YouGov puts the Lib Dems down at 13%
January 27th, 2006
Labour back in the lead even though the Tories make progress
YouGov’s monthly poll for the Telegraph has the Lib Dems share dropping by 5 points with almost all of that going to Labour. The result is that while the Tories continue to make progress the major beneficiary of the problems in the Lib Dems has been Tony Blair’s party.
The party shares with changes on last month are CON 39%(+1): LAB 40%(+4): LD 13%(-5). It should be noted that the poll was conducted between Tuesday and Thursday - so most of the respondents would have sent their internet replies back to the pollster before the Simon Hughes broke.
Compared with the General Election last May the Lib Dems are down 10 points with Labour up four and the Tories up 6.
So while the Tories will feel pleased to be still making progress they will be very disappointed that Labour have put on four points to overtake them.
The Lib Dems might take some consolation in the fact that the internet pollster sometimes magnifies trends. ICM in the Guardian on Tuesday had the party on 19% - so the difference between the two pollsters is enormous.
This poll is bound to have an impact on the Lib Dem leadership battle though at this stage it is hard to work out how party members will respond. My guess is that it will reinforce the move against Simon Hughes and boost support for a “safe” candidate. Whether that is Huhne or Campbell we will have to wait and see.
In the Lib Dem leadership betting the money Hughes has recovered a touch but he is still at 5/1 with Huhne on 2.95/1 and Campbell at 0.68/1.
YOUGOV UPDATE 0745. On the leadership the survey has with all voters: Hughes 18: Campbell 16: Huhne 5. With those saying they would vote Lib Dem the split is: Hughes 23: Campbell 22: Huhne 13.
But at least two-thirds of those answering did so before yesterday’s SUN story about Hughes. These figures contrast with the 62% support from Lib Dems that Hughes enjoyed in Wednesday’s ICM poll.
Only 29% of those polled said they thought that the party was “a credible force in British politics.
Mike Smithson
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I did not put this in my main post but I think that this poll is very serious. As a Lib Dem my concern is that neither Huhne nor Campbell seems capable of providing the leadership that the party so badly wants. The real shame was that all the effort in the first few days after Kennedy’s resignation went into trying to ensure there was a coronation for Ming.
Leading MPs like Clegg and Davey went public for Campbell thus blighting any leadership challenge that they might have mounted.
If this had been a battle between Clegg, Laws and Davy the world would look very different
Well, Mike, I agree, but the election isn´t over yet. Having just listened to an interview with Chris Huhne, I found him very convincing - he is clearly a very good communicator and totaly in command of a wide range of subjects. Ming, of course, has a great deal of political experience to draw on. And either would be supported by a team with a great deal of talent.
The main problem that Lib Dems currently face is the outrageous campaign of denigration being mounted by the Tory black propaganda centre, not least on the pages of this site. The second problem is that of lazy journalists who accept all the Tory handouts and reproduce them without question. But I expect the general public will soon tire of all this, and then politics can get back to their normal course.
“My guess is that it will reinforce the move against Simon Hughes and boost support for a “safe” candidate. Whether that is Huhne or Campbell we will have to wait and see.”
:chuckle
2 - that’s being a bit generous to the parliamentery party. Most of the “propaganda” has thus far been proven to be justified. And more! I was just reading last months Private Eye, which included the immortal line : “there are no sex stories surrounding Mark Oaten”!
I agree with Mike in his first post. The papers are very bleak for them this morning with one journalist congratulating Simon Hughes for finding space on the coffin to put his final nail!
for those Tories who said Populus and ICM were hopeless wait for Yougov……well here it is. Same story but a bit more so. After the MOST favourable publicity any party could wish for and a seriously unpopular government and a crushed Lib Dem party in mid parliament……they are still 100 seats short of Labour according to Baxter. It’s too early to write them off it does show the contempt the country still holds for the Conservative brand. And they have yet to face Labour’s ‘face lift’ in the shape of gordon Brown. New cabinet, new policies, bright future…..I expect him to get the same lift Cameron has given the Tories over the last few months.
My advice to Liberal Democrats - “Don’t Panic, don’t panic, don’t anyone panic”
A couple of years of Ming and things will look very different. It would be very difficult for an unknown - Laws, Clegg, Davy of Huhne to make an impact - Charle Kennedy had at least become known pre leadership through his media presence. In the next two or three years it is up to one or more of the BYTs (Hopefully Bright not Boring Young Things) to make an impact - perhaps with some radical policy initiatives, rather than who they chose to go to bed with.
5. ‘Face lift?’ Face drop, more like.
It will be the same cabinet, same policies (which GB is going out of his way to back) and same future. Cameron has given the Tories a boost from c.31/32% to 38/39% in no small part because he is discernably different from Hague/IDS/Howard. Brown is no different from Blair politically, indeed he virtually pre-dates Blair as a Blairite (in policy, not person terms), although if you’ve suggestions as to what these policies might be, feel free to share them. All I’ll say is that it will be a very interesting budget.
On topic - very poor for the Lib Dems and more to come presumably after yesterday’s news. Some comfort for Mike and the other Lib Dems on here though - even if Huhne or Campbell can’t provide the quality of leadership that Ashdown and to a lesser extent, Kennedy did, all the Lib Dems need is someone who passes the decent bloke test as leader and they’ll start to recover votes. Enough of the Lib Dem support is protest or policy-driven (as opposed to backing a party as the most competent managers of UK inc.) that this should be a blip, even if 20% now looks a long way off.
Roger I think it shows that currently the public view Labour and the Conservatives in a very similar light. However, let’s wait and see where Labour are when the Lib Dems recover to 20% or so.
Of course Icarus, we won’t panic. We were bound to lose a lot of points in this scandal point. It’s deciding on a leader who is best able to recover the ground and more.
Out of interest, I am for the first time in my life undecided about an election I am going to vote in. The South West hustings is tomorrow in Plymouth and then there is one on Sunday. I think that we will start to see which way the wind is blowing.
It seems the Lib Dems have committed political suicide over the past 3 weeks. By trying to take a step forward and backstabbing Kennedy they have in fact taken 5 steps back.
None of the candidates seems to be capturing the public imagination with the same vigour that Cameron did with the Tories - I imagine that after this the Lib Dems will be left in the same position as they were a decade ago.
