A good showing by the Liberal Democrats at the local elections could herald a change of MP in Wokingham, the party’s national leader has said.
Sir Ed Davey, the party leader, was in Wargrave in the north of the borough on Monday.
He said that ‘lifelong’ Conservative voters are turning to the Liberal Democrats.
Sir Ed said: “They feel that the Conservative party no longer represents their values and no longer speaks up for them.
“They know in a place like Wokingham if people want to get rid of the Conservatives they can vote Liberal Democrat.”
The Liberal Democrats are hoping their candidate, Clive Jones, can unseat Conservative Sir John Redwood – who has been Wokingham’s MP since 1987.
Andy Croy, chairman of the Labour Party in Wokingham, argued that people might see the election as a battle between them and the Conservatives.
He said: “The Liberal Democrats always do better in the local elections.
“In the national elections, no one thinks they’re a party of government – and the turnout is different.
“Most people think we’re going to be the next government.”
As well as lending more support to Clive Jones, he was in the borough to highlight the problem of sewage discharges locally.
Standing on the banks of the River Loddon in Wargrave, Sir Ed told Wokingham Today: “What’s really alarming is the Conservatives have been allowing the water companies to pump their filthy sewage into rivers like the River Loddon.
“In the last 24 hours we have seen continuous dumping of sewage into the river behind me, and you can tell when you have look at it.
“I’ve been speaking to local people who tell me that in the past when they didn’t have this dumping, they could see the bottom of the river.
“It was beautiful and clean.
Sir Ed feels asking consumers to pay more through their bills to clean up the mess is wrong.
“I’m outraged by that suggestion.
“The water companies have done nowhere near enough in terms of investment.”
“We need a new start. We need to get tough on all the water companies on sewage dumping.”
He shouldn’t have voted to allow water companies to just pump raw sewage into the Thames whenever they wanted to.
Clive Jones echoed the view of his leader.
He said: “What people need to remember is that Wokingham MP Sir John Redwood was one of the architects of privatisation of water companies.
“The fact that water companies are proposing to increase bills by as much as 42%, not including VAT.
“It’s an outrage, it’s totally unfair.”
