I want to begin with the most important thing to say this month: thank you. From the outset, we knew these were going to be a tough set of elections. But across the country our activists, councillors and grassroots campaigners pulled out all the stops to fight a strong, passionate campaign.
Since the results, I have been on the phone to those up and down the country whose hard work didn’t pay off – councillors, MEPs, MEPs staff. It has been heart breaking to see so many of our dedicated Councillors, MEPs and staff lose their jobs, and ability to fly the Lib Dem flag.
It has been particularly difficult because I know that where we worked hard, we fought a great campaign, yet in too many places this did not translate into success. I do not tolerate the notion that where you work hard you win, and if you lost you didn’t work hard enough. This is clearly not the case. It is an insult to the councillors who put in the effort time and time again against the odds and still didn’t win, and it risks ignoring the insights which we could gain from listening to those who worked hard and lost. I do not want to dismiss the concerns that have been raised following the election, but it is crucial that we rigorously assess what really drove success and failure across the country, which is why James Gurling will be carrying out a review.
I believe we need to listen to our councillors and respect the insights that they have. We need to learn from teams which worked hard and saw success: Eastleigh, Hull, St Albans, Sutton, Watford, Three Rivers, South Lakes. We also need to learn from teams which worked hard, who did everything right and still lost votes. Their insights into why voters refused to back us will be invaluable and we need to respect and listen to them rather than writing them off as collateral damage. I want to thank James for taking on this task and encourage all of you to get involved with it.
It is an unavoidable truth that going into Government was always likely to harm us as a party but we did it because we believed it was the right thing for the country, just as being in the EU is overwhelmingly in our interests. Sitting on our hands in 2010 would have hurt us even more. Many outstanding colleagues have suffered unfairly as a result, but the best way of honouring their service is not to spend months tearing each other apart but to learn what we can and move on.
I want us to be known on each doorstep for our tangible achievements as well as our aspirations – fewer people in income tax, more money to disadvantaged pupils, the world’s first Green Investment Bank. I want to keep talking about the excellent work of Lib Dem councils who have kept council tax frozen, who work all year round for their communities, who go the extra mile, like Sutton driving down youth unemployment and Eastleigh building homes for priced out young people. And having spent the last year travelling up and down the country visiting passionate, committed local parties, I am confident that we can do this.
We are the most resilient party in British history. We survived the dark times when we could fit all our MPs into a single taxi-cab, and the 1989 European election when we were on 0% in the polls – one MEP and 7% of the vote would have been something to boast about in that election!
We still have a year left and we must make every day count. We will make the most of it, and have a record to be proud of next year on the doorstep.