Durham South result, easy win for Labour, 7-8% swing from Lib Dems to them and the remaining Cons vote not squeezed.
National scene now appears to be hurting the Lib Dems hard.
Simon Hughes campaign is like a headless chicken- it is dead, but it keeps moving. When all this is over I think that a) the Parliamentary party will be somewhat cowed, but b) the orgainization in Cowley St. should be purged- a total shambles.
The one glimmer is that this is happening now- the stables may yet be cleaned to the point that the party is in better and more coherrent shape next time. Personally I am livid, but pretty determined- the Tories still do not get the point of political Liberalism and Labour is structurally unable to beleive that the State is not always a force for good.
2 - Black propaganda by the Tories on here? Let he who is without sin stec etc. The Tories on here get at least as much back at us from the Lib Dems!
Nothing like paranoid politicos to get uppity!
Russell. Of course there is that danger.
The thing is that it is hard to know whether this is terminal decline or temporary. I wouldn’t make statements one way or the other until after the leadership contest. And even then, the Tories have still got to do something real to assess Cameron (looks good but has he got the delivery - is he Christiano Ronaldo or Wayne Rooney?). So if you’re a LD you shrug your shoulders and you plough on. Alea iacta est, as Caesar used to say.
5 - But Gordon Brown isn’t really a fresh new face is he?
On a more serious point the Liberals have been in bigger holes than this before and got out.
But serious questions have to be asked of the people who put themselves up for leader with skeletons rattling in the cupboard. They have clearly put their party at risk of ridicule and should be metaphorically horse-whipped.
David R. I can’t speak for others - but I have never indulged in black propaganda, but merely speculated about tensions within the Tory Party.
There is a difference between saying the ‘Cameron is a weak leader because…..’ and ‘There are rumours of defections here…’ and then sourcing one of your mates.
Debate about who or what is to be done may be ’spin’ but it is not the same thing.
16 Don’t offer that to Oaten.
This is bad news for the LibDems, and particularly for people like me who are defending marginal seats in just over 3 months time.
However, Icarus is right, there is no need to panic. We’ve had a torrid 3 weeks, the resignation of one leader and the revelations about candidates to succeed him. It would be amazing if this was not reflected in the polls. I for one posted that I thought the last poll, earlier this week that had us at 19% looked too high.
We are in the middle of a leadership crisis, but it is one with a clear end date. Things always look worst in the eye of the storm, but these situation do not go on indefinitely. A new leader will be chosen on March 2nd. That will draw a line under much of this turmoil. I don’t expect a magic wand, it will still be a hard slog, but the daily dose of bad news & negative publicity will be dry up, allowing the new Leader to begin to set their own agenda.
The second reason not to panic is one I’ve posted here several times before. We are not returning to 2 party politics, however much wishful thinking is spouted. Over the last 50 years, the combined vote of Labour & the Tories at General Elections has fallen from over 95% to under 70%, there has been a continuous decline in every decade. This has been caused by a range of social as well as political factors, including the end of the political class-based tribal voting. That is not being changed by Cameron’s arrival, LibDem leadership trubulations or Brown succeeding Blair.
I suspect that by the Summer, with a new Leader the LibDems will be in the mid to high teens in the polls and by the end of the year, as people forget about the current travails, we will be bumping along around 20%. It’s far from gauaranteed, it will require hardwork & discipline but I’m still confident that the party will be able to do it.
In the words of the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy ‘DON’T PANIC’
Bullseye - a lot of us Tories thought the same from 1992-97!
For once I think the tone - especially in the press- has become too downbeat for the Lib dems, and I agree that they will recover lost ground before the next election.
I don’t believe that any of the candidates has the charisma with the wider public that Kennedy had and therefore although I think the Lib dems will recover, there is now no chance of them holding 62 seats at the next election.
There is a liklihood (as became apparent last night on QT) that many softish Lib Dem voters will punish the party for being, to borrow the phrase, nasty to that nice Mr Kennedy.
But AIMING to bump along at 20 within a year still makes your “real opposition” and “overtake the Tories” mantra of the past few years look more ridiculous than ever.
To say that you are hoping, one day, to get a fifth of the vote is not much of a battle-cry.
John13 @2. “The main problem that Lib Dems currently face is the outrageous campaign of denigration being mounted by the Tory black propaganda centre, not least on the pages of this site.”
Now I’ve really heard it all. Apparently the Tory party has so much influence that it owns and operates the pages of every major newspaper in the country, forces politicians of other parties to behaviour like political kamikaze pilots and ensures they are “economical with the truth” when giving interviews. What’s more, politicalbetting.com has been surreptitiously been forced onto the screen of every computer user in Britain and used as a secret weapon.
Elvis is alive; the moon is made of cheese and Most Haunted really shows ghosts on TV.
If you want a sensible analysis look at Bullseye @19. Rational, well thought through and probably spot on.
The main problem (assuming no more scandals) is that none of the three candidates is as good as the last two (3/4/5) leaders. If you had a Paddy Ashdown in the wings I’d be afraid of the Liberals really pulling themselves up by the bootstraps.
‘Go back to your constituencuies…. and prepare for 20%…’
I agree with Icarus that it’s too early to panic but what these fiascos (fiasci(?))have revealed is something that the public have long thought but which has now been rammed down their throats; The Lib Dems couldn’t organize a piss up at a brewery…….. They flattered to deceive. The public have told the pollsters they don’t like the idea of a hung parliament and the Lib Dems have made themselves a ridiculous if not embarrassing fence to sit on. It’s not cool at this moment to be ‘a Lib Dem’. Whether Ming will make it ‘cool’ again is hard to say.
There are some tories who think that they it is good for them if the LDs do badly.
If they are that dim, there is nothing any of us can do to help them.
We have some GB enthusiasts back on the site. Good news for the balance of PB.com.
Assessing the success or otherwise of his time as Chancellor is never easy, as you need a number of measures. One thing he got right was to lower expectations. And he seems to be the most admired Labour Chancellor since Stafford Cripps. (Could the wasteful GB have introduced the post-war welfare state with the public finances ruined by the war?).
One measure of his effectiveness would be his ‘added value’. What was the improvement in the state of the public finances between when he took over and when he left? As we don’t know when he will be leaving, that is conjecture. Our best guess now is that it will be hugely negative. But that bothers his fans not at all.
