You do know Labour is in power now, Ed? Lib Dem leader Davey will vow to ‘finish the job’ on the Tories in conference speech TODAY – as party’s MPs ‘fear he is going easy on Keir Starmer’ _ Hieuuk
Ed Davey will vow to ‘finish the job’ on the Tories today as delivers his keynote speech to Lib Dem conference.
After seizing a swathe of ‘Blue Wall’ seats at the election, Sir Ed will insisted the Conservatives are ‘out of touch with so many of their former voters’.
But there are signs of disquiet at the gathering in Brighton about the strategy of ‘slinging mud’ at the Opposition rather than the Labour government.
The Lib Dems became Parliament’s third biggest party again after the election in July with 72 MPs now sitting in the Commons, including many who won seats from the Conservatives.
In his address this afternoon, Sir Ed will say the Lib Dems must ‘repay’ the trust ‘in full’ that was given to them by voters.
The Kingston and Surbiton MP will say: ‘In July, millions of voters put their trust in us – many of them for the first time in their lives.
‘Trusting us to stand up for them, to be their local champions and fight for a fair deal.
‘That trust – the people’s trust – is our mandate. And now we must be true to that mandate and repay that trust in full.’
On the health service, Sir Ed is expected to say that ‘fixing the NHS will not be easy’ but that Lib Dems will ‘focus on community services’.
‘We know that fixing the NHS will not be easy,’ he will say.
‘The Conservative government broke it so badly, over so many years, that it will take a lot of work to put it back together. But we also know that it must be done, and we know it can be done.’
Sir Ed will have a dig at Labour for espousing too much ‘gloom’ about the state of the country.
But in another swipe at the Tories, he will say: ‘Expecting that lot to hold the Government to account on the NHS or the economy would be like putting a bull in charge of repairing the china shop.’
He will accuse the Conservatives of being ‘so out of touch with so many of their former voters’ and vow to ‘finish the job’ they started at the general election.
Following the party’s election defeat, four MPs are in the running for the Conservative leadership: Robert Jenrick, Tom Tugendhat, James Cleverly and Kemi Badenoch.
Sir Ed will say the contest is ‘scraping the bottom of the barrel’, and accuse the candidates of not caring about ‘real people’s everyday problems’.
However, research has suggested the result in July was more about a Tory collapse than a Lib Dem surge.
And one Lib Dem MP told the Times that they feared ‘the next five years just being about the third-biggest party slinging mud at the second-biggest.’
