General Election 2024: what happened in Ipswich

The superficial conclusion from Suffolk's county town is that Labour swept down upon Tom Hunt and the Ipswich Conservatives and put them to the metaphorical sword. Except, as it turns out, they really didn't, increasing the Labour share of the vote by 4% and actually achieving a lower number of votes than they had done in 2019.

No, as in so many places, it was Reform UK who really did for Tom - increasing their vote share by 13%. And yes, Labour will have gained some votes from the Conservatives, but they lost votes to, predominantly, the Greens, up from 2.6% to 8.3% and failed to squeeze the Liberal Democrats, who edged up from narrowly losing their deposit in 2019 to narrowing saving it in 2024.

In truth, I have no issue with Jack Abbott, our new Labour MP - I actually don't know that much about him, and his campaign didn't bring him to our door as best I can tell - and a near 7,500 majority should give him a degree of leeway against a Conservative bounceback in 2029, should that even happen. It is, I suspect, highly unlikely that he could be as unlikeable a human being as Tom Hunt was, and we'll see how effective he is at making the case for the town in Westminster.

From a Liberal Democrat perspective, saving the deposit for the first time since 2010 is a positive, even though it would be hard to say that we've made serious progress. We did benefit from having, in James Sandbach, a candidate who was able to work with the Local Party for an extended period, as opposed to the parachuted candidates we've had previously - and I acknowledge here Adrian Hyyrylainen-Trett's enthusiastic efforts in 2017 and 2019 - and there is a sense that there is a space for Liberal Democrats in the town's politics if only we can seize the opportunity.

I think that the national performance of the Party will add momentum to local efforts and, whilst it's hard to envisage Ipswich appearing on a list of Liberal Democrat target seats any time soon, thoughts will now turn to next year's County elections, where the Conservative vote will be targeted pretty ruthlessly by their opponents. 2021 was a good year for Conservatives in local government, and Suffolk was no exception to that, so there will be prospects for the opposition parties across the town. Labour, in particular, will be confident of sweeping the board in Ipswich, whilst we'll be hoping to resist the tide in St Margaret's division where the new boundaries favour us significantly.