Ed Davey has said the Liberal Democrats are doing "better than expected" in the local elections and that voters are switching to his party because they "have had enough of being taken for granted and being let down". The party's leader spoke from Winchester, a seat he thinks the Lib Dems could take at the next general election. Report by Brooksl. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
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00:00The votes are still being counted but so far we're doing better than we expected
00:03and we think we've got really good results still to come so it's gonna be a
00:06fantastic night we think for the Liberal Democrats and you know here we are in
00:10Winchester where we've made big gains and we think we can take this seat at
00:15the next general election. Across the blue wall we're finding that but I'm
00:19reflecting on what the voters told us during this campaign. They are shocked
00:24that the NHS is in such a mess under the Conservatives, the care system failing.
00:28They're worried about the cost of living, they're not getting the help they need
00:31and they're very angry about the sewage being pumped into their rivers so they
00:36want change and that's what Liberal Democrats want too. We want a general
00:39election as soon as possible and the Liberal Democrats on the back of these
00:43results are more than ready for that general election. Well Liberal Democrats
00:46have done well where we were fighting hard and I can take you to so many seats
00:51many of which have yet to count Cheltenham is looking really good for us
00:55Tunbridge Wells, Dorset many other areas and these are seats that are great for
01:00us at council level but we think we can win them in the next general election
01:03and in so many parts of the blue wall the southeast the southwest where we're
01:07back again it's the Liberal Democrat vote that can beat the Conservatives at
01:11the next general election. I think the Reform Party is taking votes off the
01:15Conservatives and I think that's going to be a real problem for Rishi Sunak
01:19and his party and I think if you look at the parliamentary by-elections where we
01:24were the challengers in this Parliament we've won four historic victories that's
01:29more than we have for a generation the last time we won four by-elections
01:33during a Parliament was before the 1997 election when the Liberal Democrats had
01:38a massive breakthrough so we're pretty confident on the results we've seen in
01:41this Parliament. I'm increasingly confident that Liberal Democrats can win
01:45Cheltenham we've got a great candidate Max Wilkinson we've run the council
01:48brilliantly but you know what we're not going to take things for granted we're
01:52not complacent one thing that I hear from people is they're very angry with
01:56the Conservatives who've taken lifelong Conservatives for granted for far
02:01too long and that's one of the reasons why people are switching to us so we're
02:04going to work in every seat where we can win till the last minute to merit
02:08people voting for us. This is disaster for the Conservatives and in so many
02:13parts of the country it'll be Conservative MPs worried about Liberal
02:16Democrats across the southeast the blue wall the southwest in many other parts
02:21of the country where we are the challengers to the Conservatives people
02:24know that if you want to get rid of this awful Conservative government and make
02:28them history they should vote Liberal Democrat.