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

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:

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 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.

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).

One person not in this list is Christine Duffy, who intended to resign, sent her resignation to the wrong council and then changed her mind (August 2026).

Thank you to all the readers who have contributed to the list. I also have a list of Green councillor losses.

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).

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 team 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 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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To the results and let’s start with two Reform gains from the Conservatives, but note that in both cases the Lib Dems came from nowhere to second place – showing once again how many places are becoming a new two party set-up, but with the two parties being Reform and the Lib Dems.

Finishing second here for the Liberal Democrats was Lee Henson, the party having not fought the ward the previous two times it was up since the last boundary changes.

The second place here was secured by Rachael Windsor again after two previous no-shows for the Lib Dems going back to the last boundary changes.

Thank you to both candidates and the team who campaigned in this pair of adjacent wards.

The previous Lib Dem no-show was put right this time by Mark Robson – thank you.

David Scullin was the Lib Dem on the ballot paper here after the previous no-show; thank you.

(Note: this is a multimember ward which the Greens had won the two previous times it was up.)

Thank you to Tina Cohen for being the Liberal Democrat here.

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 week, my eye was caught at the town/parish/community council level by:

The Liberal Democrats have won the Coppice Valley Town Council by-election, with Rebecca McManus securing more than 60% of the vote.

Cllr McManus received 61.2% of votes cast, with Reform UK finishing second on 15.6%.

The Liberal Democrats said their share of the vote was 21.2 percentage points higher than at last year’s local election.

Turnout for the by-election was 30.7%. [Your Harrogate]

Congratulations to Rebecca McManus and the team.

Also:

Labour has won a town council by-election in Kidsgrove … The by-election was called after the seat was vacated due to previous councillor Olivia Westcott, of Reform UK, failing to sign paperwork on time following her election in May. Ms Westcott was again chosen as the Reform candidate for the seat, but was narrowly defeated. [The Sentinel]

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 the latest email for our podcast, Political Fictions: political drama on screen and on the page. Please do spread the word about the podcast to your friends, colleagues and even dastardly rivals who you want to distract from doing something else.

Now, on to the proper business of this email.

The Division Bell Mystery by Ellen Wilkinson

We’ve done TV. We’ve done film. We’ve done the stage. So it’s time for a new format… featuring the country’s first female Minister of Education, Ellen Wilkinson:

Mark and Cory are joined by Elinor Taylor for our first book! It is Ellen Wilkinson’s The Division Bell Mystery, a political thriller disguised as a golden age detective story.

It is written by one of the country’s first female MPs and is full of convincing and vivid political detail about what it is like being a bag carrier for an important minister.

The plot’s setting is accurate right down to some key architectural detail on which it all hinges.

But is it also a good murder mystery? Find out as they discuss ridiculous murder plots, why politicians should beware of the weekend, and what this novel tells us about class, sex and empire.

You can find The Division Bell Mystery on Goodreads 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.

Next time, we’re watching the first episode of First Among Equals. Watch it on YouTube here. We’ll be discussing it with Shane Whaley of the Spybrary podcast and online community.

An extra note from Mark: one of my favourite authors is Christopher Fowler who wrote a great series of homages to golden age detective novels with his Bryant & May series. You can read my posts about him here.

Previously on Political Fictions…

Mr Smith Goes To Washington, with Aidan Byrne

Offside: politics meets football in Iran

Elsewhere from us…

Interpreting Burnham’s cabinet reshuffle

The government’s near-invisible power to veto legislation

Happy listening

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

Best wishes,

Cory & Mark

It’s true that there are enough difference between the roles of councillor and MP that someone can be suitable for one but not the other. However, this is very much not a reasonable version of that argument.

It’s also true that there’s a role for rehabilitation in politics, though again this isn’t it – the severity and the recency of the offences both count against.

Moreover, as Stephen Bush points out:

UPDATES

We also now have some polling data on all this, courtesy of YouGov:

Note that 2024 Reform voters are more supportive, just, of the Conservative selection than 2024 Conservatives are.