2.”The main problem that Lib Dems currently face is the outrageous campaign of denigration being mounted by the Tory black propaganda centre”,
Oh that really is a good one, coming from a Liberal Democrat. Don’t you worry, the Liberals will be putting their all into the council election campaign, every dirty trick in the book, as per usual. I have every confidence in their expertise.
I have just recieved this in an email from a friend of mine who is an ex Lib dem activist -
“I understand the unspeakable act of degradation Mark Oaten asked the male prostitute to indulge in was to sign his nomination papers for leader.”
23 - George H - welcome to the real world of PB.com. John13, like Dan and Paul Lloyd, rarely let reality intrude into their Lib Dem world of Tory plots, disaster and meltdown! lol
23. GeorgeH - that was one of the best posts on here for days. The post at 2. on the other hand is surely a candidate for the most ludicrous ever.
27 - Its very impressive that he managed to lower expectations while spending vast amounts of money.
2-John13
‘The main problem that Lib Dems currently face is the outrageous campaign of denigration being mounted by the Tory black propaganda centre, not least on the pages of this site.’
Ita amazing,its everyone else’s fault apart from the Liberals,this is maybe why this latest poll showed that 57% of respondents thought that the Liberals were not a credible party!
‘But I expect the general public will soon tire of all this, and then politics can get back to their normal course’.
The general public certainly seem to be tired of the Liberals as the 13% Liberal share was before the latest lies from Hughes.
Honesty and integrity simply don’t feature in what the public was lead to believe was the ‘hollier than thou party’
27 - David I agree that if the LD’s do badly it’s not neccessarily to our benefit. Having said that if we are to form a majority governmnet again it is a prerequisite that we have a return to two-party politics.
This poll suggests that the Lib Dem voters are drifting to Labour but this doesn’t look at the whole drop of 9-10% in LD support from the election. The rise in the Tory vote (5-6%) and Labour vote (3-4%) would seem to indicate that support is going quite evenly to the two parties. This may be something of a over simplification though.
Out of interest do we have any more by-elections today?
34 - a return to 2 party politics. Does that mean we can expect 95%+ of the votes to be either Labour or Tory at the next election?
35 You people desperately cling to the ‘falling vote share of the two main parties’ line don’t you?
But remember it wasn’t the overall vote share that boosted your seats, it was tactical voting in target seats.
In the mid 1980’s the SDP/Alliance got far higher vote shares and a third the seats, in 1997 you only got 18% vote share and 42 seats.
David. He looks competent which at the moment is a virtue that is priceless. I would guess he’s the most trusted ‘politician’ in the land by a country mile. His independance for the bank of England was a master stroke for giving the impression that the Labour government was hitting the ground running and which brought him and the Government such kudos that it lasted several years. I’m pretty sure he has other rabbits in his hat which he’ll bring out as necessary.
34 - Did I say that was going to happen? I’m saying we need that to happen to form a majority government. Of course we’re not going to see the two major parties getting 95%+. But I would contend if the LD’s were reduced to 20-30 seats that would be an effective return to two party politics.
38 - 35 even!
Sorry Lib Dems but I agree this “falling vote share” rubbish is just that, rubbish. If you fall to 15/16% at the next election you will lose half your seats or more. You just don’t have the big clump of safe seats that the other two parties have and are much more susceptible to a tiny swing decimating you.
OT but an interesting article about LibDem aspirations in Dunfermline in the Courier (article courtesy of a link on Russell’s site).
‘a return to two party politics’ - true enough on today’s poll. I just plugged the figures into Baxter and the Lib dems go down to just 2 seats.
27. Isn’t this is a bit too complicated a subject to be calling someone “dim” if they have an opinion?
Baxter shows 55 seats going Tory on current figures (last poll used 17/1) with 37 from LD. Labour gains 8 from LD. Simplistic stuff certainly but it gives a flavour of where LD seats will go if their poll ratings drop.
If the point is that LD voters - where the party is third - are more likely to switch to Labour than to the Tories, I’d love to see some empirical evidence.
There’s a whole north / south, suburban / urban dynamic here not to mention the Cameron / Brown effect.
Call me “dim”, but I don’t think there are easy answers to this one.
40 -that’s why in ‘97 our vote share fell at the same time we doubled our number of MPs, is it?
42 - I suggest you read Anthony Wells on why Baxter produces such a silly result.
Indeed Marcus and the Conservatives go storming ahead with 257! Unfortunately Labour get 360 and increase their majority. Poor Cameron all those great PR lines and even Michael Howard outperforms him!
Sorry all. Looks like I didn’t close out the href properly.
I’m sorry Roger - but your posts are not just ALWAYS mindlessly partisan and anti-Tory but analytically crap.
Have you not read the polls that show that even now - riding the wave of phoney “economic competence” spin and before the economy goes pear shaped - Brown is LESS popular than Cameron or Blair?
By the way, do you think the Tories were responsible for the Black Death in the 14th century or possibly the sinking of the Titanic?
Robert J. I bow to your impartiality!
44 - You’ve pretty much maximised your tactical votes now and I have to suggest that the Iraq war/unpopular other two party situation with a nice chap leader in your corner won’t be there next time.
With the planets all aligned in your favour you manage 60 seats.
And I was sayinf “falling vote share” about the two main parties and you twist it to mean falling vote share for the Lib Dems.
No wonder you won’t ever accept we have an argument when you use my answer to one point and attack it over another point entirely. Christ!
47 - But at least Roger never claims to be anything other than a NuLab wind-up merchant
And he does have a point. If Labout got 40 per cent they would royally kick our arse in the election.
I know all you LD posters are rattled today but that is no reason to pick on Roger.
No wonder the Labour posters have all gone away.
What concerns me most about the future of the Lib Dems is not so much the scandals but the way so many members are apparently willing to to express their sympathy for Hughes by VOTING FOR HIM. Now just how clever is that? The man obviously has no conception of how the media work and has totally misjudged his dealings with journalists. Surely there are better ways of offering sympathy than electing him leader? The “two fingers to the media” lark is sheer madness.
Or maybe they just have a death wish.
I don’t think the 13% thing is terminal though - since the party doesn’t have an elected leader at the moment the voter isn’t necessarily sure of what they’d be getting if they ticked the Lib Dem box right now.
