Guido was surprised to see Sir Ed Davey during PMQs today claim that rural communities are “bearing the brunt of record fuel prices”, and calling for the expansion of the rural fuel duty relief scheme. Has anyone bothered to tell him his own party’s policies?

Not only have the LibDems repeatedly voted against the government’s fuel duty freezes – and this year’s fuel duty cut – the party’s own flagship climate policy, released back in September, actually calls for “reinstating the indexation of road fuel duty”. That would mean a return to regular yearly increases in the tax – and as indexed against RPI, would mean an 11% hike in the tax.

The policy also calls for “graduating VED (Vehicle Excise Duty) by fuel efficiency and increasing rates for fossil fuel vehicles overall“, which amounts to another tax hike on rural drivers. Still, when you’ve got a rural by-election looming, it’s best not to let your own policies get in the way…

There are clearly tactical Lib-Lab stand downs going on around the country. Tory chairman Oliver Dowden claims that in the South West, Labour are standing candidates in 61% of seats compared to 97% in 2018. In the South East, Labour are standing candidates in 88% of seats compared to 99% in 2018.  In the North East, the LibDems are standing in just 56% of seats, down from 78% four years ago. Labour is standing in 99% of seats in the area. “These shifts”, claims Dowden, “are far too substantial to be a mere coincidence”. In response Starmer says “There is no pact, everybody knows there is no pact.” Well, not everybody:

This LibDem organiser in Cumbria gives the game away about what is happening at local level. Labour-supporting Neal Lawson and Clive Lewis have been arguing for years that an unfair ‘First Past the Post’ system splits the ‘progressive vote’ and prevents the ‘progressive majority’ from winning.

It stands to reason that the total left-of-centre vote will be split, given on average two candidates from Labour, the LibDems or the Greens are running against just one right-of-centre candidate in England.  According to new research from Electoral Reform Society front-group “Politics for the Many“, in 43.8% of wards there is one Tory standing against candidates from all three of the progressive ‘left’ parties. In 35.5% of wards where there is one Tory candidate, there are two ‘left’ candidates. According to the research, in almost 3,000 council seats up for grabs, there are only 15 wards in the whole of England where there are more right-of-centre parties standing than left parties.

Labour and LibDem strategists know this; they are looking on these locals as a trust-building exercise and a dry run for the general election…

With just two days left before the local elections, Guido’s being sent all kinds of tip-offs about oddball candidates appearing on ballots this Thursday. An alarmed resident in Brecon and Radnorshire shared a Facebook post drawing attention to a LibDem candidate called Little Brighouse, who’s standing as a county councillor in Powys, Wales. Brighouse is a prolific TikTok user, where not only does she claim to have multiple personalities – she also allegedly reveals that one of these personalities is a porn star going by the name of ‘Tobi Atlantic’…

Brighouse also has a Linktree page, which lists both her Twitter and Instagram profiles. Her Twitter account features the usual political material you’d expect of an active campaigner. Her Instagram, on the other hand, leaves a lot less to the imagination… 

Brighouse shared the lefthand image above on Instagram, while the righthand is a still from “Tobi Atlantic’s” extensive video library. The butterfly tattoo appears in both next to, errm, an actual ginger growler. Co-conspirators conducting their own research on this probably shouldn’t do it in the workplace…

Both the Welsh LibDem press office and Brighouse have ignored repeated approaches for comment. To be fair, they’re likely still busy responding to all the negative press Brighouse created last month when she accused Tory MP Fay Jones of racism – later forcing the Welsh LibDems to apologise on Brighouse’s behalf. Do these local associations vet any of their candidates? Two days to go… 

With just a week to go before the locals, Labour are really pulling out all the stops: they’re currently running Facebook attack ads in key marginals claiming the LibDems are “soft on drugs“, and would even decriminalise their use if elected. To the untrained eye, they look exactly like the LibDems’ own material. In fact, the LibDems may as well go home. Labour have decided to do their campaigning for them – a real joint effort to keep the Tories out…

Guido will have whatever the Labour communications team have been smoking. It’s so strong it’s caused them to forget drug decriminalisation is a popular policy… especially with Labour’s own voters. According to YouGov, just 24% of Labour voters want soft drug use to remain a criminal offence. A whopping 42% want it fully legalised. Hilariously, the YouGov data shows that LibDem voters are actually more opposed to decriminalisation than Labour voters.  Presumably Starmer’s been on the strong stuff again…

The North Shropshire by-election is on Thursday, and Labour are trying desperately to gain ground on what has quickly become a two-horse race race between the Tories and the LibDems. Apparently Labour’s strategy to do that is to try and beat the LibDems at their own game: they’ve whipped out the bar charts…

Labour’s candidate Ben Wood is putting out leaflets saying “Vote for the truthful candidate – not the ones who pretend to be second when they’re third, and pose as members defecting to them from other parties to deceive the voters!” Clearly targeting the LibDems…

Co-conspirators will recall how well this strategy worked for the LibDems in 2019, when they repeatedly deployed dodgy charts throughout both local and the general election campaigns. Jo Swinson was even called out for it on Sky News. Probably not the best technique for Labour to emulate then…