Perhaps not a surprise then that, as the BBC reports:

A former neo-Nazi selected by the Conservatives to fight a council election next year has pulled out after a backlash against his candidacy.

However:

Bonehill-Paine said he had now withdrawn his candidacy, and had been offered a position as an anti-extremism adviser to the party.

In a social media post, he said the position with the Conservative Party’s Culture and Integration Commission would focus on advising on how to prevent young men from being radicalised.

Berger, who now sits as Baroness Berger in the House of Lords, branded the appointment an “insult,” adding that making him a party adviser was “no better than allowing him to stand as a council candidate”.

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Ellen Wilkinson: pioneering politician and thriller writer

Our next podcast episode features our first book! We will be discussing pioneering MP Ellen Wilkinson’s locked-room murder mystery The Division Bell Mystery.

Her political career culminated in being Minister of Education in Clement Attlee’s 1945 government, the first woman to hold that post or its predecessor posts.

So ahead of our podcast episode appearing, here is a news clip in which she features, helping to celebrating the silver wedding anniversary for Mr and Mrs Attlee. Watch out too for Herbert Morrison enjoying the food and it is just possible that Mr Attlee is not enjoying the whole thing:

When she tragically died later that year after an accidental medicine overdose, Ernest Bevin paid tribute to Ellen Wilkinson:

Remember to subscribe to our podcast in your favourite podcast app to get our episode about her novel when it appears in a few days.

From the archives

All The President’s Men, and the myth it sells you

Elsewhere from us…

Interpreting Burnham’s cabinet reshuffle

Pollsters were right, but also lucky, in Greater Manchester Mayor contest

And finally…

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 mentioning a welcome move by the Hansard Society.

The problem of commencement

As someone who has written about, and repeatedly raised in Parliament, questions about the quality and clarity of our laws, it was great to see this from the Hansard Society last week:

We have launched Legislation Watch, a new rolling blog on our website where we will examine the key issues shaping how our laws are made at Westminster. Because legislation is the principal means by which governments implement policy, improving the legislative process for bills and regulations is fundamental to better government. Through timely, accessible analysis, Legislation Watch will draw on legislative and procedural developments, parliamentary committee reports, and new data and trends to reveal what they tell us about the strengths and weaknesses of the legislative process and the reforms needed to make it more effective.

Their first post, drawing on the expert work of Lord Norton, looks at the topic familiar to readers of this newsletter, the fact that so much of the law passed by Parliament never ends up being brought into force.

The problem stems from the reasonable need on occasion to have a lead time between a bill getting Royal Assent and the provision actually coming into force. As a result, it is common for there to be commencement provisions. Sometimes, this gives a fixed lead time for parts of the act to come into force (e.g. six months). But very often, the provision is open-ended, i.e. various parts of the act won’t commence until the government issues a commencement order.

As the Hansard Society says:

Commencement powers serve an important purpose. Governments often need time to prepare administrative systems and processes, make regulations (secondary or delegated legislation usually in the form of Statutory Instruments) to implement provisions, establish new public bodies, or secure the necessary funding before complex policy changes can take effect. But these same powers also give Ministers considerable control – close to a veto – over whether Parliament’s decisions are ever actually implemented…

It falls to Parliament to hold ministers to account for failing to implement legislation that it has enacted and, where necessary, take steps to ensure that its legislative intentions are respected and implemented.

But in practice, Parliament does very little to hold ministers to account.

Partly that’s because this counts as ‘boring’. Making new policy, passing new legislation is seen as exciting. Then actually doing something is seen as boring implementation.

That’s a wrong judgement, of course. But it is very widespread, as seen by the relative esteem with which policy making and implementation are often held in the civil service, or by the political coverage in the media almost never showing any interest in whether those controversial legislative clauses that were covered at great length ever end up actually being commenced.

It is also partly because, well, that’s just how things are. So there are no regular reports on steps to commence legislation. There are no regular tidy-ups to repeal the never-commenced. Even the standard free sources of information for what is law – which are very good in many ways – can leave you struggling to put together the picture of what is and isn’t in force.

