In the River Chess, dressed in fishing waders, Ed Davey is planting flag iris. The species grows aggressively, disrupting ecosystems by outcompeting native plants – a pattern the Liberal Democrats have replicated.
At the general election the party toppled Tory fortresses once held by the likes of David Cameron (Witney), Boris Johnson (Henley and Thame) and Michael Gove (Surrey Heath). A recent YouGov poll put the Lib Dems first in the south outside of London. After winning 72 seats – more than any third party since 1923 – they now aim to supplant the Conservatives as the second largest force in local government (Buckinghamshire, Cambridgeshire and Oxfordshire are key targets).
Only a decade has passed since the Lib Dems suffered a near-extinction event. Having mated with the Conservatives, they were devoured by them (a “black widow strategy” in the Tories’ macabre phrase). Matters little improved in the years that followed. One leader, Jo Swinson, started the 2019 election campaign by declaring that she could become prime minister and ended it by losing her seat.
Recovery began in Chesham and Amersham in summer 2021, a constituency that recalls George Orwell’s description of southern England as “the sleekest landscape in the world”. Red kites fly overhead and pheasants scurry in hedgerows. Affluent professionals commute to London on the Metropolitan Line (the average house price is £706,194).
This is the kind of seat where the Tory vote is traditionally weighed rather than counted. Residents returned Conservative MPs with majorities sometimes exceeding 22,000 votes. But a by-election triggered by the death of Cheryl Gillan, a Tory stalwart, saw the Lib Dems claim the seat with 56.7 per cent of the vote.
This result was dismissed by some as a midterm blip – a transitory protest against High Speed 2 (loathed by locals for running underneath the protected Chiltern Hills). But it proved to be the first tremor of an earthquake. Sixty Tory seats fell to the Lib Dems on general election night (with the party finishing second in 20 more). A year on, this Home Counties revolt remains under-explored.
“The feeling of being taken for granted hasn’t gone away,” says the Liberal Democrat MP Sarah Green, an ebullient former businesswoman, as she recalls her 2021 triumph. Two years earlier she campaigned for the former Conservative attorney general, Dominic Grieve, who stood as an independent after being expelled for opposing a no-deal Brexit. “What it did more than anything was demonstrate that when people are presented with a choice they sit up and take notice” (the 29 per cent that Grieve won in Beaconsfield proved a premonition).
During their final term in office, the Tories contrived to offend almost every Middle England sensibility. Johnson’s wanton lawbreaking dismayed rule-followers. Liz Truss’s kamikaze economics provoked homeowners. Sewage “bubbling out of manholes” (in Green’s words) or polluting cherished rivers enraged conservationists.
This electorate – with which the Tories once had an almost spiritual connection – is one the party should be striving to win back. But Kemi Badenoch, preoccupied with chasing Reform’s tail, has only hindered the cause. During a recent hour-long interview with Jordan Peterson, she derided a “typical Liberal Democrat” as someone who is merely “good at fixing their church roof”. The comment has since been emblazoned on Lib Dem campaign material (sources liken it to Hillary Clinton’s “basket of deplorables” jibe at Donald Trump supporters in 2016).
Voters, a Barbour-clad Davey tells me after emerging from the river, are aggrieved with Labour but unwilling to forgive the Conservatives. “As for Kemi Badenoch, almost no one is mentioning her and if they do it’s not in a positive way.”
The issues raised with the Lib Dem leader include social care, sewage, potholes – and Trump. “It’s rare for an international issue to come up on the doorsteps in a local election but it is.” His party is winning support from “quiet patriots” who yearn for Keir Starmer to have a Love Actually moment and rebuke the US’s uncouth monarch. Private polling for the Liberal Democrats by Savanta shows that 35 per cent of voters regard Starmer’s approach as “weak” (compared with 25 per cent who view it as “strong”) and that 41 per cent are less likely to vote for Labour as a consequence.
Disillusioned Tories, says Davey, have discovered another party that represents their values. “We’re pro-business, pro-free trade, pro-competition. They know we’re not the Labour Party but they broadly share our views on the environment, on Europe, on care.”
Call it the Heseltine vote. The former Conservative deputy prime minister, who once boasted that “I have been responsible for more privatisations than any other minister” and celebrated victory over striking miners, endorsed the Lib Dems during the Brexit wars. But some believe Davey’s party must move further right to demolish what remains of the “Blue Wall”.
David Gauke, the former Conservative cabinet minister, who was the MP for South West Hertfordshire from 2005-19, tells me that “there is a bigger opportunity for them to pick up 2015 Cameron voters and make the Liberal Democrats their natural party”.
Yet in some areas, the Lib Dems have already positioned themselves to Labour’s right. They oppose higher inheritance tax on agricultural property and the imposition of VAT on private-school fees. The latter stance, Davey insists, is one of principle (“I don’t think you should tax education”) but it is also politically astute – there are more than 350 private schools in the south-east alone.
The last time Labour was in office, the Lib Dems positioned themselves to Tony Blair’s left, calling for the abolition of university tuition fees and a 50p tax rate on earnings above £100,000. This, strategists say, is territory they have no intention of occupying (target seats include Jeremy Hunt’s Surrey constituency where he emphasised that £100,000 is “not a huge salary”).
For now, whatever their long-term dilemmas, the Lib Dems’ ascent remains upwards. To describe this as a strange rebirth – with a nod to George Dangerfield – feels almost too convenient. But it is strange.
Strange that the Tories so wilfully neglected an electorate they have spent the past century nurturing. Strange that Davey – once the nowhere man of British politics – bungee jumped and paddle-boarded his way back into contention.
To some, Davey’s stunts are evidence of a lack of seriousness (Hegel would never have remarked that he saw the world spirit on hobby horseback). But he maintains they will continue. “Why do people want to leave a vacuum for Farage, Trump and Johnson to make people laugh and smile?” As an increasing number of voters agree, it’s a good question.
This piece first appeared in the Morning Call newsletter; receive it every morning by subscribing on Substack here
[See also: Labour has nothing to be happy about in Runcorn and Helsby]
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