Political

Prices, sewage and ambulances: Lib Dem campaign launch

Today was the official* launch of the Liberal Democrat local elections campaign in England, held in Merton and including Ed Davey, Munira Wilson and Sarah Olney:**

The national media push has focused on helping people with the cost of living crisis, tackling sewage being dumped in our rivers and supporting local ambulance trusts.

Media coverage has included:

Sewage has become a major battleground in the local elections in so-called “blue wall” seats, where the Liberal Democrats are challenging the Conservatives, from Guildford to Cambridgeshire.

The Lib Dems have put eliminating sewage dumps at the heart of their campaign, with the party leader, Ed Davey, planning to launch their fight at the River Wandle in Wimbledon on Wednesday. He is calling for a tax on sewage companies to fund the clean up of local rivers, which can see waste pumped out into the environment when there is heavy rainfall. [The Guardian]

The rise in National Insurance payments has come into affect and leader of the Liberal Democrats Sir Ed Davey believes now is the “wrong time” as people are battling with the cost of living crisis. [BBC]

The Liberal Democrats are campaigning for a tax cut after calculating that the Treasury will pocket almost £40 billion in extra VAT receipts due to soaring inflation.

Party analysis of Office for Budget Responsibility figures shows that Chancellor Rishi Sunak will receive a VAT windfall of £38.6 billion over the next four years, with working households facing a £428 higher VAT tax bill in 2022-23 alone due to rising shop prices. [The Independent]

On a similar theme, here is the new party political broadcast from Jane Dodds and the Welsh Liberal Democrats ahead of the all-up council elections there:

UPDATE: The Scottish campaign has now launched too.

UPDATE 2: Sewage has become a long-running campaign issue.

* Official as in when a launch will get good media coverage rather than when we all started campaigning. That was days, weeks, months, years or decades ago depending on the ward.
** Why does a local council campaign launch feature MPs heavily? Because it’s the MPs that get the national media attention given the Westminster-centric nature of much of our media.

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One response to “Prices, sewage and ambulances: Lib Dem campaign launch”

  1. Don’t know where to send this comment and it maybe too late for anything to be done for the May elections, but it concerns me that we advocate “affordable housing” as a major policy but we really ought to qualify it “affordable housing in the right locations”. Affordable housing per se goes down like a lead balloon in those places where councils have foisted developments on local communities irrespective of the appropriateness of the location.

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