How the Liberal Democrats conquered Middle England

Coffee House Shots

The Spectator

News, Politics, Government, Daily News

4.4 • 2.1K Ratings

🗓️ 21 April 2025

⏱️ 17 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The Liberal Democrats’ foreign affairs spokesperson Calum Miller, elected as the new MP for Bicester and Woodstock last year, joins James Heale to talk about the ambitions of the party that became the largest third party in Parliament in 100 years at the 2024 general election. They want to overtake the Conservatives to be the second party in local government – could they one day overtake the Tories to become the official opposition?

A former civil servant, Oxford University policy manager and councillor, Calum joins Coffee House Shots to talk about why he got into politics, how Brexit radicalised his desire for good governance and why, for all the fun, there is a serious point behind Ed Davey’s stunts.

Produced by Patrick Gibbons.

Transcript

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0:00.0	The Spectator magazine is home to wonderful writing, insightful analysis and unrivaled books and arts reviews.
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0:14.6	Go to spectator.com.uk forward slash voucher.
0:29.9	Hello and welcome to the special bank holiday edition of Coffee House Shots.
0:33.9	I'm James Hill and I'm glad to be joined today by Callum Miller, who is the MP for Bistair and Woodstock and the Foreign Affairs spokesman for the Liberal Democrats.
0:36.8	Now, Callum, welcome to The Spectator.
0:39.1	Thank you very much.
0:40.0	You are doing rather well in the moment, actually.
0:42.0	You've got sort of the biggest third party in Parliament for 100 years.
0:45.2	What do you think is the cause of your success?
0:47.5	When I was standing for election last year, it was really striking on the doorstep. step, the extent to which many people in my area felt that the Conservatives had run out of time
0:54.5	and run out of ideas. And that was a big part of the support that we gained in my area. And as you can
0:59.1	see from the seats that we won across large swathes of South England and the South West.
1:04.2	And where does it go that? I mean, because the classic thing, of course, with the Liberal Democrats
1:07.1	is people say you're a third party, you're not going to be a party of government. Do you think you can genuinely replace the Tories as the main opposition to the Labour Party?
1:13.5	Well, there's a long wave between now and the next election.
1:15.8	So it would be a foolish person who made a prediction about that.
1:19.0	But what I can say is we build up to these local elections that are forthcoming.
1:22.7	We are hearing similar things on the doorstep today.
1:25.1	And we are optimistic about making big inroads into
1:27.5	the Conservatives Council seats, which, as we've seen in the history of our electoral
	...

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