Political

Lib Dem leadership contest: a mistake and an apology from Ed Davey

Ed Davey has apologised for his choice of language when talking about how he’d like to see Boris Johnson defeated at the next general election.

Talking about how to defeat him in the Uxbridge and South Ruislip constituency, would-be Lib Dem leader Ed Davey talked about a plan to, “decapitate that blond head in Uxbridge and South Ruislip”.

He’s since apologised, saying:

I recognise this wasn’t an acceptable choice of phrase and I’m sorry. This was careless use of language, meant in electoral sense and in no way literally. Whilst we should be robust in our opposition, we do have to carefully consider impact of our words and I failed to do that.

“Decapitate” is one of those words which has often been used previously in political contexts without being offensive, but where more recent tragic events make it a poor choice of words. Kudos to Ed Davey for getting his response right though – apologise soon and apologise fully (no half-baked ‘if someone perhaps thought this was offensive’… caveats).

What the choice of words has overshadowed is the context in which Ed Davey was talking – a willingness to have a cross-party Remain pact which unites behind one anti-Boris Johnson candidate:

Increasingly the question I’m getting is: ‘So how can we help you unseat Boris? What do you need?’ To be candid, we need more than money and a 20 per cent plus ranking in the polls. So I hereby float the idea of a Remain alliance to decapitate that blond head in Uxbridge and South Ruislip if Johnson calls a snap election to deliver Brexit.

Does that mean he supports seat pacts more widely, or is this an exceptional case, perhaps to be filed alongside not standing against Caroline Lucas but not an approach to be widely copied for other seats?

For the answer, listen to the next episode of Never Mind The Bar Charts, out later this week and in which my interview with Ed Davey covers just this question.

The 2019 Lib Dem leadership election is being covered by me both in podcast form with Stephen Tall in Never Mind The Bar Charts (subscribe here) and in email newsletter form with Liberal Democrat Newswire (sign up here).

8 responses to “Lib Dem leadership contest: a mistake and an apology from Ed Davey”

  1. By apologising does he not open up an excuse that any word he says if somebody complains about it shows him as ‘soft’,’weak’ with no tough leadership qualities behind him? To show leadership he will have to say a spade is a spade sometimes.

    On another subject- The party of business. To get the support of this group would it not be an idea to transfer training , to Schools ,University, OU or even new Technical Colleges where business could pay some of the cost and the other passed to education budget’? These days people do not have a job for life and can go from job to job. Companies need to be able to put people straight to work to continue production and not spend time and money on training.
    Oldham seems to be a great idea.

  2. This is very mild, I would like to start with the more traditional hanging, followed by castration, then by disembowelment and then you remove the head .
    Of course I am only talking metaphorically , I could not endorse capital punishment 🤥🤥🤥🤥

  3. Ed’s words and your analysis of them are exactly correct. ‘Decapitation’ has long been used in this figurative sense, but his use of it could be thought insensitive.
    A willingness to co-operate with other parties and groups is, I think, essential, as I remarked in another post, and would go a long way towards rebuilding concensus politics.

  4. If he had left the blond head bit out of his statement he would have got away with it. More alarming though is his idea of installing Hilary Benn or Yvette Cooper as Prime Minister. The best option following a no confidence defeat would be for an immediate general election. I feel Ed’s idea for a national government of unity would be so unpopular with voters that we would see our poll rating improvement reversed irrevocably. Ed needs to give up talking about this nonsense immediately.

  5. Ed is someone who is reasonable, responsible and respectful in his interactions with both voters and party members. This is an example of him “owning” a mistake in a very adult and sensible way. Politics in the UK can be both “too gentle” and “too elitist” and Sir Ed is a breath of fresh air. Kudos to him for the way he dealt with the issue. I want robust and reformist progressives to meet the challenge of the two big beasts (Tory, Lab) failing our four nations.

  6. Good response as you say. Can I comment that podcasts without text accompanying are difficult for those of us who are hard of hearing.

  7. If he hadn’t apologised I would probably never have heard about it. Good that the media picked up on it, and all publicity is good publicity. Most people don’t know anything about us because they rely on the gutter press for their info..

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