One of the most frequently asked questions I’ve heard in EastGrinstead & Uckfield is about tactical voting.

I wish we didn’t have to discuss it. I want a fair voting system where people can choose who they want and not have to think tactically.

But for now, tactical voting is a reality.

People in East Grinstead & Uckfield constituency want to know who is best-placed to beat the Conservatives. I strongly believe it is LibDems.

But there is a lot of confusing and conflicting information, so I want to unpack it a bit.

WHAT DO WE KNOW FOR SURE?

Starting with what we know, I think everyone agrees that Lib Dems would have been second if this constituency had existed last time in 2019.

Exact numbers vary a bit, but they were broadly:

Con 58%

Lib Dem 23%

Lab 13.6%

Grn 4.9%

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/.../what-constituency-am-i-in...

The clear second place from last time is the reason tactical.vote recommends a Lib Dem vote to beat the Conservatives this time.

Source: https://tactical.vote/east-grinstead-and-uckfield/?nvep=&hmac=&emci=554d4fb4-661c-ef11-86d0-6045bdd9e096&emdi=ea000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000001&ceid=

OPINION POLLS

So the key question: is there any reason to think any other party is better placed to overtake the Conservatives this time?

For that we have to look at opinion polls.

That’s hard because we don’t have direct opinion polls at local level for the constituency, so have to extrapolate from other data…

Polling analysis by New Statesman and Britain Elects analyses local party strength, local elections & likely tactical voting patterns to estimate support for each party.

It puts Lib Dems as the main challengers to the Tories, well ahead of Labour’s vote share.

Source: https://sotn.newstatesman.com/2024/05/britainpredicts?nvep=&hmac=&emci=554d4fb4-661c-ef11-86d0-6045bdd9e096&emdi=ea000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000001&ceid=

This is matched by the Financial Times’ analysis, which puts Lib Dems 7 points ahead of Labour.

Source: https://ig.in.ft.com/.../ft.../uk-election-2024/v0.0.12

However, other analysis says Labour are in second, for example Electoral Calculus.

Understandably this creates confusion for would-be tactical voters.

Why the difference?

MRP POLLS

Electoral Calculus and others use ‘multilevel regression & post-stratification’ (MRP) analysis. These are often called ‘mega-polls’ because they sample 10,000 or more people.

But even the largest polls don’t have significant numbers at local level. They rely on using demographic indicators about a seat to extrapolate from national trends.

So when Labour are high nationally they will very likely be high locally.

Here’s some information about MRP polls: https://www.theguardian.com/.../how-accurate-are-mrp...

Labour are of course entitled to use the Electoral Calculus figures in their argument.

But in my opinion, MRP relies too heavily on national numbers and not enough on actual local voting patterns (unlike the New Statesman or FT analysis).

WHAT WE KNOW

If in doubt about the opinion polls, we can return to some things we know for sure:

- Lib Dems would have been second in East Grinstead & Uckfield last time

- Lib Dems are the largest party on Mid Sussex council and joint largest (with Greens) on Wealden council

- Lib Dems are the main challengers across our part of Sussex, in Lewes, Eastbourne, Mid Sussex and Horsham.

We know we can win in this area, whereas Labour has never had significant success here.

WE NEED CHANGE

People of course will make up their own minds, but I will continue to believe strongly that Lib Dems are the clear tactical choice here.

If I didn’t believe that, I wouldn’t be campaigning this hard. We desperately need change & I have no interest in splitting the anti-Tory vote.

As I said at the top, it is so frustrating that we have to spend so much time thinking about tactical voting.

I’d much rather be discussing issues like NHS, Planning and the Environment.

We urgently need a fair voting system so that we don’t have to argue about tactical voting.

Among many other things, a vote for the Lib Dems is a vote to change our unfair electoral system for the future.

The Liberal Democrats are only two points behind the Conservatives in the new parliamentary constituency of East Grinstead and Uckfield, according to a new poll.

As the general election campaign kicked off, the poll, by Britain Elects and the New Statesman, put Lib Dems on 30.9% and the Conservatives on 32.9%. On the same day, the tactical voting website tactical.vote urged people in East Grinstead and Uckfield to vote Liberal Democrat to defeat the Conservatives.

