Sir Ed Davey, Liberal Democrat leader, has come to Grantchester in the heart of what used to be Conservative England to conclude some unfinished business: he hopes to complete a rout of the Tories in their prosperous, southern redoubts.
In Thursday’s local elections, Davey hopes to extend his party’s success at last year’s general election — when the Lib Dems stormed the south and won 72 seats — by sweeping away scores of Tory councillors in shire counties.
Grantchester is synonymous with a kind of genteel “small c” conservatism, epitomised by Rupert Brooke’s Old Vicarage, Grantchester, and the war poet’s evocative question: “Stands the Church clock at ten to three? And is there honey still for tea?”
It is here that Davey is making a final pitch for voters, aided by a recent comment by Tory leader Kemi Badenoch: “A typical Liberal Democrat will be somebody who is good at fixing their church roof.”
Davey claims Badenoch, who has admitted that the Conservatives face a “very difficult” election on Thursday, was “sneering” at his party and uses the comment against her with metronomic regularity.
“I asked if we could get a cherrypicker so I could fix the church roof here,” Davey told the Financial Times, as he surveys what he says is the polluted water of the River Cam at Grantchester Meadows near Cambridge.
Church roofs, dirty water and potholes are the staple of the Davey campaign, laced with goofy stunts that aim to strike a gentle contrast with the more strident, angry tone of debate on the right of politics.
Badenoch’s electoral problem, which is expected to be exposed over an agonising 24 hours later in the week, is that her beleaguered party is fighting on two fronts.
Worse still, the Tories are defending about two-thirds of the 1,600 or so council seats up for election, thanks to the fact that the last time they were contested in 2021, then Conservative prime minister Boris Johnson was enjoying the electoral benefits of the Covid-19 vaccine. Heavy losses seem likely this year.
On one side is Nigel Farage’s Reform UK, a rightwing populist outfit that hopes to sweep aside Tory councillors in the north and east of England, and build a council base from virtually nothing.
But the more Badenoch toughens her rhetoric on issues such as trans rights, migration or Europe to try to fend off Reform, the easier it makes it for Davey to peel off softer, liberal Tory voters in places such as Grantchester.
Although the Lib Dems typically poll about 15 per cent — in fourth place behind Reform, Labour and Conservatives — the party’s vote is concentrated in areas where it can inflict most damage on the Tories.
Davey claims that the Lib Dems stand to be big beneficiaries of dissatisfaction with both the Labour government and the Tories or “Abloc politics”: anyone but Labour or the Conservatives.
“This is a big opportunity for us,” he said. The Lib Dems hope to end the evening controlling more councils than the Tories and have places like Oxfordshire, Shropshire and Cambridgeshire in their sights.
Aside from local issues, Davey has positioned the Lib Dems as the “anti-Trump” party — he says the US president is “dangerous” — and as the most pro-EU, campaigning to take Britain back into the customs union.
Davey argues this not a political tactic, but rather an indicator to voters of the party’s instincts, even if members of the public are sometimes unclear about the party’s policies. “This is who we are,” he says.
“The more the Conservatives chase Reform, the more people come to us,” Davey says, noting how recent debate among senior Tories about possible deals with Farage have “repelled” voters in places like Grantchester.
Out on the doorstep, Davey seems to encounter a disproportionate number of medical professionals. Tim Raine, a doctor at a local hospital, says many voters are unclear where Badenoch is taking her party. “They are in transition, but it’s not clear what they are transitioning to,” he says.
It’s not as if Davey has convinced voters that he has an alternative plan for Britain. Jonathan Graffy, a GP, says: “I’m not hearing from the Lib Dems how you would balance the books.”
Wife Clare, another GP, says she thought Davey’s penchant for water-based stunts at the last election was “a complete nonsense” but says she could see that it grabbed people’s attention.
Davey himself admits he had his doubts about the campaigning japes: “It was outside of my comfort zone. I would come back in the evening and ask: “Are you sure this is right?”
But he says the strategy was right, winning the party priceless free publicity and allowing him to engage voters on serious policy issues, including social care.
While the Lib Dems hope to seize control of Cambridgeshire county council — the party currently has 23 seats out of 61 compared with the Tories’ 21 — the area could yet provide a glimmer of hope for Badenoch this week.
Paul Bristow, a former Tory MP who narrowly lost his Peterborough seat last year to Labour, is the bookies’ favourite to win the separate Cambridgeshire and Peterborough mayoralty, albeit on a modest vote share.
“Welcome to four-way politics,” says Bristow, out campaigning on Tuesday in Wisbech. A YouGov survey put him on 32 points, ahead of Reform on 20, Labour on 19 and the Lib Dems on 18.
Speaking over a cappuccino, Bristow says he is “100 per cent behind Kemi Badenoch” and her firm stance on migration but stresses that his campaign pitch is: “Cambridgeshire first, party second.”
He wants to improve the region’s transport links and manage the massive planned expansion of Cambridge — one of Europe’s biggest tech hubs — and to become the public face of the area, rising above party politics.
Bristow is dismissive of Davey: “Nobody wants him to be prime minister. He makes a fool of himself just to get into the papers.”
But he agrees with the Lib Dem leader on one thing: there is currently an “Abloc” mood about and Reform and the Lib Dems have been the main beneficiaries. Thursday is the first big electoral test of that new sentiment.
