Game, set and match as Lib-Dems cling on in Liverpool

May 3 2008 by David Bartlett, Liverpool Daily Post

David Bartlett reflects on the dramatic twists and turns of Liverpool’s latest elections

EVEN by Liverpool standards, events at the city’s election count early on Friday morning were extraordinary.

By 1.30am, the Liberal Democrats’ decade-long grip on power in Liverpool had ended.

A hung council looked inevitable as the party had lost four seats to Labour and one to the Greens.

But perhaps by the confident demeanour of council leader Warren Bradley, who had arrived just 45 minutes earlier, we should have realised he was about to pull a rabbit out of a hat.

Just moments after returning officer Colin Hilton announced the Lib-Dems had clung on to the County seat by just seven votes, giving the party 45 seats, Cllr Bradley made his move.

Triumphantly he announced to the assembled press corps that independent Cllr Nadia Stewart had crossed the floor to the Lib-Dems.

Sensationally the Lib-Dems now had 46 seats for an overall majority of one, and Cllr Stewart – who left Labour last year in an acrimonious fall out – had returned to haunt Labour leader Joe Anderson.

The Lib-Dems had snatched victory from the jaws of defeat, Cllr Bradley had declared game, set and match at the Liverpool Tennis Centre in Wavertree.

The Lib-Dems now have 46 seats, Labour 39, the Liberals three, and the Greens two.

Labour and the Liberals claim not to have been surprised by the move, and by all accounts Cllr Stewart had been thinking about jumping for a while.

She said she felt she had no choice in join the Lib-Dems as she could not allow Joe Anderson to become leader.

“It would have been a retrograde step and I couldn’t allow that.”

The Daily Post understands the Lib-Dem leadership had tried to persuade Cllr Stewart to join their ranks ahead of the elections.

But the Croxteth councillor had not wanted to appear disloyal to her uncle Ken, who stood as an independent in the same ward.

Once it was clear Labour’s Rose Bailey had kept her seat, and uncle Ken had not won, the deal was sealed.

Crucially Cllr Bradley was also coming under pressure from the national party to secure the defection on the night.

It is understood that Lord Rennard, chief executive of the party, stressed to Cllr Bradley the need for the Lib-Dems to be able to continue to hold up Liverpool as its flagship council on a night when Labour was getting a national battering.

However, if the Lib-Dems had lost County and Knotty Ash, which was held by planning chairman Dave Irving with a majority of just 35 seats, Cllr Stewart’s defection could have been superfluous.

Labour had a decent night – Mr Anderson was given a standing ovation by the party faithful at their post-election party – and now appear to be in good position to take the city in the next elections in 2010.

Cllr Anderson may however recall with slight nervousness that a similar ovation greeted former Labour leader Gideon Ben-Tovim at the Devonshire Hotel a few years ago before he was dumped – in favour of Cllr Anderson himself.