It helps leave the statute book in a mess – and things that are messy are more error prone and harder to get right.

It’s also curious because it downgrades the role of Parliament, from being the body that makes laws to being a body that proffers up options to ministers, from which they pick and choose which laws to make. As I put it in an earlier piece, the government should not be able to quietly veto legislation.

Or as the Hansard Society puts it:

MPs and Peers may spend weeks scrutinising and amending provisions that ministers subsequently leave uncommenced for years, or never implement at all.

That needs to change. So as part of that, let’s hope this new initiative from the Hansard Society is popular and successful.

In other news from other Lib Dem peers…

Previously on this newsletter…

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

The infected blood scandal highlights the siloed nature of Whitehall

Elsewhere from me…

Mr Smith Goes To Washington, with Aidan Byrne

Thank you

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

Best wishes,

Mark

As The Times reports:

Constituency polling by Survation, for Mandate Research, found that Farage could win the seat with as much as 73 per cent of the vote on a very low turnout. However, opposition to Farage has crystallised around support for the joke candidate Count Binface, who is polling at about 20 per cent.

In a direct head-to-head between Farage and Binface, support for the Reform leader falls to 69 per cent while Binface’s backing rises to 31 per cent.

The poll was carried out over the phone with a sample size of 502, which is sufficient for a poll such as this.

The full voting figures are:

• Nigel Farage leads on 73%
• Count Binface 20%
• Laurence Fox 2%
• Other candidates combined 5%

Survation explain:

Awareness of the story which led Farage to call the by-election in the first place is high: 81% have heard at least something about the donation (47% a lot, 34% something), against 8% who have heard hardly anything and 7% nothing at all.

However, voters are undecided on its relevance: 35% say Farage acted within the rules, 25% that he acted wrongfully, 8% say both or neither and 32% do not know. The opinions follow partisan lines – 63% of 2024 Reform voters say he acted within the rules, against 38% of 2024 Conservatives.

Survation also asked people what they think the contest is about:

More details from Survation here and there is also now available a write-up from More in Common of two focus groups held in the constituency.

What do the polls say?

Keep up with the latest poll results and exclusive analysis 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:

Let’s start with a Lib Dem defence in a ward that’s located in just the sort of Parliamentary seat the party needs to win in order to prosper at the next general election:

Congratulations to new councillor Jim Paine and the team on this win in the Hamble Valley constituency, which the Lib Dems missed out on by under 5,000 votes at the last general election.

Thank you to Lorraine Flawn for being the Lib Dem here.

But there were also two contests without a Liberal Democrat on the ballot paper:

And finally for the council contests:

The Lib Dem here was Gillian Wroe – 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.

And finally in the Mayor by-election:

Thank you to Richard Kilpatrick for being the Liberal Democrat candidate in this contest.

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:

Welcome to my latest update on work in the House of Lords, this time taking a look once again at how slowly the state sorts out its payments for the running of elections.

Why does it still take the state years to do something volunteers have to do in weeks?

Back in November last year I wrote:

Election agents, often volunteers, have a tight legal timetable to meet for submitting their candidate expense returns after an election. Parties with national expense returns have clear deadlines to hit too.

And the government?

Well, for general elections and some other contests Returning Officers get their costs covered by the Consolidated Fund, that is by central government.

But while election agents have to get all their finances and paperwork sorted in mere weeks, it takes years – literally several years – for government.

Here are the details which I obtained via a written question, of when the last payments were settled for a range of elections:

• 2024 UK Parliamentary: payments not yet all settled
• 2024 Police and Crime Commissioner: payments not yet all settled
• 2021 Police and Crime Commissioner: 21 May 2025
• 2019 UK Parliamentary: 2 February 2024
• 2019 European Parliamentary: 22 January 2021

For those three where the final payments have now all been agreed it took over four years, nearly five years, and a year and a half, respectively.

A volunteer election agent, in contrast, gets just over a month to settle up all their bills and submit their paperwork.

