General Election 2024: some pre-result thoughts from the non-heartlands

And so, the campaign is over (thank God, many may think!) and the waiting begins. Of course, as a non-candidate in a seat which would be so far down the Liberal Democrat target list as to require my distance glasses to find it, it would be fair to say that I’m a peripheral player in the big game.

I did manage to get to our two designated target seats - Chelmsford and South Cambridgeshire - and even delivered a few leaflets in my own ward here in Ipswich, so I can feel that I made a small contribution to campaigns that were well-run and will hopefully be successful.

My hopes for the outcome can be divided into three categories:

• My community - Ipswich
• My country
• My Party

As far as Ipswich is concerned, my fondest hope is that our Conservative MP, Tom Hunt, gets banished to the outer darkness. He might not be a racist personally, but he has pandered to those racists in our community in a shameless attempt to nail down their support.

Ipswich has problems and challenges both short-term and long-term, but Tom Hunt offers little in the way of meaningful solutions. Polling suggests that I will get my wish and, whilst I know little about his expected Labour replacement, Jack Abbott, he cannot imaginably do a worse job.

As a public servant, I have struggled with a government that appears to have no comprehension of the concept of governance. I don’t expect to agree with a Conservative administration, but I did expect them to know how to run things. And whilst my expectations of an incoming Labour administration aren't high, I pray that they at least understand how government works and show a little faith in, and respect for, those of us who deliver it.

And finally, the Party. As an agent in the 2005 General Election, I set myself four targets, the last of which was a “stretch” one. So, here are mine this time:

• Defend all of our seats.

• Double our number of seats to thirty - and I still think that if that had been on offer in March, most Liberal Democrats would have taken it.

• Increase the number of Liberal Democrat seats to fifty.

• Beat the Conservatives into third place in terms of seats - the fantasy “stretch” target.

All we can do now though, is sit and wait…