Another year of progress

Happy Christmas and a Happy New Year

Once again, we end a year with more Liberal Democrat councillors than at the start, with more Lib Dem council leaders than at the start and with a greater spread of Lib Dem candidates across the country outside target wards. Both in the areas where we can most immediately win, and across the country more broadly in terms of candidates, canvassing and delivery, we’ve taken big steps forward.

We have now made net gains in the May rounds of local elections seven times in a row, the best winning streak in our party’s history, and we’re in sight of even beating the benchmark set during the heyday of the SDP/Liberal Alliance.

Our continued progress in local council by-elections since May means we are the only party other than Reform posting significant gains (and it’s worth noting that the Greens are pretty much only treading water, even after Zack Polanski's election).

Many people across the country, volunteers and staff, deserve the thanks and praise for those achievements. Last time I talked about the progress in County Durham and what the whole party can learn from it. This time, it is worth calling out the success in Devon where our recent by-election gain in Seaton makes it 13 (!) by-elections won this year in the county - as well as making gains and becoming the largest party in the May county council elections. Most impressive.

And that’s a wrap

Barring any last-minute crisis, the thirty-seventh Federal Board meeting I chaired a couple of weeks back was the last in my time as Federal Party President, with Josh Babarinde taking over from 1st January. 

So a huge thanks to all the staff and colleagues on the Board who worked so hard to make a success of our meetings, and the Board’s work between meetings too. A particular thanks to my Vice Chairs during this time - initially Elaine Bagshaw and Jeremy Hargreaves, and then Jeremy along with Jenni Lang and Amna Ahmed. 

The very best wishes too to the new Board and to Josh.

Chairs and Vice Chairs

Various other committee chairs and vice chairs have started being elected following the internal elections. On Federal Conference Committee (FCC), Nick Da Costa has been re-elected Chair, with his two Vice Chairs being Chris Adams and Eleanor Kelly. 

The three Vice Chairs of Federal Policy Committee (FPC) are now Mohsin Khan, Helen Morgan and Lucy Nethsingha. 

Good luck to them all. 

Churn rate in Federal Committee elections

I previously reported on the Board’s discussion on whether to submit a proposal to Conference to expand the use of term limits in the party’s main round of internal elections for Federal Party posts. Looking at the churn rate in recent rounds of elections, we concluded that there was already a substantial turnover in people each time, and found very little evidence that term limits would significantly alter things.

With the results of this year’s round of elections now out, it is possible to look at the churn rate for this time around:

• Federal Conference Committee (FCC): 50% of posts filled by people being re-elected, other 50% were not elected to the committee three years ago
• Federal Policy Committee (FPC): 20% filled by people being re-elected
• Federal Board (FB): 0% filled by people being re-elected
• Federal Council (FC): 29% filled by people being re-elected

It is hard to look at those figures and conclude there is a problem with the same people just being re-elected time after time. 

Five Lib Dem peers appointed

As the party’s website reports:

Three new Liberal Democrat appointments to the House of Lords have been announced today: former MP and Children’s Minister Sarah Teather, the party’s Chief Executive Mike Dixon and Ed Davey’s Chief of Staff Rhiannon Leaman. Two Liberal Democrat hereditary peers, Dominic Addington and John Russell, have also been granted life peerages so they can continue their important contributions to Parliament after the Hereditary Peers Bill passes.

Congratulations to all five, who I very much look forward to seeing play an important role in the Lords in the years to come - until, of course, we manage to win a vote for Lords reform.

Party Awards

Nominations are open for our next Party Awards, which will be handed out by Josh Babarinde at our Spring Federal Conference in March. But you can nominate someone now, and all the categories are detailed on the party website.

These are a great way to recognise some of our amazing colleagues, so please do take a look.

And finally…

Know someone who is interested in the Lib Dems but not yet ready to join or volunteer? They can sign up for emails from the party, including a monthly report on what is happening in Parliament: https://www.libdems.org.uk/email-updates 

Do you have questions on any of this report, or other Lib Dem matters? Then please drop me a line on president@libdems.org.uk. From 1 January emails to this address will go to Josh Babarinde.