Apparently, I’m a persistent person, so this month I’ve asked again about those 2024 payments, and it turns out they have not yet all been sorted:

The settlement of election claims depends on a range of factors, including the timing of claim submissions and the resolution of queries arising during the scrutiny process.

As of 15 July 2026, approximately 125 claims relating to the 2024 Police and Crime Commissioner elections and 600 claims relating to the 2024 UK Parliamentary General Election remain outstanding.

Over two years and counting for the government to sort out its own electoral administration… and as I said last year, what a contrast with the much tougher electoral finance deadlines the government sets for others.

What a contrast too that Keir Starmer’s premiership took less time than it is taking to sort the bills for the election which put him in Downing Street.

Let’s pencil in another question for July 2027…

In other news from other Lib Dem peers…

Previously on this newsletter…

The infected blood scandal highlights the siloed nature of Whitehall

Government talks tough but often moves slowly on foreign interference in politics

Elsewhere from me…

Have we really had an unusually large number of PMs recently?

Thank you

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

Best wishes,

Mark

Welcome to the latest email for our podcast, Political Fictions: political drama on screen and on the page. Please do spread the word about the podcast to your friends, colleagues and even dastardly rivals who you want to distract from doing something else. They can all sign up here:

Now, on to the proper business of this email which this time is Cory writing about three of our favourite moments from the our latest full episode.

Three tasters from our Mr Smith Goes To Washington episode

We broke new ground in this episode, with our first guest and first black and white film. Recording this podcast with Aidan was so much fun. I particularly liked him talking about architecture of Washington in this film. Given we were recording this in a week in which a section the White House was being turned to rubble, it felt particularly poignant. Here’s a taster of what he had to say:

As Aidan mentions in the episode, this is a very melodramatic film full of brilliant, saccharine emotional manipulation. Which led us to thinking about which Prime Minister could have produced a similar film?

Next time we are also breaking new ground, with our first book. It’s The Division Bell Mystery by Ellen Wilkinson. Here’s what Aidan says in this episode about the novels written by MPs in the 1930s:

Also, I’ve finally got round to finishing the TV series of Dear England. I should have shown more faith in James Graham: it does end on a very satisfying note. Although Episode 3 does have the most bizarre fictional conversation involving a Prime Minister since the London Underground scene on Darkest Hour.

Listen to our episode in full

Those clips given you a taste for our full episode on Mr Smith Goes To Washington? You can take a listen right now:

Mr Smith Goes To Washington, with Aidan Byrne

From the archives

Party leadership plotting: Yes, Minister’s Party Games episode

And finally…

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

Best wishes,

Cory & Mark

If you’d like to get future editions emailed direct to you as soon as they are published, sign up now:

Why can’t the Cabinet Office do what other departments can?

Just before the House of Lords broke up for the summer we had a debate on the latest legislation to compensate victims of the infected blood scandal.

Across a little over two decades, more than 30,000 people were given infected blood by the NHS and, as the House of Lords Library summarises it, “over 3,000 people have since died, and thousands more live with health conditions. The infected blood inquiry called for immediate compensation, public memorials, and for lessons to be learned in medicine, government and the civil service.”

A lot went wrong, there’s a lot to learn from the mistakes as well and much to put right. There are others far more expert and eloquent than me who told the full story of the scandal in the debate.

So, as I’m on the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee (SLSC) in the Lords, I took the chance in my speech both to pay tribute to those campaigners and to dig into some of the procedural detail, making use of our scrutiny work.

As I set out in my speech, there are many concerns about the speed with which compensation payments are being made and – because the sums are fixed figures set in legislation – those figures are eroded by inflation. If you do not get your compensation for several years, you will get less in real terms as a result.

But the combination of fixed sums in legislation and inflation is hardly surprising or rare. It’s been a basic reality for many departments over many decades, centuries even.

Other departments and other compensation schemes uprate figures from time to time to account for inflation. (They often do it slowly and inconsistently, which is a whole other story. But they do it.)

Yet the Cabinet Office has ruled this out, for reasons that imply that no-one else could do it either – even though others do.

