Liberal Democrats record their best result for more than a century

There was heady talk before the general election that the Liberal Democrats could get more seats than the Conservative Party and end up being the official opposition.

Such an unlikely scenario did not happen, but the Lib Dems have had the best result since 1923 when a disastrous split between David Lloyd George and Herbert Asquith finished the Liberals as the party of government until it became the junior partner in the 2010 coalition with the Tories.

The 71 seats that the Lib Dems won beats the previous record of 62 secured in 2005 when Charles Kennedy was the leader. They gained 57 seats in 2010 in a hung parliament.

As many smaller parties in Ireland have found, the Lib Dems were regarded as the mudguard of the coalition government and were almost wiped out in 2015. Their drubbing continued into 2019 when they won just 11 seats after a pledge to re-run the Brexit referendum did not go down well with voters.

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The 2024 result was achieved with only a tiny 0.6 per cent increase in vote share from 11.6 per cent to 12.2 per cent.

The sweetness of their latest victory was enhanced by the party taking many high-profile Tory cabinet ministers down including education secretary Gillian Keegan, justice secretary Alex Chalk, culture secretary Lucy Frazer and science minister Michelle Donelan.

The party targeted seats in its heartland where it had a realistic chance of winning – in southwest London and the southwest of England. It called it the A30 corridor – the road that runs from west London to Cornwall.

It was a personal triumph for Ed Davey who had the most compelling back story of all the party leaders. He was left an orphan when his mother died from cancer while he was a teenager. He has a teenage son with severe learning and physical disabilities who requires round-the-clock care. He put care at the forefront of the Liberal Democrats manifesto.

At the same time Davey indulged in a number of stunts including bungee jumping, paddleboarding and taking a rollercoaster. He wasn’t afraid to make a fool of himself, but the electorate did not take him for a fool.

The Liberal Democrats have frequently been victims of the UK’s first-past-the-post system. A referendum they sponsored in 2011 to change the system was soundly defeated, but this time it worked in their favour.

The Lib Dems were beneficiaries of the Reform Party eating into the support of the Tory party.

According to polling guru Prof John Curtice, the Lib Dems picked up 19 seats through this anomaly. This time the percentage of seats the party got at (11 per cent) almost matches their share of the vote (12.2 per cent).

The Liberal Democrats’ great passion is Europe and they will campaign for closer ties with the European Union. What traction they will have when Labour has such a large majority remains to be seen.

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