Liberal Democrats need to stop goofing around and take charge

Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey jumps into the water as he attempts an Aqua Jungle floating assault course during a visit to Spot-On-Wake in Henley-in-Arden, Warwickshire, while on the General Election campaign trail. Picture: Jacob King/PA Wire

I doubt residents will have much sympathy for party activists re-trudging the streets in the depths of winter, but thanks to the resignation of SNP councillor Marco Biagi, it turns out last week’s result was only half time.

It’s hard to tell what impact that will have on voting patterns, although a lower turnout will be inevitable, but it’s hardly the best platform for a party which would be hoping to do better than a miserable tenth of the vote, in a parliamentary constituency held by Joanna Cherry in 2019 with 47.6 per cent. Most of her support came from other parts of the seat, but the difference is still stark.

Two weeks ago, four by-elections in the North were won by the Scottish Conservatives, and while rumours of a Tory resurgence may be exaggerated, the Anyone-but-the-SNP tactical vote is still powerful, as unionists gravitate towards the party most likely to beat the Nationalists.

If leafy Colinton is a lost cause for the SNP, what will Labour make of another chance, after carpet-bagging former councillor and ex-MP Sheila Gilmore slumped to third from 33.4 per cent of first preferences in 2022 to around 20, and only months after the General Election landslide propelled previous councillor Scott Arthur into Westminster?

For Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar, it was the clearest evidence of the juddering halt to which the great revival has come and might help explain this week’s very belated announcement that he would partially reinstate the pensioners winter fuel allowance ended by his chancellor.

Maybe the cold snap concentrated his mind, but it’s hard to see how his party, with only 11 councillors out of 63 – one of whom is semi-detached – can justify continuing to lead the city council.

Like the 2022 Murrayfield by-election, the Lib Dems were the big winners, going from fourth to their first ever win in the area. But even with 14 councillors against the SNP’s 17, they continue to refuse to take up administration roles on the big political committees like transport and education, essentially running away from their responsibility to voters.

Why should Colinton people vote Lib Dem again if, as happened this week, they left Labour in charge? What is the point of the Lib Dems if “We’re not Labour or Tories, but we don’t know what we are” is all they have to offer?

Perhaps that’s unfair, after all we know they support things like gender recognition certificates and assisted suicide for 16-year-olds if they want it, which certainly means they are not Conservatives.

But it is fundamentally dishonest for any major party to run for office and then refuse to take it because voters will wonder why they bothered putting their cross next to a box in the expectation of change, which instead delivers some sort of puppet regime.

The truth which wasn’t on their leaflets is the Lib Dem councillors can neither afford the time not money to run the administration, and until they are prepared to do so they should either come clean with the electorate or not stand candidates. But that’s like asking Sir Ed Davey not to goof about for a photo.