Flick Rea was celebrating 50 years as a member of the Lib Dems

LIBERAL Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey was in West Hampstead on Thursday night as the party honoured its longest-serving local member.

Around 100 supporters were in the Sherriff Centre to toast Alderman Flick Rea, who first signed up as a party member 50 years ago this week.

Sir Ed called her the “matriarch” of the local operation who had always been there for the party.

Alderman Rea has witnessed a rollercoaster ride for the Lib Dems through Camden’s political history, growing from a handful of seats to pushing Labour out of power at the Town Hall in 2006.

After a national coalition with the Tories, however, the mood changed and the party has been fighting its way back from the fallout for several years.

With the next set of boroughwide elections now little more than a year away, Sir Ed said he hoped the Lib Dems’ success elsewhere in the country could be translated to north London once again.

“The buzz in the party has never been greater – you sense people have got their tails up,” he told the New Journal.

“I think Labour in government has not done a terribly good job so far. That’s hardly controversial. I’ve been genuinely disappointed. People had voted for change and we just haven’t seen that level of ambition and urgency.

“We are finding across the country in Labour areas we have a lot of people coming towards us, partly because they’ve just felt so disappointed.

“I think there are huge opportunities in areas like this [Camden] which had been strong before and where we have great activists.”

Sir Ed Davey with Flick Rea at the Sheriff Centre

Although it ended nearly a decade ago, Labour councillors in Camden never miss a chance to remind people of the power-sharing pact with David Cameron.

Asked whether he would be willing to take his party into another deal with the Conservatives, Sir Ed added: “I’ve fought the Tories all my life. We’ve just defeated a whole lot of Tory MPs at the general election and I said then my ambition is to finish the job. You can read that as you like, but I want to beat Tories.”

Of the coalition, he said: “The vast majority of people I speak to have forgotten it, and even if they haven’t they realise the issues have moved on.”

Sir Ed meets party guest Lord Bill Rodgers

The next set of council elections in Camden could take on a different complexion in May 2026, as they will be the first in 16 years when Labour candidates cannot blame central govern­ment for problems raised by residents.

Ms Rea, who was given the rare honour of alderman status by the council when she stepped down after representing Fortune Green for three and a half decades, said: “I didn’t know when I joined the party what I was letting myself in for, but I’ve found an extended family.

“Fifty years of fun and friendship, food and frolicking, failures and fine moments – and 50 bloody years of effing focus leaflets. “I’ve enjoyed every minute of it.”