It’s a small but powerful example of how siloed Whitehall often is. Rather than having a common approach, service or process that is reused multiple times across different departments, everyone reinvents their own wheel, with quite varying results.

Here are the details of all that in the speech I gave:

I am deeply conscious of how much knowledge many noble Lords have on this topic, knowledge that has often been tragically accumulated through their own personal experiences and those of their families. I pay tribute to those, both in this House and outside it, who have done so much to expose the scandal and to push for justice, including of course several noble Lords who have so eloquently spoken in this debate. If I may, I will briefly mention one other: my noble friend Lady Featherstone’s late sister, Della, who I remember as always such a smiling and happy person, but who was also such a formidable campaigner, driven by her own family’s tragedy.

Of course, one issue of widespread concern, as the noble Lord, Lord Patten, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, in particular have touched on, is the speed with which compensation payments are being made and will be made, especially given the steady death toll, sadly, of victims of this tragedy. I very much welcomed the Government’s response when the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, of which I am a member, dug into this SI, confirming that they expect the “vast majority” of payments for infected people to be made by 2027 and for those affected by 2029.

Last year, however, the noble Baroness, Lady Anderson, the Minister, went a little further on 19 March, when she talked of IBCA’s

“aim to have made the majority of payments far ahead of those dates” [Official Report, 19/3/25; col. 1316.]

I hope she might be able to tell us what progress is being made on those more ambitious dates. When, for example, can we expect the majority of payments to be made by, and have those dates changed since the original profile of compensation spending was agreed with the Treasury?

However, even with the best possible answers on those points, it will still be several years before payments are concluded, so the fixed financial figures set in this statutory instrument and other related legislation will, as we have heard, continue to be eroded by inflation, reducing what people receive before everything is settled. I must admit that I found the Government’s explanation to the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee for not uprating figures to cater for inflation to be a little puzzling, because it was a two-pronged justification, the first being that it

“would not be consistent with a tariff-based approach”,

and the second being that it would be “administratively burdensome”. I find that puzzling, because there are many other SIs that come through Parliament that appear to manage both those things. Conscious of time, I will mention only one.

The Armed Forces and Reserve Forces (Compensation Scheme) (Amendment) Order 2026 takes several financial numbers related to compensation that are fixed in legislation and updates them explicitly in response to those figures having been eroded by inflation over time. The Government’s Explanatory Memorandum also talks of plans to regularly review the relevant lump sum to uprate it in future in line with inflation. That is just one of many different examples of other schemes and compensation arrangements where the Government regularly update figures in line with inflation. They do not find it inconsistent with tariff-based approaches in those other areas, and they do not find it unnecessarily administratively burdensome.

I therefore hope the Minister can, if not necessarily promise future uprating to deal with inflation, at least set out a clear path to look further at this issue. This is not just an abstract matter of geeky maths and statistical detail; it goes to the heart of whether victims of this appalling tragedy will finally be properly treated and respected by the systems that govern us. I very much hope that the Minister will respond positively on those points and on the others that we have heard in this debate.

Sal Brinton spoke movingly and powerfully in the debate, including this point:

You can read her speech, and those of others, including our colleague Lynne Featherstone, in full here.

Since the debate there have been, alas, two pieces of bad news. First, the government reshuffle has seen the relevant Lords minister in the Cabinet Office change. That often results in work being delayed while a new minister gets up to speed, and the outgoing minister – Baroness Anderson – was genuinely committed to the issue. Second, there is this from The i:

Victims of the contaminated blood scandal must wait longer for a decision on whether a criminal investigation will be launched – despite Andy Burnham’s commitment to deliver justice … The National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) has been assessing the evidence. Its initial focus was on the “specific events” at Treloar’s, but it has now decided to widen the scope of its review, raising fears among campaigners that a final decision on whether to launch a criminal investigation could still be years away.

In other news from other Lib Dem peers…

Previously on this newsletter…

Government talks tough but often moves slowly on foreign interference in politics

Tackling a loophole in lobbying regulation, and a small win on WhatsApp

Elsewhere from me…

Lib Dems should target becoming largest party in local government (LDN#212)

Thank you

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

Best wishes,

Mark

Simon Lancaster was the Lib Dem here – thank you.