It raises the prospect of a shock victory for the Liberal Democrats in a seat that had been considered safe for the Tories – and where Conservative minister Mims Davies is standing after moving from Mid Sussex.

Launching his general election campaign, Lib Dem candidate Benedict Dempsey said:

“It is a relief for the country that the general election has finally been called. People are crying out for change, and for a better quality of politics.

“I have been talking to people across the constituency all year. They are desperate for honest, decent, tolerant politics – for reasonable debate even when we disagree.

“I will campaign on the issues that matter to people in East Grinstead, Uckfield and our villages, especially the NHS, Planning and the Environment.

“We want to deliver an extra 8000 GPs so that people can get appointments when they need them, and get our NHS working again. We want to reform planning to give more power to local communities and take it away from big developer corporations. And we want to clean up our rivers by forcing water companies to deliver for the environment before making profit.

“A lot of people have given up on politics – but change is possible. This poll shows that we can defeat the Conservatives in East Grinstead and Uckfield. If people lend me their vote, I will do my best to represent East Grinstead and Uckfield with honesty, tolerance, respect and hard work.”

Note:

The New Statesman poll is available here: Who will win the 2024 general election? - State of the Nation (newstatesman.com)

Tactical.Vote recommendation available here: Tactical voting in East Grinstead and Uckfield | General Election 2024 | tactical.vote

 

The Liberal Democrats have launched a petition to restore Sussex's rivers, after Conservative and Labour MPs voted to weaken the water regulator, Ofwat.

On 24 April, Parliament voted to impose a 'growth duty' on Ofwat, requiring it to consider growth when taking action against polluting water companies. Those voting in favour included Mims Davies, MP for Mid Sussex and candidate for East Grinstead and Uckfield at the next election.

The new duty is likely to weaken the ability of the regulator to force water companies to reduce the amount of sewage pumped into England's rivers and seas, according to campaigners including Wildlife and Countryside Link and Surfers Against Sewage.

In 2023, water companies discharged raw sewage into England's rivers for a combined total of 3.6 million hours. This pollution causes serious damage, including to rivers in Sussex like the Ouse, Uck, Adur, Arun and Cuckmere. 

According to the Environment Agency, 0% of England's river stretches are in good health.

In response, Sussex's Liberal Democrats have launched a petition calling for the growth duty to be removed. It also calls for water companies to become Public Benefit Companies that are required to prioritise the environment alongside profit.

Lib Dem parliamentary candidate for East Grinstead and Uckfield, Benedict Dempsey, said:

"Sussex has some of the country's most beautiful rivers. But for too long, water companies have prioritised their profits and dividends over the environment. This new duty makes that even more likely.

"It's time for this pollution to stop. We need to change the way water companies are run so that they have a duty to restore nature as well as turn a profit.

"I know thousands of Sussex residents love and value our rivers. With a general election coming soon, now is the time to send a clear message to all MPs and parliamentary candidates in Sussex that we want to clean our rivers up.

"I ask anyone who agrees to sign our petition."

The petition is available at: www.leweslibdems.org.uk/rivers 

Our NHS and social care services are in a desperate state. NHS and care workers are struggling to hold the system together, but they urgently need more support. We need to invest more money, and target it better.

In particular, we need to invest in more GPs to help people access the treatment they need more quickly, and to invest in care packages to help people get home from hospital. Doing that would help the whole system start to function more efficiently and more effectively. Many of my friends and family have dedicated their careers to the NHS, including my wife who is a hospital doctor. I know that if we support them to do their jobs, we can get our health and social care services working again.

 

When I meet people across East Grinstead and Uckfield constituency, the state of the NHS probably triggers the greatest strength of feeling.

On one hand, it inspires almost universal pride, and respect for the professionals who work in our health centres and hospitals. On the other, it generates despair at the state into which the NHS has been allowed to fall.

A system struggling to cope

In particular, I hear from people who are unable to access GP appointments when they need them. In East Grinstead and Crawley Down especially, health centres run by Modality Mid Sussex have been rated inadequate by the Care Quality Commission, and placed in special measures.

This is a symptom of a system that has reached breaking point. Across the NHS, health professionals are struggling to do their jobs under almost impossible conditions. They want to care for people and are trained to do so, but the system is letting them down and they are exhausted. Many are leaving or retiring early, many others are absent from work with ill health, including anxiety, stress and depression.

