduced. It’s also because there is now so much that can be legally excluded from constituency expense limits.

The PPC phrase, however, hangs on both out of habit and because in some very close contests it can still bring some value. It also helps distinguish between someone who has been through the party’s approval process and so is eligible to apply to be a PPC (often called ‘approved candidates’) and someone who is actually a PPC.

Welcome to my latest update on work in the House of Lords, this time a look at the problem with getting turnout data for some local elections.

Turnout in multi-member elections is not always made available

The standard measure of turnout used in the UK is to take the number of votes cast and work out what percentage that is of the electorate. It is a straightforward calculation in most cases, with some fun, but not significant, wrinkles.

The fun wrinkles are around whether or not you include spoiled ballots and also around getting the electorate calculation spot on. The electorate sometimes includes people who are not able to vote in a particular election – e.g. I am on the register but, as a peer, I cannot vote in a general election. The electoral register is also regularly updated. So all this can keep you busy getting statistics exactly right but these are not major problems to deal with.

(In the US, though, turnout is worked out as a percentage not of the total registered to vote but of the total who are eligible to be registered. That deflates their turnout figures compared with ours.)

A big problem, however, comes with multi-member elections, where more than one seat is up for election and so voters get to cast more than one vote on their ballot paper. A typical example is a three-member council ward with all the seats up for election at the same time. People get three votes, but may use fewer than three.

This means you cannot simply take the total number of votes for each candidate (plus perhaps the number of spoiled votes), divide by three, and get the number of people who voted. Returning officers intermittently release information about how many people did actually vote, but this makes turnout in multi-member vacancies a much harder number to find out, track or analyse than for single-member vacancies.

Hence my question in Parliament before the summer break, but one which got a disappointing answer from the government:

Q. To ask His Majesty’s Government further to the Written Answer by Baroness Taylor of Stevenage on 29 June (HL1025), whether their discussions with the Electoral Commission included the merits of requiring the publication of official turnout figures in local contests where voters are able to cast more than one vote; and if so, what was the outcome of those discussions.

A. The power in clause 49 of the Representation of the People Bill is intended to support the provision of election-related information to electors, including information about elections and referendums in their area, candidates standing for election and polling station locations. Government discussions with the Electoral Commission on the use of this power have therefore focused on how best to improve access to this information for voters. They have not focused on requirements for the publication of official turnout figures for local contests.

Disappointing but, I hope, not the end of the story.

UPDATE: As one reader has pointed out to me, I should have mentioned that, several months after the elections, the Electoral Commission these days publishes complete figures. But that is long after the election results have been reported, the post-results analysis and hot takes written, and people’s attention has moved on. Turnout data should be available as part of the results, not months after.

In other news from other Lib Dem peers…

Previously on this newsletter…

The two skills politics forgets to teach

The government’s near-invisible power to veto legislation

Elsewhere from me…

The Absence of War: David Hare’s fictionalised version of the 1992 general election

Thank you

I hope you enjoyed reading this, and if you did please do encourage others to have a read too: Share

Best wishes,

Mark

There was also a dramatic leap from fifth to second for the Lib Dems in Newcastle. Not quite enough to win this time but another sign of the Lib Dems increasing, and broadening, the number of places where it is in content:

Congratulations to Stephen Kelly and the team on moving up from fifth to second place on a council where the Lib Dems are running a minority administration.

The local Lib Dem deputy leader, Mark Mitchell, said:

Labour under Andy Burnham are apparently going nowhere in Newcastle and Reform’s vote dropped 7%. This was an area that should have been very strong for Reform, but we have demonstrated that when we have a strong candidate and talk about local issues then we can win.

The ward has elections again next May, so this result is an important step towards progress next year.

This result too indicates Labour’s changing fortunes, as the Conservatives put significant effort into this campaign, including Kemi Badenoch campaigning here. Had they won, they would have secured overall control of the council.

Thank you to Dylan Henderson for being the Liberal Democrat candidate here.

Elsewhere:

Note the split on the right here, with Rupert Lowe’s Restore fighting its second council by-election. (The first was in July where their candidate pulled out before polling day but was still on the ballot papers.)

Finally, there was also that swapping of seats between Labour and Reform:

The Lib Dem here was Oliver George – thank you.

For what all this means for the running total of council by-election results since the last May elections, see my council by-elections scorecard here.

These by-election results round-ups cover principal authority by-elections as it’s only those for which comprehensive results are available. But this town council by-election also caught my eye:

Liberal Democrat Tim Murray has been elected to represent West Ward in the Uckfield Town Council by-election. Councillor Murray received 524 votes and the Lib Dems said he ‘comfortably’ defeated Reform UK candidate Gary Peter Johnson who received 203 votes.

The Lib Dems … said: “The victory shows again that Uckfield has become a clear battleground between the Liberal Democrats and Reform UK. Back in May’s county council election for Uckfield North, the Lib Dems won by a narrow margin of just 31 votes over Reform. In Thursday’s two-way contest, which covers a large part of the Uckfield North division, support for the Liberal Democrats grew significantly, with Tim Murray taking more than 72 per cent of the overall vote.” [Sussex Express]

What do the polls say?