49 - David, you said: “If you fall to 15/16% at the next election you will lose half your seats or more.”
That sounds to me like a suggestion the Lib Dem vote share would fall, and mean the party would get fewer MPs. Did you mean something else? If so, I think we should be told.
If you’re this angsty when your party is doing okay in the polls, I hate to think what the mood in here will be when things get a bit rough.
Lot’s of if the Lib Dems do this and if you assume that this morning.
Not surprised by the Tory gloating (or indeed the posting of week old news articles as stunning new insight).
For Rik’s benefit (if no-one elses - and because I know he hangs on every word I say) no Lib Dem poster is thinking the last few weeks have been good news or that the flood of revelations would be good for the party.
The increasingly strident media coverage - ITN and The Week - is very bad news and the Lib Dems wil need to put a lot of effort into re-building relationships in the media, already starry eyed over Macaroon Man.
Is it all over? Of course not - and any Tory poster who thinks so is deluded. Will the Lib Dems advance at the next general election - unlikely, but who knows? A nuclear war between Israel and Iran/Hamas would put recent weeks into their true context - amusing tittle tattle for the prurient classes.
My guess is that the once the dust has settled the Lib Dems will be in the mid teens (a point or two down from where they were pre Iraq war). They will almost certainly poll around a quarter of the vote in the local elections (probably 3 or 4 points less than they would have) and the net beneficiaries will be Labour who will pick up three Lib Dem defectors to every one the Tories so.
Net results - prizes all round - Lib Dems clearly not wiped out and base held, Labour doing considerably better than they would have (and they deserve) and the Tories winning comfortably (but not making the sort of inroads into Labour as a result of the above).
[43] ‘If the point is that LD voters–where that party is third–are more likely to swith to labour than the tories…’. That is precisely the point.
You need ‘evidence’? Its available on this site most days. Many pollsters contribute as well, and they’ll confirm it for you.
Robert. “Brown is LESS popular than Cameron or Blair?”
Incidentally I said Brown was the most TRUSTED politician. I very much doubt that either Blair or Cameron are even the most trusted politicians on their own sides.
50. As GeorgeH argues, it depends where Labour gets its extra votes from. More in safe seats or in parts of the SE where they are in distant third places (effectively tactical unwind) wouldn’t help them much. Baxter is too simplistic a model to throw out any definitive conclusions. The Lib Dems I’m sure would hold on to more seats than Baxter suggests as well (how about that? a non-partisan point!).
On a slightly different tack, how do posters think the slightly geriatric Ming will fare in trying to shore up Lib Dem support among one of their recent growth contituencies - trendy lefty students? Surely Chat Show (hic) Charlie was a much more attractive figure?
It is with a heavy heart that I say that this poll is good for the Tories. The Labour poll rating is inflated by people who would three weeks ago have said that they were libdems. I recall a poll before the GE that if there were no libdems 1/3 of their votes would go to the tories and 2/3 to labour…
The LD vote has dropped (lets say by 6% to make the maths easier). 4% goes to labour and 2% to the tories.
If us libdems weren’t having the nightmare we are and were still on 19%, labour would be on 36% and the tories on 37%.
I agree with Bullseye’s analysis, that we will pretty soon be back bumping around the 20 mark: and once that happens, and the libdem votes are claweed back of labour and the tories, it will reveal a tory lead.
Think there is some good analysis here from people like Bullseye. New leader in place in 6 weeks, and (surely) a fundamental rethink of some of the ways the Party functions. (the overdue chopping of Razzall and so on)
There’ll be some fallout over Kennedy, but remember that a lot of voters were never convinced by CK as potential PM. With the likely exception of Hughes, the next Lib Dem leader will do well on that test. Labour has a miserable few months coming up and it won’t exactly be difficult for a new leader to make a clear mark.
Leadership debate will have to turn back to policy - and quick.
45 - Do you honestly believe that if there was aGeneral Election tomorrow that Tony Blair would return a near 100 seat majority and the Lib Dems would get two seats??
I think Baxter has many faults predominantly the fact that it assumes all the swing in votes will be equal in each constituency.
We are consistently polling 38/39, still dominating the media, this is a very long honeymoon period cameron is having now isn’t it???
Roll on May when we see big Tory gains!
42 - what were the other two parties ?
Getting rid of CK was in my view the greatest disaster to befall a politcal party in the last 10 years… worse even than the election of IDS.
Another completely non-partisan point.
53 - For crying out loud I said IF!!!!
IF. It’s a simple word but it means so much!
I try and make reasonable posts. I even have a go at people slagging off the Lib Dems and you choose to ignore it and think I’m all angst and evil thoughts.
IF (i repeat) If you fall to 16% you will lose half your seats. If you don’t believe that you dont look at your parliamentary majorities very closely.
*exasperated sigh*
53 - “I think we should be told.”
Smug sod.
For me the current LD shehanigans illustrate a number of issues with regard to Party politics
democracy /freedom - one of the attractionms of the LD’s has been its openness to new members , a sense that you can easily get involved , have your voice heard and arguably make your mark.
Of the 3 big parties its the one where your vote as an individual ( at conference and leadership election) carries most weight.
This openness also has made it historically easier to become selected as a candidate due to the lack of screening candidates ( compared to Lab and Con). The benefits are the image of a grass roots , local activist influenced party. HOWEVER…
The down side is that as the activists of all parties tend to be more extreme/idealistic than its leadership it leads to policies that are percieved as ‘loopy’ by the wider media ( goldfish rights etc) and public.
Labour in the late 70’s early 80’s was in a similar position.
The consequence of being less rigorous re selection ( apologies if this is no longer the case) is a tendancy to get Maveriks who can be voted in and then behave contrary to expectations.
I think this is another source of the LD’s reputation of being ‘nasty’ at local level.
Hague tried to make the Tories more attractive to new members by making it more democratic but this led to IDS becoming leader.
Blair increasingly sidelined the Lab membership and turned the conference into the PR opportunity the Tories always opted for- it looks competent to the wider media but alienates the membership.
Arguably ( i cant remember the political term for this theory !) the leadership of all political parties has to sideline its membership and become more disciplined/controlling if it is serious about power and the coherent image of competence it needs to portray to the electorate.