Both these by-elections came about due to councillors newly elected in May quitting within weeks and they are Labour’s first gains from Reform in this cycle of council by-elections.

It was not all bad news for Reform though:

Thanks go to Ronald Gillett for being the Lib Dem here.

Elsewhere:

Andrew Colman was the Liberal Democrat candidate here – thank you.

Thank you to Jim Corrigan for being the Lib Dem in this contest. (The Lib Dem vote the time before was inflated by an unusual and small candidate line-up.)

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:

Mr Smith Goes To Washington, with Aidan Byrne

After messing around with football / broadening our cultural frames of reference (delete according to which one of us you agree with), it’s back to hard core politics this time around with a classic movie:

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/).

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

(Update: you can also get a taster of our podcast episode here.)

Next time, we’re doing our first book! We will be reading Ellen Wilkinson’s The Division Bell Mystery.

Previously on Political Fictions…

Offside: politics meets football in Iran

Bonus content: politics, football and the movies

Elsewhere from us…

Is Andy Burnham really going to call a snap election?

Count Binface outpolls Nigel Farage, sort of

Happy listening

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

Best wishes,

Cory & Mark

Welcome to Lib Dem Newswire #212, which expands on why the Liberal Democrats should set – and then work seriously to hit! – a target of being the largest party in local government.

First, though, congratulations to the new Lib Dem councillors since last time – Pat Hackett, Gary Taylor, Colin Millichap, Andrea Pellegram, Naomi Bloomer, Terry Weldon, Oli Leach, Alex Davies, Tyler Wragg, Sheena Morrison, Sarah King and Rob Packard, and to their agents.

As usual, this edition includes a section on Parliamentary selections, both those recently completed and new ones being advertised. It’s great to see quite how many seats are currently open for applications; there’s been a big pick-up in the pace of these and it’s by no means only obvious target seats which are selecting. And if all that makes you interested in becoming a Parliamentary candidate, see the information here.

Best wishes,

Mark

P.S. If you haven’t yet had time to read it, last time’s edition is available online: Lessons from 1936 and 2026 for the Liberal Democrats (LDN#211).

What would it take for Capita to be banned from government contracts?

Capita missed the promised end of June deadline for sorting out problems with the civil service pension scheme, a crisis that I’ve covered before.

As a result of this latest failure, the issue was discussed again in the House of Lords. I took the opportunity to ask at what point Capita’s failures might result in the firm being ruled out from future contracts, bearing in mind the big new contract the government awarded it after the pension fiasco had come to light.

Read all about it here.

English Party reform finally happens

For decades people in the Liberal Democrats have been talking about reforming the English Party. But there’s always been an excuse found to put it off, even after various reviews previously recommending reform – it’s not quite the right package being proposed, we need just a bit more time, let’s think further on the details, and so on.

So it was great to see the English Council voting for major reforms to the English Party in late June. The final vote was 118-16 for a package which includes abolishing the English Council itself and moving to a new structure that is much more focused on being the collective voice of regional parties, with the officer roles in future elected by all members in England.

Congratulations to Caroline Pidgeon on successfully chairing the meeting despite Zoom choosing that day to roll out an update which meant people variously lost the ability to turn cameras on, raise their hands or use the online poll (!). She calmly filled in all the gaps as things were sorted and took us all through backup options so that everyone was still able to vote after a long and detailed debate. (If she fancies a career change at any point, a daytime continuity announcer career on the radio awaits!)

Congratulations too to Chris White for leading the key consultation and drafting work, with Ruth Dombey and others.

For decades people have talked of major reforms to the English Party but when it’s come to the vote they have failed or been put off, but not this time around. It’s quite the track record Caroline is creating as English Party chair – very impressive!

(There were votes on three amendments, with the ‘tidying up’ amendment passing 129-3 and the financial controls one passing 125-11. The other, to change the make-up of the new English Party Board, was lost 43-88.)