The results above may tell us what voters are deciding on ballot papers, but not everywhere voted. So what’s the overall picture in the polls? Find out each week with my newsletter, The Week in Polls.

What’s happening in the Lib Dems?

Sign up to my monthly newsletter, Lib Dem Newswire, to find out:

Welcome to Lib Dem Newswire #213, which takes a look at party approval ratings, news about Lib Dem target seats, a new think tank, the first female Minister of Education and more.

First, though, congratulations to the new Lib Dem councillors since last time – Jim Paine, Rebecca McManus, Paola Davies, Rhys Wallis and Ian Taylor – along with their campaign teams, especially their agents.

The net changes in council by-elections since the last edition of LDN as a result were Lib Dem +3, Green +1, Labour +/-0, Reform +/-0, Plaid +/-0, SNP +/-0, Independent/Other -1 and Conservative -3.

For more details on that, read on.

Best wishes,

Mark

P.S. If you haven’t yet had time to read it, last time’s edition is available online: Lib Dems should target becoming largest party in local government (LDN#212).

The government’s near-invisible power to veto legislation

When Parliament passed legislation, that should be it. If our democratic processes have agreed those laws, then they should come into force. Perhaps with a pause in some cases to allow everyone to get ready first, of course. Yet in practice, governments repeatedly override what Parliament has decided. Rather than just have a preparatory pause, they veto legal provisions on the quiet so that they never come into force.

Read more about this in one of the summer editions of my newsletter about my work in Parliament, A Lord’s Eye View:

The government’s near-invisible power to veto legislation

How the different parties poll

This is a slightly expanded version of the piece which first appeared in The Week in Polls.

Both YouGov and Ipsos have recently published data on how the public view the main British political parties. Here’s what it tells us:

The broad picture is similar with both pollsters: the Lib Dems have the best net ratings, Reform the worst, and the Greens and Labour have ratings similar to each other. The net ratings for the Conservatives, however, are somewhat different – up there with the Greens and Labour for Ipsos, but clearly below them both with YouGov.

Moreover, the story behind the net ratings varies between the two pollsters. In particular, with YouGov the Lib Dem top net rating is in large part a result of the Lib Dems also scoring the best positive scores. But with Ipsos, the Lib Dem chart topping is driven much more by having the least worst negative scores.

That said, the Lib Dems have the lowest negatives with both pollsters. Given the importance to the Lib Dems of building relevant local coalitions in the seats the party targets, including winning over tactical votes, having low negatives matters much more to the party than it likely does to, say, Reform, who succeed more by mobilising one particular chunk of the electorate.

Turning to the trends over time, both pollsters show similar pictures, with the Conservatives on a long gradual rise (though still to poor figures), a sharp rise for Labour recently (though not enough to make their figures good), steady declines for Reform and the Greens, and the Lib Dems slipping a bit from a general election peak but flat in recent times:

The Conservative-Reform crossover, if sustained, may turn out to be a significant moment for the state of British politics overall. However, it also adds to a mixed picture on the right, with Reform doing better than the Conservatives on voting intention while the Conservatives do better on leader and party approval. That’s a mix which, if sustained, will play out to the advantage of the Lib Dems (and Labour), helping keep the votes on the right split.

Mr Smith Goes to Washington

One of the episodes since last time of my podcast, Political Fictions, took a look at a classic American movie about an outsider taking on the political system:

Aidan Byrne joins Mark and Cory to watch the classic Mr Smith Goes to Washington. It’s a film full of shameless emotional manipulation, especially from some of the children in it. They marvel at the performances of Jimmy Stewart, Claude Rains and especially Jean Arthur, wonder if this film has an anti-FDR message, and Mark takes handwriting experts to task.

You can find Aidan on Blue Sky as Plashing Vole.

You can view the IMDb page for Mr Smith Goes to Washington here.

Cory’s email newsletter is Paperback Rioter and Mark has a family of email newsletters.

Subscribe to our newsletter for some additional bonus content and to get alerted whenever a new episode comes out.

Our theme tune is “Monkeys Spinning Monkeys” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) and licensed under the Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

You can also listen to our episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, the web, or YouTube.

For a taster of the movie, here is a trailer:

Sign up to the Political Fictions email list

If you follow politics and love political drama – on screen, on the page, or on stage – Political Fictions is the podcast for you. Each episode, I join Cory Hazlehurst to explore the portrayals of politics in fiction. Subscribe to our email list and we’ll let you know when each new episode drops:

Subscribe to Political Fictions

Congratulations to the newly promoted seats

Here is my latest report back to members as chair of the party’s Federal Communications and Elections Committee (FCEC). These reports also appear on the party website.

Annual tiering review

FCEC’s big annual task is doing our part in the annual review of our constituency and local party tiering – that is, which of the Advanced, Moving Forward Plus, Moving Forward, Development and Start-up tiers each constituency / local party is in.

This is very much a collective exercise across the party, with Regional Parties, State Parties and the Federal Party working together to assess the performance and potential of places. Although some decisions rest with FCEC, they are based on recommendations from all those involved.

