The Liberal Democrats’ costly mistake

Oh dear. Failure comes in many forms but it usually stings a little more when it also involves large sums of money. That’s the situation the Liberal Democrats are in following their disappointing election result in which they failed to make overall gains – and then party leader Jo Swinson lost her seat.

This morning the Electoral Commission has released new figures of donations received by the main parties during the final quarter of 2019. The Conservatives led in donations with a total of £37.7m. When it comes to the other parties, the Liberal Democrats actually overtook Labour – accepting £13.6m in donations to Labour’s £10.6m.

Given that the party went on to have a catastrophic election in which not one of the candidates who had defected from other parties managed to get elected, Mr S suspects donors will be feeling rather short-changed. And they say it’s the Labour party that can’t be trusted on the economy…