For patients, the result is often an inability to see their doctor or to schedule a routine operation.

A multitude of causes

There are too many reasons for this state of affairs to list them all in this blog. They include chronic underinvestment over many years across the NHS and social care, lack of proper workforce planning, combined with increased demand from an ageing population and long-term health trends including rises in obesity and diabetes. The Covid pandemic placed an already creaking system under intolerable strain.

A way forward

The most important question, of course, is what to do to about it.

There are no easy solutions. Getting our health and social care services to where we want them to be will take years. But here are some key things I think we need to do immediately:

Invest in more GPs: GPs are the linchpin of the NHS. When GPs are properly supported they can provide excellent care in the community, and help patients access other NHS services if they need them. When people can’t access GPs, they turn up elsewhere in the system, like A&E. That not only means those people don’t always get the best care, it is also extremely inefficient and expensive, wasting NHS resources.

Since 2015, we’ve seen an the introduction of physician associates, with plans for more in future. There are a number of ways they can support general practice, but they are not a substitute for fully trained GPs.

The Liberal Democrats have committed to delivering 8000 more GPs, by recruiting, training and retaining them. This would support a guarantee that people can see a GP within a week, or 24 hours in urgent cases. Though this would cost money up front, it would save more in the long-run by helping to get the system functioning more effectively.

Invest in social care: If GPs are the front door of the NHS, social care is the back door. We will not fix the problems in our health service as long as people are unable to be discharged safely from hospital.

We are proposing to provide free personal care for people at home, based on the model introduced by the Labour-Liberal Democrat government in Scotland in 2002. We would introduce a real living wage for care workers, and provide a package of support for unpaid care workers. Specifically, that should include cancelling the debts of people who have been overpaid for carer’s allowance – many of whom are being pursued for thousands of pounds by the Department for Work of Pensions.

Invest in mental health: The country is experiencing a mental health crisis, and for too long mental health has not been prioritised in our health system. While awareness of mental health issues is starting to improve, services are still not given enough support. Our proposals to improve mental health services include introducing walk-in centres in every community for young people who need mental health support; reduce ‘out of area’ placements so that people aren’t sent a long way from home for treatment; and placing a mental health specialist in every school.

Support health professionals: Many NHS staff members are experiencing their own challenges with mental health, as a result of the conditions in which they are working. I am pleased that recent proposals to cut the mental health service for doctors, NHS Practitioner Health, were reversed after an outcry – but we need to do a lot more to support our health workers to stay healthy. That is not only vital for them personally, but will also mean the NHS retains more essential workers that it so desperately needs.

Take a more holistic approach to the country’s health: As well as improving and investing in health and social care services, we need to start thinking about health more broadly. So much ill health is caused by broader social factors, including poverty, inequality and the environment. We should build a preventative approach to ill-health into programmes across government, that will improve people’s health and save resources in the long term.

That should include gradually restoring the Public Health Grant to 2015 levels. We also need to look at benefits and entitlements, like the Personal Independence Payment, to make sure they are genuinely supporting people to be healthy – by enabling people who would benefit from returning to work, and properly supporting those who can’t.

 

Health is such a hugely important and complex area, and there is so much more to say. I hope these ideas help set out some key priorities that I would work towards as your MP.

We need to end the false logic that tackling our affordable housing crisis means giving in to developers. There is another way – we have to reform the national planning system, empowering local authorities to deliver affordable, social and council houses alongside the infrastructure that communities need.

This is the first in a series of blog articles I’m planning to write, to give people in East Grinstead and Uckfield a few more details about what I think on different issues.

I’m writing about housing and planning first, because it’s the issue that has come up most often with the people I’ve spoken to. Housing and planning also cuts across a huge range of other issues – where and how we build houses affects roads, sewerage, health, education, and the environment among many other things.

An affordable housing crisis

First things first: we are in an affordable housing crisis. More people than ever are struggling to afford a place to live, with over a million households waiting for social homes. House prices, relative to earnings, have more than doubled since the 1970s, and in England now stand at more than eight times average income. Meanwhile, rent inflation is at record highs, with average rent in England now more than £1,200.

As a result, many people face crippling rental costs, cannot afford to buy a home, or simply have nowhere to live at all. This situation is completely unacceptable.

Development pressure

At the same time, towns and villages across Sussex are under enormous pressure from new developments.