For the higher tiers, there are sometimes conditions added, such as requiring a seat to select a Prospective Parliamentary Candidate (PPC) promptly in order to be in the Advanced tier. The widespread availability of public MRP data for seats also provides a useful health check against what the party’s internal data is showing, especially when MRPs are carefully filtered for the high-quality ones with a strong track record of predicting Lib Dem performance.

For obvious reasons, the details of which seats are in which tiers are not made public. But I’m glad to report that overall the tiering review this time has resulted in many more seats moving up than down, with a good spread, both geographically and in terms of politics, for those promotions.

Well done to everyone who has worked so hard in those places to earn promotion!

Selection timetable

At our last meeting, FCEC also discussed the new party-wide selection timetable for Westminster Parliamentary selections. Again, this is very much a collaborative exercise involving Regional Parties, State Parties and the Federal Party working together.

Having a coordinated timetable like this is an important part of how we’re improving our Parliamentary selections process. It also allows our candidate selections to be fully integrated with our wider party plans, such as getting more candidates in place sooner in weaker seats, so they have a longer run at that key task of building up the local party and campaigning capacity. PPCs used to play a key role in doing this in many seats, but the pattern in the last few Parliaments of those outside target seats often only being put in place very late in the day meant there simply wasn’t time for them to get much training or support for this task, nor time for them to do very much on this front.

A shared, planned timetable also allows better planning and sharing of resources, such as being able to work backwards from knowing how many Returning Officers will be needed to what training needs doing and when, and then to how many new volunteers need to be found.

You can see from the selection advertisements on the party website what a wide range of different types of seats are now selecting, reaching well beyond simply a handful of our strongest areas.

Other news

Josh Babarinde’s latest update as President covers the latest steps in the party strategy review as well as campaigning in the Clacton by-election.

A summer reading suggestion…

Polling UnPacked is available from Bookshop.org (independent bookshops), Waterstones, Amazon (including Kindle version) or direct from the publisher.

Call to work with EU to tackle small boats: Lib Dems in the news

The key stories

1. Join EU migration pact to tackle small boats, says Ed Davey. (More details of what the party is calling for here.)
2. Helen Morgan sets out three tests for cross-party social care reform talks to succeed.
3. Lib Dems to force vote on political donations cap. (For more on why that’s needed, see my piece here.)
4. Zöe Franklin: “Households [face] severe fines of up to £1,000 for using a hosepipe, while negligent water companies are allowed to lose hundreds of millions of litres of water every single day through their own crumbling infrastructure.”
5. Success for Tom Gordon’s bus pass campaign.
6. David Green: “We need an end to FIFA’s relentless profiteering and cronyism.”
7. Jane Dodds on Transport for Wales’s trains: “More than 1,000 air-conditioning faults in a matter of months simply isn’t good enough.”

Local government action

• 92 zero carbon, low-energy, low-bills homes built despite Labour and Conservative opposition.

Other people and party news

1. A new Lib Dem-connected think tank is being launched in September.
2. Danny Chambers nominated for the Nature 2030 Political Purpose Awards.

You can get more updates like the above in real time through my WhatsApp updates three to five times a week. Details on how to sign up are here.

The first female Minister of Education

In case you missed them first time around, here are some of my blog posts and assorted pieces since the last LDN:

• Ellen Wilkinson: the first female Minister of Education
• Kemi Badenoch’s dismissive attitude towards local government.
• Democracy, defence policy, health care and more at Lib Dem Autumn Conference.
• Speaking of which – use the drafting advice service for conference amendments and motions.
• Why you should read old election manuals.
• Café with a view #20: Bedfords Park Nature Discovery Centre.

And one from the archives:

• Personal stories trump facts at reaching across moral political divides.

What the polls are saying

Issues

Votes

Leaders

For more details on both voting intention and party leader ratings, and for updates in-between editions of LDN, take a look on my website.

Do Reform’s election results match up to their poll ratings?

Reform’s standing in the polls is an important part of the story the media tells about them. But are the polls exaggerating Reform’s support as measured in real votes in the ballot box? I took a look at the data to find out:

Are the polls overestimating support for Reform?

Selections news

Selections since last time have included Janey Little in North Somerset and Michael Stephens in Maidstone & Malling.

The Westminster constituencies currently advertising to select a Prospective Parliamentary Candidate include Edinburgh North & Leith, Edinburgh South West, Watford and York Central.

See all the Liberal Democrat Westminster PPCs selected and publicly announced so far here. (There’s often a little backlog of selections which have taken place but not yet been press released etc., so do let me know if you spot any which I have missed. Thank you.)

Council by-elections round-up

Council by-elections since last time have included the first Labour gains of the Burnham premiership, a Lib Dem win in a very promising Westminster seat and a gain in a held Westminster seat, along with progress against Reform and more wards becoming Reform versus Lib Dem contests.

The net changes in seats since the last edition of LDN as a result were Lib Dem +3, Green +1, Labour +/-0, Reform +/-0, Plaid +/-0, SNP +/-0, Independent/Other -1 and Conservative -3.

