Will Post Office scandal overshadow Ed Davey’s Lib Dem election revival?

In a typically cheesy stunt for his new year relaunch, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, Ed Davey, eschewed issuing some fresh policy paper or making a speech nobody was going to listen to. Instead he dressed up in a hi-vis jacket, and posed next to a van as the driver and CEO of “Ed Davey’s Tory Removals”.

The photo op targeted a particular clientele – the soft Tory vote in Surrey and the home counties, where his party hopes great things will happen come the election. However, Ed’s erstwhile role as minister for postal affairs during the coalition government has caught up with him, and with it some awkward questions about the Post Office scandal...

Certainly it is an unexpected distraction. The emotional power of the stories is apparent, highlighted now in a harrowing ITV dramatisation. There has been a sharp public reaction to the latest publicity, and people are looking for those who were in power at the time to be held accountable. That would include Davey, who was the minister responsible between 2010 and 2012, during which time he refused either to investigate the scandal or to meet Alan Bates, a subpostmaster campaigning for justice.

At the time, Davey said he did not believe a meeting “would serve any purpose”. Now, he claims he was misled by Post Office management and wants to see “a proper compensation package”.

It’s unlikely to, because elections are fought on a national basis on the usual issues that affect most voters directly. But Davey’s part in the Post Office scandal is embarrassing for him, as well as for his party. Some would prefer it if the Lib Dems were to present a more openly pro-European face and pledge to rejoin the EU, and think that Layla Moran would make a bigger impact as leader. However, the party membership preferred the more reliably centrist Davey during the leadership election of 2020, and it’s too late to change tack now.

It is precisely the kind of blue-wall, Remain-leaning, prosperous, relatively moderate territory in which the Lib Dems have been doing well at local elections and parliamentary by-elections in recent years, though at the 2021 local elections, the Conservatives secured a majority. A lot has changed since then, of course, and there are also some tempting targets for a sort of “decapitation” exercise aimed at prominent Conservatives in the county – notably Jeremy Hunt and Michael Gove, as well as Claire Coutinho, Kwasi Kwateng and Dominic Raab (albeit he is standing down). All the seats are Conservative-held, though the Lib Dems established a bridgehead in Guildford between 2001 and 2005.

If the Lib Dems can persuade the county’s disillusioned Tories that they are the main challengers and have a realistic chance of success, then seats could go – especially if Reform UK also takes a slice of the protest vote on the right flank. On the other hand, such are property values and income levels that Tory cuts in inheritance and income taxes, actual or promised, might shore up support for the government. The Lib Dems are concentrating resources on Godalming and Ash, Esher and Walton, Woking, Dorking and Horley, and Epsom and Ewell.

This obviously depends on some quite unpredictable variables. One would be how willing voters are to make a tactical choice in order to get a Tory out, which in turn depends on which party is the clear challenger. In many cases it is already obvious; in others, as in the recent Mid Bedfordshire by-election, it’s not immediately evident whether Labour or the Lib Dems are best placed to make the change. Sometimes, for example, the Lib Dems can command the local council, but Labour is in a much stronger position based on the result of the 2019 general election.

Boundary changes and new seats can also complicate tactical choices. How far the Greens and even Reform poach Lib Dem or ex-Tory voters will also be a factor. The broad picture, though, is that anti-Tory tactical voting will be at its highest level since the 1997 and 2001 general elections, and the Lib Dems are set for their best showing in parliamentary terms since 2010, though the vote share will still be a lowish 10 to 15 per cent.

They’ll certainly have a bigger voice and a higher profile. If, as is widely expected, they win somewhere between 30 and 50 seats, say, and they outnumber the SNP (or a combined SNP-Plaid Cymru Commons group), then they will regain the coveted official “third party” status in the new parliament. That guarantees a weekly slot at Prime Minister’s Questions for Ed (which they lost after the 2015 general election disaster), plus the chance to chair some select committees and more funding for their parliamentary activities.

If there is a hung parliament, then even a dozen or so Lib Dems would be powerful kingmakers; but if there is a solid Labour majority or a landslide, they’ll be rather less relevant. The one thing we may be certain of is that, this time round, there’ll be no coalition with the Conservatives. Sir Ed has been there and got the knighthood to show for it.