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06
Oct
Is Harrogate and Knaresborough MP stoking ‘internal warfare’ against his party leader?
Harrogate and Knaresborough MP Tom Gordon has made national headlines in recent days for publicly attacking his party leader, Sir Ed Davey.
Liberal Democrat Mr Gordon said Sir Ed’s comments on pensions were “at best for the birds, and at worst downright insulting”.
Sir Ed had criticised Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s plans to replace the pension triple lock from April 2030 with a double lock to help fund a new National Care Service.
The party leader said removing the triple lock “would put more pensioners into poverty” and result in more people working now — the millennials — having a “very poor pension” when they retire.
Mr Gordon posted to his 6,800 followers on X that Sir Ed had “missed the point” and “needs to think again”.
He said “intergenerational inequality is already one of the defining injustices of our time” and maintaining the triple lock “would further entrench it”.
Mr Gordon added:
Worse, it gaslights an entire generation into believing it's for our benefit. Telling millennials we're keeping the triple lock to help us in 30 years' time is nonsense.
GB News
The post has been retweeted 319 times and received 1,600 likes.
It led to Mr Gordon being widely quoted in the national media. He also wrote an opinion piece for GB News and was quoted in an article on The Spectator website headlined ‘Ed Davey is living on borrowed time as Lib Dem leader’.
The article said Mr Gordon, who was elected in 2024, was “first over the top” in the attack on Sir Ed.
Charlotte Henry, who wrote the piece, said:
Leadership is about bringing people with you, not dragging them behind,’ Gordon told me. “We should be empowering our MPs and spokespeople – giving them, and the party, a clear, bold, liberal vision to go out and make the case for.
Mr Gordon also said the party “should be doing better than we currently are in the polls”.
A YouGov MRP poll last month (September) projected the party would win 71 seats — one more than it got in 2024 — if an election were held. It also said Mr Gordon was on track to comfortably retain his seat.
The Stray Ferret asked Mr Gordon why he chose to publicly criticise Sir Ed, who has been permanent party leader since 2020, and whether he felt Sir Ed was the best person to lead the party into the next general election.
A spokesperson for Mr Gordon replied it was “healthy we can air policy disagreements and challenge them when necessary”.
They added:
Thursday’s post was a response to Ed’s comments on Andy Burnham’s speech, which Tom felt simply struck the wrong chord.
He respects his colleagues enough to call it out when they’ve got it wrong and he does so because he wants to work with Ed to provide what’s best for Harrogate and Knaresborough, and the country as a whole.
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