In their different ways both the Labour and Reform zero net changes may be the sign of something significant starting. Labour’s run of heavy losses has at least paused with Andy Burnham in Downing Street while Reform’s slipping ratings in the polls have now also come with a pause in their overall by-election progress. But don’t rush to conclusions until a few more weeks have passed.

Overall, the net changes in seats since the May elections are now Reform +8, Lib Dem +3, SNP +2, Green +2, Plaid -1, Conservative -3, Independent/Others -5 and Labour -6.

For more details, including the cumulative change since May, see my table of net seat changes since the last May local elections.

Other changes

A Labour councillor has joined the Lib Dems in Portsmouth, a Conservative has done so in Tewkesbury, a Green councillor has also joined the Lib Dems in Worcestershire, and a councillor is back from independent after a complaint was concluded in Dacorum.

But Lib Dems have gone independent in King’s Lynn & West Norfolk, South Gloucestershire and Warwick, while another, previously suspended, has gone independent in St Albans after a conviction.

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 is 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…

Take a look at one of the more unusual party name/descriptions applications lodged with the Electoral Commission.

If you enjoyed this newsletter, please forward it to a friend or share it online: Share

Thank you and best wishes,

Mark

Note: Links to books in the newsletter are usually affiliate links that generate a commission on sales made.

This time’s episode is about the 1992 general election, which feels a very long time ago not only because it is but also because back then the Conservatives were the pro-Europeans campaigning to protect jobs from the risks posed by the anti-Europeans in Labour’s ranks. It was also one of the relatively rare opinion poll disasters, and Labour’s defeat prompted a debate about whether the problem was that it had changed too much or not enough. So there was plenty for us to discuss…

The Absence of War, with John Cotton

Our first emergency episode! We’d been pondering doing the televised version of David Hare’s play about the 1992 general election. But spotting that it is available on iPlayer for a limited period of time has rushed it up our schedule with a special episode in time for you to watch it too:

Our normal programme is interrupted with an emergency episode!

David Hare’s play about a fictionalised version of the 1992 general election, The Absence of War, is on BBC iPlayer for a limited period. So before it goes, Mark and Cory talk about it with the former leader of Birmingham City Council, John Cotton.

They discuss the reasons Labour lost the 1992 election, whether the play has the right lessons about how to be successful in politics, the dilemmas facing leaders and why political dramas never seem to get the fonts quite right.

Watch The Absence of War before Wednesday September 16 on BBC iPlayer here.

Cory’s email newsletter is Paperback Rioter and Mark has a family of email newsletters.

Subscribe to our newsletter for some additional bonus content and to get alerted whenever a new episode comes out.

Our theme tune is “Monkeys Spinning Monkeys” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) and licensed under the Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

You can also listen to our episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, the web, or YouTube.

We will be returning to the question of whether Labour changed too much or not enough ahead of the 1992 election in another guise in our future episode on The West Wing’s Let Bartlet be Bartlet. Here is a sneak preview of that, talking about an issue common to both that show and this play:

Next week, we’re discussing The Death of Stalin. We may need to be less careful about spoilers on this one.

We love to hear from our listeners

Whether you are a new or long-standing listener to the podcast, feedback on each episode is always very welcome. Just pop up a comment on the web version of this newsletter:

Leave a comment

Or, if you have any suggestions for what we should cover in future episodes, just hit reply and let us know. Thank you!

Bonus content: The Candidate’s Husband

After last week’s newsletter dabbled in the world of espionage fiction [still more relevant for our audience than Cory’s writings on football – Mark], here’s a review of a genuinely political novel from Cory:

Wendy Sacks-Jones’s The Candidate’s Husband focusses on a married couple in the middle of an election campaign. Kirsty is a headmistress who decides to run as the Labour candidate in a by-election prompted by the revelation that the sitting MP had been guilty of sexual assault. Rick, her husband, gave up a promising media career in London to follow Kirsty to Hull and become Deputy Editor of the local newspaper. He spots an opportunity to raise his profile by starting a blog commentating on the by-election campaign in which his wife is the favourite. It goes without saying that the reaction from the Labour Party top brass to this is not entirely positive.

This is certainly an interesting premise, and not entirely far-fetched. It reminds me of podcasts like Political Currency, where Ed Balls is a commentator on the government when his wife sits in cabinet, or even The Rest Is Politics where it’s pretty clear that Alistair Campbell is close to several of the protagonists he’s talking about. Neither situation is analogous to how The Candidate’s Husband plays out, but nor is the novel a clichéd story of a frustrated husband trying to jump on the bandwagon of his wife’s fame to make a name for himself. Sacks-Jones spends a lot of time on setting up the characters and their backstory, and both Kirsty and Rick narrate the story. Not only does this work particularly well as an audiobook – where the narrators do a first-rate job – but it also makes both characters extremely rounded.

Sacks-Jones was a journalist before taking up writing fiction, and her portrayal of the challenges facing local journalists therefore feels authentic. So too do her descriptions of canvassing and the other activities taking place on the by-election campaign trail. There is one aspect that doesn’t quite ring true: to be truly realistic, there would need to be at least one group of the Hull Constituency Labour Party who for some reason had downed tools and refused to campaign for Kirsty in the by-election, causing lots of unnecessary drama and headaches.