Brexit: The Uncivil War – the TV drama with Benedict Cumberbatch

Episodes of my podcast with Cory Hazlehurst since last time have included one taking a look at the TV dramatisation of the Brexit referendum by James Graham:

To mark ten years since the Brexit referendum, Cory and Mark talk about James Graham’s TV movie starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Brexit: The Uncivil War. They talk about the ability of Mark Gatiss to chew scenery without actually being on screen, how the story the film tells of how Leave won has aged rather badly, and Cory has a rant about the most shambolic doorknocking encounter he’s ever seen.

You can view Brexit: The Uncivil War on IMDb here.

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/).

As well as listening here, you can also listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or in your favourite podcast app.

Or if you aren’t sure, check out the film’s trailer first:

We have also done the Iranian football-meets-politics film, Offside, as well as looking at football-meets-politics more generally.

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

Why we should aim to be the largest party in local government

As Party President Josh Babarinde has set out, a consultation is being run on the party’s strategy, with a motion due to be debated at our autumn conference in Brighton.

The motion contains this point, building on a suggestion I made:

Become the largest party in local government in England, and one of the two largest parties in local government across the United Kingdom, by investing in year-round local campaigning, candidate development, council group support, regional capacity, and the structures needed to fight new unitary and large-area elections effectively.

Given the past history of party strategies and leaders calling for us to win elections, sometimes with specific targets and sometimes without, it might be easy to gloss over this as just another ‘let’s win some stuff’ wording. But that would be to miss the importance of setting such a target – and then taking it seriously.

One reason is that while local government is very much part of the Lib Dem psyche – hence the jokes about Lib Dems pointing at potholes – it is also often put to one side when it comes to running the party. Our policy making processes, for example, are overwhelmingly geared around what governments – in Westminster, Edinburgh and Cardiff – should do, rather than around what the actual policy implementation decisions are that Lib Dem council leaders are taking around the country day in, day out. It can often feel like we’re keener to spend time debating what a second-term Lib Dem government should do rather than what policies are most needed for those exercising power in town halls tomorrow.

So taking such a target seriously – not just as an applause line in a motion, but as something that is part of a strategy which the whole party sets about implementing – would be far from trivial.

It’s also the right target to set for a pair of reasons. Most obviously, local government matters and we should be ambitious about our future success. (The wording above differentiates between England and the UK because we’re much closer to being the largest party in England than we are across the UK, so a staged approach makes that ambition also realistic.)

But it is also a way of tying together several different strands of our party’s growth. We can only achieve that objective if we do really well in local council elections in areas that are target seats for Westminster, Holyrood and Senedd contests. But we can also only achieve that objective if we make progress more widely too.

In other words, it’s a target that would tie together those two challenges rather than treat them as rivals for attention and priority.

That is the approach that has consistently served us best in recent years, such as the focus on standing more candidates in council elections (good for our wider growth) which then delivers election season coverage about how we are a large and credible party (good for our target seats).

Which is why it is an approach we should continue, with a new and ambitious local government target.

A summer reading suggestion…

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

Change the voting system, Andy Burnham: Lib Dems in the news

The key stories

1. Change the voting system before the next election, Ed Davey urges Andy Burnham.
2. It’s time for a new deal with Europe.
3. James MacCleary: to fund the investment in national security we need, Andy Burnham should steal our defence bonds policy.
4. Munira Wilson: “FIFA is really beyond the pale now in terms of corruption”.
5. Lib Dem campaign to ‘axe 100 pieces of red tape’ and get Britain growing again.
6. Alistair Carmichael welcomes major win for coastguard volunteers.
7. Jane Dodds to vote against budget unless money is found to help protect healthcare.

Local government action

• Liberal Democrats deliver major affordable housing boost in Ascot.

Other people and party news

1. Five new Liberal Democrat peers appointed.
2. Sheila Ritchie has been reappointed an Electoral Commissioner.
3. Julie Smith elected ALDE Vice President.
4. Talk of a new Lib Dem think tank.
5. Jamie Stone: “Over the next few months, I’ll be taking time away to recover from heart surgery.”
6. The Lib Dem group in the House of Lords is now on LinkedIn and continues to be on Bluesky.

