The LibDem candidate in Sutton and Cheam has engaged in a hurried torrent of apologies to political opponents and the public that he – and his father – have abused. By our Sutton news reporter, ROSE HILL
Apology: Luke Taylor at the hustings last weekend
There are strange goings-on in Sutton and Cheam as the potty-mouthed Liberal Democrat candidate standing in tomorrow’s General Election, Luke Taylor, has embarked on a spree of apologies for his – and his dad’s – misdemeanours.
As reported this week by Inside Sutton and, catching us up, the not-so-left-leaning Daily Mail, Taylor has been exposed as a bit of a social media troll, where he has recklessly attacked both his political opponents and members of the public, often using offensive language.
Taylor, a LibDem councillor for Sutton West and East Cheam (Tony Hancock would be outraged) only since 2022, has been derided as an “electoral tourist” after having his family to the area seemingly because it has a history as a Liberal Democrat stronghold. He had previously stood to become MP for Battersea and then Mitcham and Morden, losing heavily.
Taylor has also been in the news for his central role in the deselection of David Campanale as LibDem candidate in Sutton and Cheam. Some suggest that Taylor becoming the beneficiary of a campaign against Campanale, where Taylor himself was a “ringleader” according to the Daily Torygraph, is more than a coincidence. Campanale is suing the LibDems over his deselection.
It’s likely that LibDem headquarters have noticed, eventually, that Taylor is a bit of an electoral liability. They may have even ordered him to buck up his ideas, be nicer and apologise. The vote in Sutton and Cheam tomorrow is likely to be incredibly tight – today’s Survation poll has the Tories on 27.2%, LibDems on 26.4% and Labour on 25.6%. Taylor’s somewhat frayed public persona is not helping his cause.
Once he was in the running to become a parliamentary candidate for Sutton and Cheam, Taylor conduc ted a major clean-up operation of his social media, deleting all his tweets, possibly under orders from his then boss at Sutton, former council leader Ruth Dombey. But it was all too little, too late: Taylor’s victims had screen-grabbed his offensive posts. At one council meeting in 2023, Dombey was seen to tell Taylor to “shut up” when he was hurling abuse at a female Tory councillor.
National attention: LibDem Taylor’s conduct has got the right-wing press frothing
Taylor had referred to opposition Tory councillors as “scumbags and liars”. He called another opponent a “festering sack of excrement”, and described local Conservative MPs Paul Scully and Elliot Colburn as a “cancer”, language unbecoming of someone seeking election.
In the Mail, a LibDem spokesman provided a non-apology apology: “Luke apologises for any offence caused”, without any admission of wrong-doing.
But the apologies have not stopped there.
In May 2022, on the eve of the local elections, a Conservative candidate in Sutton West and East Cheam, Catherine Gray, was subject to abuse from an elderly man who was following her while riding a bicycle. Gray later encountered the same person at the election count, when it transpired that her abuser was Taylor’s father.
Abused: Tory Catherine Gray (right) out campainging
Yesterday Gray, in response to the Mail article on Taylor, highlighted the incident on social media. To many people’s astonishment, Taylor appeared to admit to the incident and apologised. “I’m fairly sure I did apologise to you on this very platform,” Taylor tweeted.
“However, for the sake of clarity that was unacceptable, and I do apologise to you on his behalf. It was not something I had any part in but do understand it reflects on me, and words have been had with him too.”
Gray’s response to Taylor’s apology was acid-sharp.
“Bit tricky when you have tried to sanitise your social media to attempt to become an MP in yet another area isn’t it Luke!”
And she added: “Funny how your dad was brave enough to dish it out but not brave enough to apologise. Horrifying that he was a teacher and a [councillor], on so many levels.”
Whether Taylor’s loutish behaviour is enough to cost him his chances in Sutton and Cheam, we shall find out in little more than 36 hours. is debatable. But it has become clear, from multiple sources, that the attention caused by Taylor’s erratic behaviour has created some eve-of-election panic in the LibDem ranks.
Should he fail to be elected, Taylor will go down as the LibDem who snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, when Tories across the country were getting kicked out by the lorry-load.
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