The Candidate’s Husband passed a key test of any audiobook I listened to. I found myself taking extra walks to listen to more of it, and would also listen to it whilst washing up or cooking, rather than putting on a podcast. The plot never quite goes where you think it’s going to head. It’s a compelling narrative, interesting examination into a married couple and also an examination of women in politics. If you are interested in political thrillers with an emphasis on characterisation I heartily recommend either getting hold of a paper copy or the audio format.

Previously on Political Fictions…

Jeffrey Archer’s ‘First Among Equals’, with Shane Whaley (part 1)

A murder mystery set in Parliament, written by a pioneering MP

Elsewhere from us…

The growing trend for world leaders to appear as characters in spy novels

The two skills politics forgets to teach

Happy listening

Thank you for reading and hope you enjoy the episode. Feedback is always very welcome!

Best wishes,

Cory & Mark

Welcome to my latest update on work in the House of Lords, this time taking the opportunity offered by recess to talk about something more general than usual.

The two key skills politicians need, but aren’t taught or talked about

As Parliament is currently in recess, rather than delve into the detail of what I found on page 7 of a government document, I thought I’d talk about two crucial skills for being a politician, skills which apply outside politics too.

One is about understanding what to think when you come up with a novel idea. The other is about understanding how to react when you’re told your idea is impractical.

I have a brilliant idea no-one has done before

Coming up with good ideas that no-one has done before sounds desirable, and indeed often is. But there are two contrasting reasons why an idea is one no-one has done before. One is that, congratulations, you have been brilliant. The other is that, sorry, there are really good reasons why everyone else previously has binned the idea or failed at it.

Novelty may be innovative brilliance, or it may be ignoring the well-worn experiences already accumulated by others.

That’s completely impractical – you can’t do that

Whether novel or not, your idea may run into you being told that it can’t be done. Nice idea, but sorry, impractical.

That is a response which deserves some respect. Plenty of problems arise from people ignoring such responses.

Yet those responses are not always right. Sometimes the cries of ‘it’s impossible’ reflect reality. Sometimes, however, they reflect an under-performing organisation, scared to change, perhaps scarred by previous efforts to change, preferring to carry on as before. ‘It’s impossible’ may really mean ‘we’re not up to changing and don’t really want to.’ Which is why the right answer to the former is ‘ok, I’m going to change plans’ while the right answer to the latter is ‘ok, we’re going to find a way to make this work’.

It is hard to tell the difference

With both of these problems, it can be very hard to figure out which world you are in. Are you able to brilliantly lead your way into success or are things about to go horribly wrong?

Which is why the pair of related skills is so important, to distinguish between when you should push on and when you should back off.

Some of the best policy making successes have come from getting these things right – think about Covid testing and vaccines, for example, and the success in both doing things not done before and taking worries about practicality as issues to handle rather than reasons to stop.

Key skills then, but not ones we talk about enough or do enough to hone. Get better at using them and we get better politics, better policy making, and better outcomes for everyone from the better public services that would result.

In other news from other Lib Dem peers…

Previously on this newsletter…

The government’s near-invisible power to veto legislation

Starmer has come and gone but the 2024 election bills still need sorting by the government

Elsewhere from me…

Are the polls overestimating support for Reform?

Thank you

I hope you enjoyed reading this, and if you did please do encourage others to have a read too:

Share

Best wishes,

Mark

Councillor Graham Oakes has been unanimously chosen by local members as the Liberal Democrat parliamentary candidate for Bridgwater at the next general election. The Liberal Democrats finished 6,500 votes behind the Conservatives in Bridgwater in 2024, and the party is now aiming to build on its growing support across Somerset.

Graham Oakes is a well‑known Somerset councillor, serving on both Somerset Council and Yeovil Town Council. Until May 2026, he held a senior role on Somerset Council with responsibility for Public Health, Climate Change and the Environment, leading key initiatives to improve local services and strengthen community resilience.

Speaking after his selection, Graham said:

It is a huge privilege to be selected as the Liberal Democrat candidate for Bridgwater. Since the last general election, we have been out in our towns and villages, listening to residents and showing that there is a positive alternative. Bridgwater is the only constituency in Somerset not yet represented by a Liberal Democrat MP and I am determined to change that. I will work closely with councillors and our candidates ahead of the May council elections next year.

He added:

Residents tell me they want a representative who will focus on the issues affecting them day to day. I am campaigning on tackling the cost of living, supporting local businesses to revitalise our high streets, protecting our NHS and improving access to healthcare. I will work tirelessly to be a strong voice for every community across the Bridgwater constituency.

Graham and his wife are both nurses and manage care homes specialising in dementia care. They have four children and one grandchild. A lifelong Yeovil Town FC supporter, Graham is also passionate about local history and cookery — though he admits he is far more enthusiastic than talented in the kitchen.

You can follow Graham Oakes on Facebook.

See here for all the Liberal Democrat PPCs for the next general election selected and publicly announced so far.

Keep up with news about Lib Dem selections

If you’d like to hear about future selections, just sign up for my monthly newsletter, Liberal Democrat Newswire, with its regular selections round-up:

Not only a full slate, but also another Lib Dem gain from Reform:

The Lib Dem winner is Ian Taylor, who was an independent councillor in the area a few years back. Congratulations to him and the team.