This is the dilemma Ld’s face - a truly democratic party often appears incompetent , but a small party needs its membership to grow .
whoever leads the Ld’s apart from engaging with ‘what are we for , which way do we face’ at some point will have to consider sidelining the LD activists, curtailing their power and enforcing discipline.
Pudsey, I don’t think anyone is seriously suggesting that today’s poll is a real indication of future general election results and I am certain Martin Baxter himself wouldn’t claim that either.
I think the Lib Dems will recover, I agree, to late teens average after a few weeks of their (not so new) leaders face on TV reassuring everyone.
But the damage to the Lib dems in parliamant has already been done, which Baxters site does reveal and I have always said, because a very small swing against them will topple dozens of their MP’s.
They have two alternative startegies which are, frankly, non-compatible.
They can either follow the Orange Book idea, of trying to appeal to Conservatives in the hope of (a) holding on to more of their 97 and 01 seats and (b) being appealing enough to a Cameron Conservative party to consider the possibility of coalition with the Tories
OR
Go left and try and win enough Labour seats (where they have made massive gains in 2001 and 2005 and now stand poised in several dozen to be the main beneficiary of a loss of Labour votes) to make up for the enevitable loss of Conservative seats that this strategy would invite.
What they can’t do any more is try and achieve both.
63 - still not too sure why you’re getting so worked up.
“If you fall to 16% you will lose half your seats.” I understand the conditional ‘if’ inherent in your first clause; it’s the ‘will’ in your second clause I’m questioning.
Can I confine myself to the one little factoid which prompted this spat-ette: in 1997, the Lib Dems won 16.8% of the vote and 46 MPs.
63. In the words on Corporal Jones, the Lib Dems don’t like it up em. For years they got used to laughing as us and forecasting that they will become the 2nd party. Sunddenly when they start imploding through their own efforts, it’s the fault of the Tory loving media!!!!
67. The likely vote shares of the other 2 parties will be very different though.
52 - I can’t agree. CK had become a liability. He was leading the party nowhere. It was a matter of time before there was yet more in the catalogue of missed debates and TV appearances due to illness etc., bungled TV appearances, inability in shadow cabinet meetings. Remember Yeltsin - yes, that how it was beginning to feel. Of course, the toppling of the ginger one was bungled; but Yeltsin at least had the dignity to step down.
Difficult to say how many seats on 16% - probably 45 - 50 as in 1997 election (16.8%). Perhaps a few more now MPs are entreched - could be fewer though.
The huge inroads into Labour seats - well, most of the seats gained from Labour are actually former Tory seats. And , in order to gain seats from Labour it is important to hoover up Tory votes. I do not think that going left will help; for example in Southwark and Bermondsey North (ok - not a good example today - say Chesterfield then) - a left move will mean that Tory tactical voters (and there are some) will move back to the Tories and let Labour win these seats, and hold on to the marginals they have at the moment.
Thanks Woody. The equivalent of the cavalry arriving to help me out. I’m being smugged to death by this Oxford chappie.
67 - Can I confine myself to pointing out (a factiod… where are you getting this garbage) the tiny majorities in a hell of a lot of seats that you won AGAINST THE TORIES in 1997? A Tory revival and a Lib Dem 16% vote share would put you below 40 seats or I’m in the wrong job.
66 - Going to the left isn’t the only way to win Labour seats, and probably isn’t the best way. Most of the seats the Lib Dems gained from Labour in May and many of those in which the Lib Dems are now second have been Tory seats in recent memory. Orange Bookers like myself would argue that a moderate, economically liberal platform would put potential Tory tactical voters in Islington South, Oxford East, Nottingham etc at their ease.
If you turn out to be correct, Marcus, that people will be looking for a new government in 2009/10 (and it is still very early days) the case for that approach is even stronger and could yield substantial gains as it did in 1997 (although I am not sure even Tories really think the appetite for change is as strong as it was then).
72 - No it certainly isnt. People really HATED us in 1997 it would take another Labour term before we got near there. Moving to a platform to co-operate with the Tories opens up a coalition possibility. I really dont think a lefty Lib Dem shorn up Labour government would have support and would look bad shoring up as it would a government that had effectively been kicked out. Imagine if Shroeder had put together a coalition against Merkel’s lot in Germany it owuld have looked terrible.
64/71 - David, is there really any need for the personal stuff? I’m happy to put my full name etc to my postings, and I just can’t be arsed with that kind of snideness.
December’s YouGov numbers, compared with the General Election would suggest that as the LDs slipped from 23% to 18% the votes all went to the Tories - up 5% at 38%, with Lab unchanged on 36%.
Losing the next 5% in this January poll shows most of the votes being redistributed to Labour (up 4% at 40%) rather than the Tories (up 1% at 39%).
Again, we have to be cautious about reading anything of value into individual or pairs of polls, but this might suggest that if the LDs recover to the mid to high teens this would be mainly at the expense of Labour, rather than the Tories.
Whaddya think?
I just put these numbers into electoral calculus and it would mean the decimation of the Lib Dem front bench. Ming Campbell, Vince Cable, Mark Oaten, Simon Hughes, David Laws, Nick Clegg, Matt Taylor, Annette Brooke, Sandra Gidley, Sarah Tether, Chris Hughne, David Heath, Ed Davey, Susan Kramer, Norman Lamb, Michael Moore, Lynne Featherstone, Viscount Thurso.
All gone. Won’t happen but its still happy thoughts.
37,
Brown, did hit the ground running, with his making the Bank of England independent.
He I guess will have many ideas, to differntiate, his new premiership from that of Blair.
Cameron and his supporters know this, and will not be as complacent, as many Tory posters on here.
In the publics mind and the Polls a new agenda will be created virtually instantly.
This is what happened when the Major premiership, took over from Thatcher.
Many Labour supporters could not believe the change in the polls, they were too complacent.
However they did not have the luxury of knowing it was going to happen.
Cameron, is preparing the ground, but he doesn`t know how far Brown will change the playing field.
How might all this gay scandal stuff play with the Lib Dems’ other big growth constituency, Muslim anti-war voters?
72 If the Lib Dems carry on looking to win over Conservatives then I think they really are in for a drubbing. A moderate and popular leader in control of his party and successfully standing up to the Labour government is what the vast majority of floating voters want at the moment - regardless of politics.
You knew that, which is why the ‘real opposition’ slogan had the potential to be damaging to us while we were struggling with weak leaders and internal splits.