You can get more updates like the above in real time through my WhatsApp updates three to five times a week. Sign up details here.

Improving the regulation of lobbying

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

• Improving the regulation of lobbying.
• Political history points against early general elections.
• Government talks tough but often moves slowly on foreign interference in politics.
• The DVLA’s problem with number plates.
• Leadership plotting, in real life and in fiction.

And one from the archives:

• 7 sure-fire tips to be more productive.

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.

Nigel Farage versus Count Binface

Check out The Week in Polls to see how Nigel Farage and Count Binface compare in the polls, what people think of the Reform UK leader’s actions and an extra reason to be wary of Clacton vox pops:

Count Binface outpolls Nigel Farage, sort of

Selections news

Selections since last time have included incumbent MPs Sarah Gibson in Chippenham and Steve Darling in Torbay, along with Barry Holliday in Derbyshire Dales and Dan Boatright-Greene in West Worcestershire.

Richard Kilpatrick was also selected for the Greater Manchester Mayor by-election.

The Westminster constituencies currently advertising to select a Prospective Parliamentary Candidate include North East Somerset & Hanham, Altrincham & Sale West, Stretford & Urmston and 10 constituencies in Wales.

See all the Liberal Democrat Westminster PPCs selected and publicly announced so far here.

Council by-elections round-up

Council by-elections since last time have seen large numbers of seats changing hands, including a Lib Dem gain in Wales, a gain from the Greens from third place in London, and a win in Calum Miller’s seat.

But the net changes in seats since last time were Reform +7, SNP +2, Conservative +2, Green +/-0, Plaid -1, Lib Dem -2, Independent/Others -2 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 councillor has returned to Lib Dem ranks in Oxfordshire. But a councillor has been expelled by the Lib Dems on Highland Council and one suspended in Rutland, as one has been in Cardiff. Another has stepped down from the Lib Dem group for health reasons in Fareham.

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

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And finally…

One of the candidates for the Clacton Parliamentary by-election lists their home address as “in Australia” and is unhappy with Wikipedia: “he has exposed the fact that somebody internal to Wikipedia is deleting his page every time he runs for office”. (“Internal to Wikipedia” makes this sound like some secret insider plot when, more likely, it is simply volunteer editors thinking he doesn’t meet the notability criteria for a Wikipedia page.)

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Mark

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Portsmouth News reports:

Plans to merge Portsmouth with Fareham, Gosport and Havant councils have prompted a Labour councillor to defect to the Liberal Democrats … Cllr Rajah Ghosh, who represents Charles Dickens ward on Portsmouth City Council, announced the move today, saying he could no longer remain in Labour due to LGR.

Portsmouth Liberal Democrat Leader, Cllr Steve Pitt, said:

I am delighted to welcome Cllr Raj Ghosh. Raj has been clear that he shares the Lib Dem team’s passionate opposition to Local Government Reorganisation and feels aligned with our campaign which says ‘Hands Off Portsmouth’. Raj believes, as do we, in always putting Portsmouth people first and we know he will be a great addition to our strong local team.

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So it may be foolish of me to venture into further early election speculation just ahead of a new Prime Minister taking office. But I am struck both by the historical record on early elections and also by how rarely it is cited in such speculation.

Let’s take a look at all the early elections (which I’m taking to mean called earlier than the usual 4-5 year Parliamentary cycle) since 1945:

• 1951: government lost
• 1966: government got a chunky increase in its seat tally
• 1974 (Feb): government lost (though arguable if this counts as an early election)
• 1974 (Oct): government only got a tiny increase in its numbers and a very slender majority
• 2017: big setback for government
• 2019: government got a chunky increase in its seat tally

So six such elections, of which only two were straightforward successes (1966 and 2019).

The lesson, in as much as there is a lesson from history with only six examples, is to beware early elections. The myth of the missed early election is powerful (hello James Callaghan, Gordon Brown), as Robert Shrimsley points out. The reality is rather less glorious.

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