This win came in Ian Sollom’s constituency and came despite polling day being at a tricky time, as Andrew Teale explains:

The resulting by-election has got swept up in a political outcry over regeneration proposals for St Neots town centre: the consultancy firm which the council had engaged to come up with ideas for regeneration has proposed closing the main car park for the town centre and building houses on it. They have made similar proposals for Huntingdon and St Ives. The fallout from this has led to the Green Party withdrawing from the ruling coalition, leaving the remaining Lib Dem-independent administration in a minority with 24 out of 52 seats.

In quotes to the press, the Greens had made clear their dislike of the plans to build housing on those car parks.

We are also starting to see Labour performing better against Reform, this week exchanging gains with Reform as well as holding another seat:

The Lib Dem here was Andy Waters – thank you.

Thank you to Stuart Kelly for getting the Lib Dems on the ballot here for the first time since 2013.

The thanks here go to Liz Morgan-Danvers for being the Liberal Democrat candidate.

For what all this means for the running total of council by-election results since the last May elections, see my council by-elections scorecard here.

These by-election results round-ups cover principal authority by-elections as it’s only those for which comprehensive results are available.

What do the polls say?

The results above may tell us what voters are deciding on ballot papers, but not everywhere voted. So what’s the overall picture in the polls? Find out each week with my newsletter, The Week in Polls.

What’s happening in the Lib Dems?

Sign up to my monthly newsletter, Lib Dem Newswire, to find out:

First Among Equals: the TV version of Jeffrey Archer’s novel

After last time’s novel, this time we’re back to TV – with the first episode of the televised version of a novel:

Cory and Mark are joined by Shane Whaley of the Spybrary podcast this week. Shane has picked for us to watch First Among Equals, a prime time ITV political drama from the 1980s. As its episodes total up to 494 minutes, this time we’re dipping into the first episode only. Take a listen to see if we – and you – want to watch the rest of the series. The series is based on the book by Jeffrey Archer, once a highly praised and successful novelist whose books were festooned with quotes praising his literary abilities. With the advantage of hindsight, however, we ask if Jeffrey Archer’s work is best compared to Anthony Trollope or a McDonald’s Filet-o-fish?

Watch the first episode of First Among Equals, and indeed the rest of the series, on YouTube here and second-hand copies of a DVD version are available from the usual places. The original novel is also widely available.

Cory’s email newsletter is Paperback Rioter and Mark has a family of email newsletters.

Our theme tune is “Monkeys Spinning Monkeys” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) and licensed under the Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

You can also listen to our episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, the web, or YouTube.

Next week we’re interrupting our planned schedule and talking about David Hare’s The Absence of War to mark its return to BBC iPlayer. It is a fictional tale which draws heavily on Neil Kinnock’s leadership of Labour in the 1992 election.

Watch that before next Thursday’s episode comes out here.

We love to hear from our listeners

Whether you are a new or long-standing listener to the podcast, feedback on each episode is always very welcome. Just pop up a comment on the web version of this newsletter:

Leave a comment

Or, if you have any suggestions for what we should cover in future episodes, just hit reply and let us know. Thank you!

In need of some extra summer reading?

Mark can only dream of getting his ‘to read’ and ‘to watch’ backlogs down to the point where he can start thinking of more things to read and watch. Cory, however, has ideas for more if you fancy some extra political drama in the final stretch of summer.

Once you’ve read The Division Bell Mystery and then listened to our podcast on the novel, you might require more summer viewing to round off your holiday.

This summer two more recent works of fiction have shown the contrasting approaches that spy writers have taken to dealing with the era of Donald Trump.

Jack Ryan: Ghost War is the latest instalment in the franchise starring John Krasinski as Ryan. This deals with contemporary America by ignoring Trump completely, a bit like the (much better) film The Amateur, starring Rami Malek and Laurence Fishburne which came out a couple of years ago. Apart from a nod to The War On Terror, Jack Ryan: Ghost War could have been made at any point in the last forty years. The plot – of a disgruntled ex-agent bumping off spooks around the world whilst the good guys chase after various McGuffins – could easily be one that was used in a Jack Ryan film starring Harrison Ford back in the 90s. Except that this instalment is nowhere near as good as classics such as Patriot Games or Clear and Present Danger. The script is a little leaden and there’s not a huge amount of tension. There are some decent things about this film: it’s always a pleasure watching Wendell Pierce in anything. But it isn’t really worth your time.

Charles Cumming takes the opposite approach in his new novel Icarus 17, the latest of the hugely entertaining Box 88 series. I’ve always enjoyed Cumming’s novels, but these four novels take his work to another level. The previous three went back and forth between Lachlan Kite’s present-day working in the secret service and his past missions. All the books can be read as standalone but they’re worth reading sequentially. I very much enjoyed Kennedy 35, the previous novel, which is set around Rwanda during the genocide in that country. Icarus 17 takes a slightly different approach, all set in the present day. It’s very much rooted in contemporary events, with the killing of Jamal Khashoggi being a significant element of the plot’s setup. The spectre of DOGE is hovering over the spooks in this novel. Whereas the CIA in Jack Ryan: Ghost War are assumed to be the good guys, it’s more ambiguous in Icarus 17. There’s also much in this about ageing, making it more than just another Bondesque tail of derring-do in exotic countries. If you need an immersive, readable yet thought-provoking novel, this series is worth picking up.