The national planning system is stacked in favour of developer corporations. Councils are required to deliver housing numbers by central government, and forced to accept a certain level of development. In East Grinstead and Uckfield constituency, Mid Sussex, Wealden and Lewes District Councils are struggling to meet those demands. Knowing this, developers attempt to get permission for completely unsuitable proposals, like those at Hamsey.

As a result, despite Councils’ best efforts, houses are frequently being built on greenfield sites, often at unaffordable prices and without the infrastructure to support them properly. Services like healthcare, water, sewerage and roads are being put under strain.

Breaking the false logic

The combination of the housing crisis and development pressure results in a situation where most people agree we need more housing, but most people don’t want it near where they live.

How, then, do we address this problem?

I think we have become trapped in a false logic. The false logic says that the only way to provide the houses people need is to get private developers to build more.

That causes a problem. Naturally, private developers will usually want to build the kind of houses that make them the most profit. They must make contributions to local infrastructure, but they are not usually responsible for actually delivering it.

As a result, a lot of new housing is not affordable for the local community, is not in the right places, and does not come with the necessary infrastructure. Under these circumstances, it’s understandable that local people are often resistant to new houses in their communities.

Another way

But there is another way to solve the housing crisis, by reforming the planning system.

What we need is much more social and affordable housing, not simply more houses that are out of most people’s reach. We need those houses to be properly planned, with necessary services and infrastructure. They also need to be planned in line with local nature recovery strategies.

So instead of relying only on private developers to deliver our housing, we have to restore the role of local councils and housing associations.

Here are some ways we can do that:

• We should empower councils to build the next generation of sustainable, affordable, council and social housing.
• That means giving councils the legal and financial powers to build, and powers to set binding targets for affordable and social housing. If necessary, local authorities should be allowed to borrow to fund new housing.
• We should change the way national targets are implemented, translating them into achievable local targets and rewarding councils that support sustainable housing growth.
• We should reform the Land Compensation Act. At the moment, land that might have planning permission is sold at a hugely inflated value. Reforming the Act would allow councils to buy land for development at current market rate, rather than the increased cost associated with development.
• We should give councils powers to control the number of second homes and holiday lets.

Better planning

By giving more responsibility to councils and housing associations for delivering our housing, we can also improve the provision of services. Rather than building just where developers want, councils would be better able to coordinate new homes with the infrastructure they need. They would also be much better able to make sure new developments minimise impact on the environment and enhance nature recovery.

Of course, there will remain a major role for private developers in delivering houses. But people’s homes are too important to be left entirely to the private sector – and currently the balance is not right.

By reforming the planning system – rebalancing it in favour of local authorities and communities and away from private corporations – we can start to deliver the homes that people need without swamping existing communities or crippling our infrastructure.

If we do that, then not only will fewer people be opposed to developments in their area, but more people will be able to afford a home.

I’m sure everyone was shocked to hear today’s news that raw sewage spills into England’s rivers and seas doubled in 2023.

Here are some of the places in our area where spills took place:

#Barcombe: 91 spills totalling 995 hours
#Cooksbridge: 37 spills totalling 286 hours
#Newick: 62 spills totalling 627 hours
#ScaynesHill: 61 spills totalling 665 hours
#Maresfield: 50 spills totalling 780 hours
#Buxted: 99 spills totalling 1682 hours
#Uckfield: 20 spills totalling 169 hours
#Danehill: 90 spills totalling 1400 hours
#HorstedKeynes: 85 spills totalling 1274 hours
#Ardingly: 36 spills totalling 366 hours
#Balcombe: 98 spills totalling 1246 hours
#WestHoathly: 43 spills totalling 398 hours
#ForestRow: 57 spills totalling 796 hours
#CrawleyDown: 49 spills totalling 364 hours
#Copthorne: 47 spills totalling 659 hours
#Nutley: 49 spills totalling 490 hours

This is a revolting state of affairs that has continued for far too long - polluting our wonderful rivers including the Ouse and the Uck.

Liberal Democrats would replace Ofwat with a new regulator with stronger powers to hold water companies to account.

We would also ban water executives from taking bonuses if their companies dump sewage into our rivers.

Source: https://environment.data.gov.uk/dataset/21e15f12-0df8-4bfc-b763-45226c16a8ac