THE LEADER of the Liberal Democrats visited Reading on Friday and shared his endorsement for the party’s parliamentary candidate for Wokingham.
Ed Davey said the “powerful vote” for people who want to replace Wokingham’s Conservative MP is Clive Jones.
He was visiting the Thames Valley hours after the Conservatives lost two byelections: Tamworth and Mid-Bedfordshire.
Mr Davey said: “People will want to know who’s the candidate to vote for to remove the Conservative. In Wokingham, everyone knows it’s the Liberal Democrats and Clive.”
The incumbent for the seat is Sir John Redwood, having first won it in 1987. The electorate in the Wokingham parliamentary constituency has always returned a Conservative MP, but Mr Jones believes the forthcoming general election will be “the best chance ever of getting a Lib Dem MP elected in Wokingham”.
The Liberal Democrats came second to the Conservatives in Wokingham in the 2019 general election.
However, research by the Electoral Calculus website suggests that if a general election happened tomorrow Sir John could hang on to his seat with 36% of the vote, whereas the Lib Dems would come second with 26%, with Labour third on 25.5%.
The predictions are made by taking an aggregate of opinion polls.
Mr Davey denied that Lib Dem supporters in Wokingham would see voting Labour as the best way to get rid of the Conservative government.
He said: “When we ask people about the next general election they know that voting Liberal Democrat and voting Clive Jones here is the powerful vote for getting rid of the Conservatives.
“In so many of the seats where we are in good second places like here, people voting Labour Party – including Labour Party members – are going to vote Liberal Democrat.”
He said the Liberal Democrats had made “progress” in the two by-elections.
He added: “It shows that we can win in places like Wokingham.”
Mr Davey said the Liberal Democrats would make the NHS the focus of their campaign at the next election. He and Mr Jones visited the Royal Berkshire Hospital in Reading and accused the Conservative government of underfunding the NHS.
They say they want to increase the number of GPs and NHS dentists available in places such as Wokingham. Councillor Jones said: “It’s a real problem in Wokingham. If you come to live here, you cannot get registered with an NHS dentist and that is just not acceptable in 2023 or 2024.”
Labour has yet to choose its candidate for the next general election in Wokingham, which has to take place by December 2024 at the latest.