Previously on Political Fictions…

A murder mystery set in Parliament, written by a pioneering MP

Mr Smith Goes to Washington, with Aidan Byrne

Elsewhere from us…

The Odyssey is the least woke blockbuster you’ll watch this year

Are the polls overestimating support for Reform?

Happy listening

Thank you for reading and hope you enjoy the episode. Feedback is always very welcome!

Best wishes,

Cory & Mark

Many congratulations to new councillor Paola Davies and the team.

The second gain was a win from Labour, this one in Richard Foord’s constituency:

The new councillor to congratulate along with their team here is Rhys Wallis – and they provided another great example of the benefits of not leaving a ward uncontested.

(The previous election in the ward was a multi-member contest, with the Conservatives topping the poll. Hence this being a gain from Labour despite those figures for vote share changes.)

For what all this means for the running total of council by-election results since the last May elections, see my council by-elections scorecard here.

Finally, in Nigel Farage’s by-election:

Note that Reform under-performed compared with the one full poll carried out for the by-election, a topic that I will return to in the next The Week in Polls, which you can sign up to receive below.

Perhaps surprisingly, no-one scored zero votes and so my note on the last person to score zero does not need updating.

These by-election results round-ups cover principal authority by-elections as it’s only those for which comprehensive results are available.

What do the polls say?

The results above may tell us what voters are deciding on ballot papers, but not everywhere voted. So what’s the overall picture in the polls? Find out each week with my newsletter, The Week in Polls.

What’s happening in the Lib Dems?

Sign up to my monthly newsletter, Lib Dem Newswire, to find out:

A Conservative councillor has defected to the Liberal Democrats after the “final straw” of the selection of an ex neo-Nazi as a Tory candidate in Somerset and Kemi Badenoch’s comments about councillors.

Heather McLain, who represents Severn Vale North at Tewkesbury Borough Council … also said she has been very impressed with the “collaborative approach” of the Tewkesbury Lib Dems.

Tewkebury Borough Council’s Lib Dem leader Richard Stanley said his group is “absolutely delighted” to welcome her.

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The drafting advice deadline for amendments and emergency motions this time around is 1pm on Tuesday 25 August 2026. More information and the link to the advice form is on the party website.

I’ve asked for the drafting advice even though the amendment is on a topic which falls within my area of responsibility in the House of Lords, and even though I’ve therefore also already checked it with relevant Parliamentary and staff colleagues.

All of which I mention because sometimes people, mistakenly, think that that the drafting advice isn’t needed for them. However much you (think you) know a topic, you always should use the drafting advice service.

Why is that? Partly it’s simply because however carefully you think you’ve thought through something, a dispassionate, new pair of expert eyes is always a helpful check. Partly too because there may be things about the party’s policy processes and the conference planning that you are not aware of but which are relevant. For example, it may be that what you’re proposing overlaps with an issue where it’s been decided a policy paper will come to a future party conference, and so an additional debate this time around is unlikely to be taken. Know that, redraft your amendment to focus on a different aspect and you’re then much more likely to have success.

This isn’t just theoretical, the reality is that it’s a regular occurrence for motions and amendments to get rejected by the Federal Conference Committee (FCC) due to problems with their drafting – and for the people putting them forward not to have asked for the drafting advice first. Of course, in such cases people tend not to go around talking about their mistake (and in a few cases even, rather unwisely in my view, choose to blame FCC or the party leader or someone else, talking about how someone must have wanted to block the substance of their idea and without mentioning that there was a problem with how they worded it). So it can be easy to miss how often the failure to get drafting advice sinks something; but it’s not a rare occurrence.

And anyway, the advice is easy and free to get!

So if you are thinking of putting in an amendment or emergency motion, do got ask for that drafting advice first.

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It’s been a while since one of these, so time for another cafe with a view, this time over in east London. It’s the cafe at the Bedfords Park Nature Discovery Centre (Broxhill Road, Romford RM4 1QH, but best reached by a walk through Bedfords Park itself).

The cafe itself is a fairly standard, small park cafe. But the views are anything but standard, giving you a vantage over the Thames estuary and all the way through to the hills south of London.

There is a deer park just around the corner too.

You can see all my cafés with view in London here.

The Liberal Democrats have welcomed Councillor Martin Allen to the party after he announced he was leaving the Green Party following ten years of service.

Councillor Allen, who represents residents on both Worcestershire County Council and Malvern Hills District Council, said he had reached the difficult decision after concluding that the Liberal Democrats now better reflected his values and his commitment to putting local communities first.

Explaining his decision, Martin Allen said:

After ten years of service, I have concluded that I can no longer remain a member of the Green Party.