Deep down most people realise that the Conservatives are the only realistic alternative and the farce of your toppling Kennedy has clarified that for millions of floating voters.
The polls say to me that the country has not yet decided to switch from red to blue, but it has realised that a Lib Dem ‘real Opposition’ is a non starter and that a coalition or hung parliament isn’t what they want either.
It’s all to play for.
56. What makes you think GB is the most trusted politician? The bloom is rapidly coming off the tartan rose with his golden rule shenanigans, the pensions regulation/gilts fiasco, yawning budget deficit, increasing unemployment, etc. etc. All ‘blips’ according to Jackie A., but GB is soon going to have to stop dry humping Prudence and get by on his sunny disposition. He increasingly reminds me of HST’s description of Nixon: “Integrity of a hyena, style of a poison toad.”
74 - Perhaps if you stopped wilfully misrepresenting my posts I’d stop reacting against your posts.
Having said that I do apologize. Now if you’d stop patronizing me I would appreciate it.
68 - Spot on Woody. Can you imagine the reaction if a poll showed we’d dropped 10% from the previous election?
Ah, back to the pbc some of us old timers know and love
of mostly reasoned and (generally) good-humoured discussion. There’s much I agree with Dan @54 and I think Marcus @66 has incisively summed up the LibDems’ strategic dilemmmas.
Baxter probably does more harm than good as far as analysis is concerned(notwithstanding the fun!) - after all,IIRC its ‘prediction’ for 2005 was significantly inaccurate.
I think there’s common ground that the LibDems will recover from a 13% level, probably to the high teens. But this is pretty well irrelvant in determining how many seats they will gain as all of us know.
But I think there is a general historical and obvious correlation that when the Tories are prospering, the LibDems (and Libs before) suffer disproportionately and vice versa. Thus in 1964, 66, Feb74, 97, 01, the Libs made net (and in 1997 very significant) gains from the Tories, while in 1970, 79, 83, 87, 05, they suffered losses.
So surely no one should be surprised that if the Conservatives under Cameron have shifted to the 38%-41% (or higher) level, the prospects for quite significant LibDem losses to the Tories in 2009 will be high, even if their overall national rating remains identical to that of 1997 when many of those seats were first captutred.
BTW, I agree with Sean Fear’s argument some days back that a catastrophic decline in LibDem support does not help the Tories (as to-day’s YouGov poll seems to indicate). But it’s going to be tough to love John13
75 - possibly,
Its a reasonable theory that AT THE MOMENT its the ld vote thats closer to cameron thats most volatile but I guess theres plenty of variables
would your theory reverse if Ming or Huhne won and the left leaning vote returned to Labour , thus making that the most volatile ?
The other factor is not voting , how much of the LD vote is because they are viewed as a genuine alternative ? if that image fades those voters may just become cynical at the whole buisness and not vote.
27: I agree that GB’s figures are going in the wrong direction, but ‘added value’ is not the only measure of importance. For me, the most important thing of all is that he has made keeping unemployment low one of the main planks of Treasury policy. And don’t you all start telling me it’s going up again- I’ll start worrying about that when it comes anywhere near the 3 million Thatcher totted up in her first term, and never got down again.
85 Hate to disappoint you, sara but there are as many people not working today as there ever was under Mrs T.
It’s just that these days they are on long term sickness benefit instead of unemployment benefit.
EXCLUSIVE TO PB.com ……………………
NEW OPINION POLL ON LIB DEM VOTERS ……………….
At vast expense I’ve commissioned an opinion poll from the nations leading pollster - ARSE - Anonymous Random Selection of Electors to discover who these weird people who vote for the Lib Dems are. And the results are startling :
Drunks : 21%
Distillery Owners : 1.5%
Rent Boys : 2.5%
Tofu Manufacturers : 0.5%
Beard Trimmers : 1.5%
North Devon Vets : 8%
Bar Chart Software Sellers 4.5%
Tabman Clones : 15%
Cornish Incest Groups : 5.5%
The Mad of Sutton & Cheam 2.5%
The Dotty of Torbay : 2%
Veggie Loonies : 7%
Winning Here Placard Makers 6%
Winchester Scat Forum 19%
Open Sandal Sellers : 12%
Italian Political Gay Anoraks : 0.0001%
RAF Squadron Leaders : minus 78%
Political Bookshop Owners : minus 69%
Peers in Waiting : minus 54%
……………………………………….
Surveys on SDP Labour and the SDP Conservatives to follow …….
86 - mmm. I’m not sure I believe that entirely.
84. None of us can accurately predict the political landscape a few years hence, when there will be two new leaders and Cameron won’t be new anymore. But my sense FWIW (as a Tory), is that the LDs lost the Tory swingers first because Cameron began to remove some of the party’s negatives, and that the second batch of LD losses is from the Labour/anti-establishment/lefty swingers who despair of LD chaos. Looking forward, I don’t think the mood music of Ming or Huhne will appeal to Tory swingers enough to counter the Cameron effect, but the lefty swingers may drift slowly back as they realise that Brown is not so different from Tony and that the LDs might indeed be able to organise the occasional piss-up in a brewery. That move would be greater still if Hughes - who still has a chance, with a small, bolshy (?) and unpredictable electorate - were to win.
It would be interesting to know how many Lib Dem voters vote that way in order to get a hung Parliament and how many vote tactically to influence whether we get a Tory or Labour government. I suspect there are more of the second. And if so it shoouldn’t matter whether they choose a right-wing leader or one from the left
From PA
Signs that Liberal Democrats’ leadership contest woes could be hitting their voting support emerged as they failed in a marginal council contest in a key target constituency.
Labour easily retained Durham County Council’s Durham South division where Lib Dems had missed by just 97 votes in last year’s main poll which was on the same day as the General Election.
In Durham City constituency, which covers the division, they had slashed the majority to 3,274 making it 18th on their list of possible gains.
Liberal Democrats also slumped at Prestbury in Cheshire’s Macclesfield Borough where Tories polled nearly 90% of the vote.
The previous councillor had been elected as an independent but later became a Conservative.
However there was better news for Lib Dems in the third contest with an increase in their vote at North Town, Rushmoor Borough, Hampshire which is next door to Winchester, the constituency of former leadership candidate Mark Oaten.
