Liberal Democrats leader Ed Davey has held onto his Kingston and Surbiton seat with a comfortable majority, in an exciting night for the party which is tipped to gain dozens of seats across the country. The MP beat Conservative Helen Edward by 17,235 votes, securing 25,870 votes overall, 6,746 votes more than the majority he secured at the 2019 election.
Labour’s Eunice O’Dame came third with 6,561 votes, followed by Reform UK’s Mark Fox with 4,787 votes and the Green’s Debojyoti Das with 3,009 votes. Independent Yvonne Tracey came next with 1,177 votes, while the Workers Party’s Ali Abdulla received 395 votes and the Official Monster Raving Loony Party’s A. Gent Chinners won 230 votes.
Mr Davey, 58, has represented the constituency since 1997, briefly losing the seat to the Conservatives in 2015 before regaining it in 2017. He married Lib Dem councillor Emily Davey in 2005.
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His attention-grabbing antics in the six-week run-up to the election saw the Lib Dems secure widespread media coverage, with all kinds of stunts including paddleboard falls and bungee jumping, in a bid to draw attention to the party’s policies. Health and social care was at the heart of his campaign, along with tackling illegal sewage dumping and rejoining the single market.
When the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) visited Kingston town centre, Lib Dem voters praised Mr Davey for showing humanity on the campaign trail. Retired NHS worker Simon Cunniffe, 65, described the party leader as ‘more human’ and ‘honest’ than other politicians. His partner David Barrable, 75, added: “Ed Davey is the only one who’s actually got any heart.”
While the exit poll predicted a Labour landslide of 410 seats, it also pointed to huge wins for the Lib Dems – predicting the party would win more than five times the seats that it won at the 2019 election, going from 11 to 61. With the actual results being announced, it gained Wimbledon and Carshalton from the Tories, among its successes of the night.
Mr Davey posted on X, after the exit poll was announced, that the party was on course for its best results in a century thanks to its ‘positive campaign with health and care at its heart’. He wrote: “I am humbled by the millions of people who backed us to both kick the Conservatives out of power and deliver the change our country needs.”
Mr Davey has faced questions over why he did not do more to help Post Office subpostmasters wrongly prosecuted in the Horizon scandal, when he was junior postal affairs minister in the coalition government from 2010 to 2012. He wrote in The Guardian in February: “I’m sorry I did not see through the Post Office’s lies – and that it took me five months to meet Alan Bates, the man who has done so much to uncover it.”
Ex-deputy postmistress Yvonne Tracey, an Independent councillor, based her campaign on fighting for justice for subpostmasters and said she decided to run against Mr Davey because of how he acted towards them while minister. Turnout was 65.7 per cent in Kingston and Surbiton, down 8.5 per cent from the 2019 General Election.
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