Lib Dems Rally Behind Davey After Frontbench Resignations
Two frontbenchers have quit in the past week — Charlie Maynard, the former Treasury spokesman, and Alison Bennett, who covered care and carers — over the party’s direction and how policy is decided. After a four-hour meeting with MPs, Ed Davey said: “We have made changes. I am happy to embrace more changes.”
Neither has spelled out their reasons publicly and the two did not coordinate, which is part of why colleagues were irritated: separate resignations in one week look like a pattern whether or not they are one. The changes already made are organisational rather than political — a new chief of staff, a political director who served through the coalition years, and an upgraded social media operation. The leader’s allies put the number of unhappy MPs at no more than half a dozen, though the party’s own political correspondents detect wider anxiety about a lack of impact. That anxiety has a cause worth stating: the party has 72 MPs, up from 15, making it the largest third party in the Commons in a century, and a caucus that size expects to be heard. The deputy leader Daisy Cooper reported “overwhelming support” afterwards. One MP’s summary of the position was more candid than any of it: “Why would we get rid of our leader when no one else is pitching to be our leader?”