RESULTS
Durham County - Durham South: Lab 834, Lib Dem 561, C 220. (May 2005 - Lab 1526, Lib Dem 1429, C 306). Lab hold. Swing 6.9% Lib Dem to Lab.
Macclesfield Borough - Prestbury: C 950, Lib Dem 112. (June 2004 - Ind 1202, Lib Dem 778, Lab 120). C hold.
Rushmoor Borough - North Town: Lab 649, C 286, Lib Dem 189. (June 2004 - Lab 787, C 421, Lib Dem 163, Green 98). Lab hold. Swing 3.6% C to Lab.
OT: how is the weather in UK at the moment?
Pretty cold in London Andrea, but at least we have had quite a bit of sunshine over the last few days.
88 David - today, approx. 1.4m unemployed + 2.7m incapacity benefit claiments = 4.1m.
It was actually a Conservative Government who increased long term sickness and incapacity payments while making claiming unemployment benefit more difficult - it has to be said for genuine reasons but with the ’side effect’ of reducing the headline unemployed numbers drastically.
Labour has done nothing to change this.
85/86/88 I think the record to which you refer is “economically inactive” which is at it’s highest level in history. However this includes not only the unemployed and long term sick, but also students and pensioners.
It is also a function of course of the population total: the Prime Minister oftens refers to record employment without reference to the fact that there are record numbers of people in the country. Selective statistics.
I was unemployed for nine months a couple of years ago. After six months I didn’t appear in any jobless total as I only claimed contribution based JSA. This is one reason why comparing unemployment figures between now and the eighties is like comparing apples with bananas.
apologies for the erroneous apostrophe.
92 Andrea. Are you still “full of snow” ??
94 - These figures are incredible. Astonishing.
96 ABK2008. Don’t be too censorious ….. if I did the same I’d be apending disclaimers at the end of all my posts.
91. So a cracking set of by elections for the Lib Dems. But no doubt the same posters who last week crowed about how the local results ’showed’ the Lib Dems wouldn’t be damaged by recent scandals will now be saying ‘oh well you can’t infer anything from local results’.
PA’s story is wrong too - Aldershot constituency, which North Town is in, doesn’t border the Winchester one.
Does anyone know what economic inactivity rates in the UK are like compared with, say, France?
About 74% of the population who are available for work, are actually in work, which is quite high by international standards. Some continental countries have only 60% or so in work.
97. Jack, now I try to get back home…I’ll tell you later
102 - Just because some of our neighbours are bone-idle doesnt mean we should put up with it.
ABK2008 at 95 - there are about 7.6m ‘economically inactive’ people in the UK- economically inactive people are defined as those of working age who are not working and therefore includes students and stay at home parents but excludes people of or past normal retirement age.
100 fred. I think you’ll find if you track back that most posters, yes and including Lib Dem ones, noted that no conclusions either way may be drawn fron the odd few local by-elections either over the past fortnight or last night.
If your posts were less partisan they might carry more weight !
Jack W is Political Editor of Jacobite Bar Charts Weekly (Hertfordshire Edition).
102 More than 1/4 don’t contribute to the economy? I don’t think that’s something to boast about…
the real problem is workless households not unemployment per se
Marcus. If you think unemployment is anything like it was during Thatchers time then you are younger than I thought. Unfortunately I remember the days when 300 hundred people would apply for a job as night guard with Securicor. And with no minimum wage
Today you can’t even get staff when you want them. British employment offices are opening in Eastern European countries so we can get workers to fill the vacancies here. I know of a PR company who wanted a receptionist in a very fashionable part of town and they got two applicants. Walk down any High St and see the ads for staff. And this is with a minimum wage. Ask students how easy it is to get work. They can work a few months then holiday then get another job. Anyone able to do that in the ’80’s
Sorry but you realy shouldn’t read to much into individual results. I say this when they are good and I say it when they are bad. You need to look at trends. Durham South is disappointing but the lib dems run the city council and i suspect the substantial student vote was much easier to get out for a general election than in a council by election. If its still this grim in 6 weeks time then you can just about begin to make these sorts of judgements. But local elections are just that - local.
As for yougov? I’m not surprised.Hoever this will burn its self out. I suspect grim sunday tabloids with Oaten part 2 and perhaps some details of simons chat lines but then things refocus on the hustings and a media line is drawn when the result is announced.
But I agree some one needs to clear out the pig stye at cowley street. Hughes only matters becuase of oaten, oaten only matters as much because of kennedy and kennedy was handled appallingly. not so much shooting your self in the foot but to shoot your toes off one by one. This is the optomostic senario. of coiurse there is a more negative one…
I agree entirely, Roger.
After 8 years of Labour more people than ever are paid to sit at home while we have to ‘import’ 1.5m workers from eastern Europe and the far east to get any jobs done.
Something is wrong.
109 - Comparing with the Thatcher era is missing much of the point of Thatcherism. After decades of subsidised industry, Britain needed to let the market in to ensure longer term prosperity. Result mass unemployment and striking as job market becomes more fluid and workers must adjust to new and growing industries. The Thatcher reforms have ensured a country in a much better financial position now than we would have been. Just look at the rest of Europe…
by the way, to return to betting (which is after all what we are here for rather than juvenile point-scoring), i still think hughes offers exceptional value at current levels.
Note that coverage by the other non-Sun media has in general been quite sympathetic to what is at the end of the day a private matter. i’m certain that london members (especially strongholds like the sw) will vote in majority for hughes - he’s after all the “inner city” mp dial-a-quote. whether southern members go by an overwhelming for the “cabbage” option is not a total certainty - clearly a majority, but there are plenty of younger members who might think otherwise.
by the way, does anyone know whether is it true that in the 2005 election that of the 18-35 age group, the conservatives actually polled less votes than the lib dems? someone told me this recently, but i’ve never seen the data.
112 - That fails to address the point Roger was making which was “the Tories are evil yah boo”
113 - I believe this to be true yes. But the Tories have been outpolled in young age groups for a long time. People get richer and more Tory as they get older.
115 - and then they die…
114 “the Tories are evil yah boo” - but at least their well-intentioned. New Labour, on the other hand, tries to be all things to all people now and never mind our position in 10, 20 years time…
I have only recently discovered this website and chat room. I am amazed that some of you have the time to contribute so often and at such length! Are you among the unemployed or incapacitated?
