Ballot papers should come with warnings voting Tory is 'bad for your health'

25 September 2023 , 21:30

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Ed Davey will deliver his first in-person autumn conference speech to Lib Dem members on Tuesday (Image: Getty Images)

Ballot papers should come with warnings that voting Tory is "bad for your health", Ed Davey will warn in a major speech.

The Liberal Democrats' leader will attack the Conservatives' dire record on the NHS - with millions stuck on waiting lists, problems accessing GPs and the crisis in dentistry. Sir Ed will say: “Perhaps there should be a warning on the ballot paper, like there are on cigarette packets - 'Voting Conservative is bad for your health'."

Firing the starting gun on the party's election campaign, Sir Ed will say it is his mission to bring Tory majorities in southern Blue Wall seats "tumbling down". It follows a series of stunning by-election results with the party snatching Conservative seats with massive swings in recent months.

And on Monday officials said they had received a £1million legacy donation - the largest one-off cash boost to the party's election war chest since 2019. In his keynote speech at the Liberal Democrat conference in Bournemouth, the former Cabinet Minister will also hit out at the "soap opera" of Tory chaos inflicted on the country.

A canon prop used in a recent Lib Dem by-election victory (Getty Images)

He will add: "Britain isn’t working, because the Conservatives aren’t working. They’re more like a bad TV soap opera than a functioning government - the factions and the feuds, the personal vendettas, the shock exits and unwelcome returns, the total lack of connection to reality; each episode worse than the last. Well, it’s time to change the channel.

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"The corruption of Boris Johnson, the chaos of Liz Truss and the carelessness of Rishi Sunak. This whole Conservative shambles. They all have to go.”

The speech closing the conference - expected to last an hour - came as Sir Ed said his party had abandoned a longstanding pledge to put a penny on income tax. He said the commitment, which dates back to 1992, was unsustainable in the current economic climate and the burden should instead fall on companies making "huge profits".

Attempting not to alienate voters in Tory strongholds, the Lib Dem leader also suggested high earners should not pay more tax. He told the BBC: "I think the taxes are going up quite a lot already under the Conservatives."

On whether they should go up further, he said: "No... because over the next few years you're seeing a big increase in taxes that are already baked in and I think there is a real danger that if we don't ask those organisations who are doing really well, like the oil and gas companies, like the banks, like the water companies - they have the money."

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Ashley Cowburn