Since there has been a change in leader at the top, events, including Green Leader Zack Polanski voicing sympathy for the thugs who were imprisoned for an act where a police officer, Kate Evan was hit with a sledgehammer, plus the poor response of the national party’s leadership, have caused me to reflect on whether my values still aligned with those of the Green Party. I have reached the conclusion that they do not.

I have decided to join the Liberal Democrats because they believe in doing the right thing for every part of our community. They have shown leadership by stepping forward to help run Worcestershire County Council after previous administrations failed local people.

Our county and our local communities deserve strong, practical leadership. I am pleased to have been accepted into the Liberal Democrats and look forward to helping continue that work.

Councillor Allen also said he remained committed to protecting Worcestershire’s countryside and supporting proposals that would strengthen protection against inappropriate speculative development. He also affirmed his commitment to supporting veterans whenever he can.

He confirmed that, with county council elections due next May, he did not believe it would be right to impose the cost of a by-election on local taxpayers so close to those elections.

Dan Boatright-Greene, Leader of the Liberal Democrat Group on Worcestershire County Council, said:

I’m delighted to welcome Martin to the Liberal Democrat team.

Throughout his time on the county council he has demonstrated a genuine commitment to serving his residents and standing up for the communities he represents. He is a thoughtful, hardworking councillor who will make a valuable contribution to our group.

The Liberal Democrats are building a strong team focused on delivering better public services, protecting our environment, supporting local businesses and giving communities a stronger voice. Martin shares those priorities, and I look forward to working alongside him.

Councillor Paul Bennett, Leader of the Liberal Democrat Group on Malvern Hills District Council, said:

Martin has earned a reputation as a committed local councillor who is passionate about protecting the communities and countryside of Malvern Hills.

We have worked together on a number of local issues, and I know he shares our determination to deliver practical solutions rather than political point-scoring.

His experience and dedication will strengthen our group, and I am very pleased to welcome him to the Liberal Democrats.

Councillor Allen said he was excited about the challenges ahead and looked forward to working with Liberal Democrat colleagues across Worcestershire to improve services, protect local communities and provide positive leadership for residents.

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Of course, the self-professed experts in an endeavour are not always right. Sometimes data and evidence, or the arrival of a new talent, shows up that habit and time has ossified erroneous beliefs into holy writ. But the story told of through election manuals of the development of (semi-)democratic electoral campaigning in this country is an important one.

The manuals from the early twentieth century are particularly fruitful for this, because they trace important changes, such as the rise of the ‘prospective Parliamentary candidate’ (due to legal changes and the need to avoid appearing in the eyes of the law to be a candidate too far ahead of polling day, this was an increasing topic in such manuals), the growth in questions from the public, and the increasing importance of an election agent knowing how to campaign rather than simply how to to follow the law (and hence the changing balance of legal and campaign advice in such manuals).

The story told through the manuals also shows how not all is so new in politics after all.

Take, for example, this volume:

It also contains a summary of “the following advice which was given by Mr. Gladstone” on how to make a good political speech:

1. Study plainess of language, always preferring the simpler word.
2. Shortness of sentences.
3. Distinctness of articulation.
4. Test and question your own arguments beforehand, not waiting for critic or opponent.
5. Seek a thorough digestion of, and familiarity with, your subject, and rely mainly on these to prompt the proper words.
6. Remember that if you are to sway an audience you must, besides thinking out your matter, watch them all along.

Still pretty good advice, although this being Gladstone it is only brevity in sentences, not brevity in speech length, that is called for.

As is the book’s own advice on judging your audience:

The average man is not a close student of political questions … The average man does not care for a mass of details … What is needed is the power to put the main facts clearly before him, filling in here and there with a little detail where it is necessary in order to demolish an argument being made use of by political opponents. And the plainer the language the better he will understand it, and the more he will like it.

A modern version of that should certainly acknowledge the existence of women, and talk perhaps more of the importance of avoiding jargon, but the similarity with contemporary advice shows how careful we should be about inventing a past golden age of much higher levels of political engagement and interest.

Likewise the advice on writing political leaflets is recognisable to modern concerns too:

The candidate’s address is for the man in the street, and the average man in the street is much more interested in his half-penny newspaper than in a political discourse. If the address is to be read, much less marked, learned, or inwardly digested, the sound rule is cut it short.

There is also a reference to the benefits of handwritten (but the reproduced on a printer) letters; a tactic often thought of as a modern one but one with very old roots.

Also recognisable too is the emphasis given of the importance of a candidate having clear local connections. We now have much more rigorous data on the benefits of a candidate being ‘local’, but sometimes this is talked of being something new. Rather, it’s something with much older roots as this guide makes clear:

A stranger to the constituency is proverbially not the best vote winner.

Which makes me wonder if there was perhaps a class-voting, two-party political era in which your party label and class overrode such concerns. But if there was – perhaps in and around the 1950s – then it likely was the exception rather than the norm from which current practice has departed. Of course, one way to test that out is through seeing what the election manuals over the years have said about local candidates, and whether the prominence given in them to this attribute rises and falls.

As I said, you should read old election manuals.

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Conference Agenda

Conference Directory

Reports to Conference

The three policy papers up for debate in Brighton can be found in my policy paper archive (numbers 164-166).

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