My own take on the GB debate is that he will not succeed TB because he does and will continue to appear increasingly dour and lacks the fresh youthfulness that appeals to the electorate. Sadly, despite the publics stated disenchantment with spin, the rise of DC demonstrates that style is at least as important as substance.
So my tip for next labour leader is David Milliband. He comes over as an extermely bright well informed and effective communicator. More debate on alternatives to GB please. At odds of 0.5/1 with Betfair he is no certainty.
Apologies for the their…oopps
That may be so but anyone who denies the misery of unemployment in the 80’s wasn’t there. I know of people who were mentally crippled by those times and who still are. I wasn’t making a point about who was to blame but to deny it happened is outrageous. I used to get well qualified photographers asking for jobs as cleaners. They were really horrible times for too many people to pretend it didn’t happen
109: ‘Anyone able to do that in the ’80’s’
Yes, because the town I lived in had zero unemployment - if not much else.
116
If on the other hand you stay poor and vote Labour in the hope of living for ever I am afraid that you are likely to be disappointed.
118 I think it depends on what voting method is eventually decided for the next leadership election. One-member-one-vote would be the obvious way to go, but One-union-as-many-vote-as-required has more internal party precedent. The real question in the latter case is who do the unions want?
120. One thing has always intrigued me Roger. That is if you were in charge of the country in 1979, what would you have done about the problems being faced and what would be the long term consequences?
124 Good question!
125 - Whatever it was it wouldnt have been as beastly as the nasty party I’m guessing.
Those mental scars Roger talks about presumably count as debilitating and entitle people to a life on benefits.
118 - Welcome. Some of us are lucky enough to work in politics and count this kind of debate as part of the working day (if somewhat cheekily)
People go in invalidity benefit because it pays more than unemployment and you dont get hastled to go for pointless interviews.
Wait until GPs stop signing sick notes - and then someone who actually does have a bad back sues them when something goes wrong.
112. Comparing today with the early 1980s makes little sense as the economic conditions are radically different. Then, there was a very serious problem of regional/structural unemployment, which was brought on by the collapse of a number of traditional industries.
Note however this problem didn’t start in the 1980s - it existed in less extreme form in the 1970s too and has its roots as far back as the 1930s. I have posted on the early 1980s before and remain of the view that while policy was probably too tight for part of that period, a recession and a sharp rise in unemployment was inevitable given the need to crush rampant inflationary expectations and shake out wildly inefficient industry.
Given the barriers to mobility, the need to retrain, the need for new industries to develop and the cushion of social security it of course took many years for this problem to fade. In fact though its ghost still lingers on - if you carefully look at the incapacity benefit figures, you will see some of the highest areas of claim are those areas worst hit by the structural unemployment of the early 1980s. It has become a vehicle for early retirement for a lot of older men.
Today, we have relatively low unemployment because we have a labour market that functions reasonably well, certainly by contrast to many of our European neighbours (NuLab interference notwithstanding). The importation of large numbers of migrant workers of late is not, I fear, wholly a symptom of strength though. Rather I think it also reveals that the benefit system still discourages people taking low paid work, and (from my own experience) it shows that finding indigenous workers to fill many jobs is hard due to low educational standards and an appalling work ethic.
Woody. That might be interesting for another day. Ask anyone over 35 about unemployment now as compared with the 80’s and if they give you the incredible story that Marcus produced in 86 I’ll fix you a date with Carol Thatcher
118. Largely agree on Miliband if he sorts his hair out. It’s ironic that DM’s family background (fairly mad communist tankies) will probably be perceived as less of hindrance that DC’s Wodehouse-esque heritage.
129. I’m sorry Roger but until you post an alternative solution to the problems faced by the Thatcher government in 79, that would have produced the ecinomy we enjoy today, then I can’t take these snipes seriously.
A few thoughts ….
Clearly the current problems are having some impact on Lib Dem poll ratings. While Kennedy, Oaten and Hughes dominate the headlines this is not surprising.
BUT it is not so long ago that we had weeks of headlines about Cameron, Osborne etal and their exploits which have now largely been forgotten.
The Lib Dems will elect their new leader by early March. It will either be Campbell or Huhne, both currently untainted by media llegations, or it will be Hughes, who will have to be phenomenally popular within the party to have won.
Either way the Lib Dems will then be straight into campaignign for the local elections.
The media expectation will be that Cameron’s Tories will sweep all before them, and they won’t do quite that well because of the councils that are up, lack of grass roots activity in too many places etc.
The media expectation will be that the Lib Dems will collapse. Which they won’t, becuase like Bullseye they will have delivered so many Focus leaflets and knocked on so many doors that the electorate will be voting primarily in response to local issues and local campaigning. This will be hailed as proof that whichever of Campbell/Hughes/Huhne it is has saved the Lib Dems from slaughter and is actually a much better leader than the media had realised.
By this point Cameron won’t be riding high in the polls and the Lib Dems will be back up to 20% or so.
I see on BBC2, Piers Morgan is pontificating on people having no credibilty if they’ve been caught lying. Pot and Kettle springs to mind.
129. Interesting Fred. And uncharacteristically un-partisan
131. It’s also worth pointing out that we didn’t have an infinite range of options in 1979. The choice was Thatch (peace and blessings be upon her) or more Labour.
113 - Data on how different age groups voted in 2005 can be found in an ICM poll published (7 May 2005) at the foot of this BBC webpage:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/vote_2005/issues/4520847.stm
In the 18-24 age group (GB only), the Lib Dems did indeed outpoll the Tories. Labour won 42%, the Lib Dems 26% and the Tories 24%. The percentage figures were exactly the same for the 25-34 age group.
The main reason is not age but education. The British Social Attitudes survey reveals that people who have been through higher education tend to have more (small ‘l’) liberal attitudes. With the expansion of higher education, the proportion is higher the younger the age cohort.
The trend towards more liberal attitudes was well illustrated by a YouGov poll published in the Daily Telegraph (3rd January), which showed that support for the restoration of the death penalty has fallen below 50 per cent for the first time since its abolition 40 years ago.
http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/01/03/ndeath03.xml
As to which party can benefit from the trend toward more socially liberal attitudes - well, that’s another matter.
128. Actually, from what I remember of my Economics A Level (admittedly, quite long time ago), the ‘problem’ in British industry