Or could it still have some of its potency?

The above, I’m sure, is typical of leaflets going out from the yellows to those identified as non-Tories in hundreds of CON-LD encounters throughout England. It’s worked in the past and has helped Clegg’s party build its local government base.

So how’s it going to resonate this time? Will the fact of the coalition mean that anti-Tory supporters will be much less likely to vote Lid Dem?

Notice the branding above – the term “Lib Dem” is not used and it’s about “The Focus Team”.

I don’t have an answer to my question. I find it hard to see LAB>LD tactical voting being on anything like the scale of recent years and this means that Labour voters will help the blues to pick up more seats.

Mike Smithson

Do by-elections point to a less bad night on May 5th?

One of the most surprising sets of data presented by Professors Rallings and Thrasher at the Political Studies Association seminar on the May 5th local elections is featured above.

For a decade and more the two political scientists have produced a national equivalent vote share projection based on each set of local election results. In 2007, when most of the seats being contested this year were last up, the split was CON 40: LAB 26: LD 24.

The two also make predictions for each year’s local election day, based on local by-elections results, and their projections for May 2011 are in the chart.

This year, unsurprisingly, they are suggesting that Labour will move to 38% and the Tories to a range between 34% and 38%.

But as they explained at length they had had real problems with a Lib Dem share projection because of Clegg”s party relative success in local council by elections.

Feeding the by-election result data into their standard formula they came up with an incredible 22% – only two off what happened in 2007.

I don’t believe it either and I think that it will end up near to the lower end of the Rallings & Thrasher range.

Even such an outcome would be quite remarkable given that the one poll finding confined to the local elections, from YouGo last month, had the yellow share at 11%.

What’s it going to be I? I don’t know but I’ve entered into a wager with Tim that LD share from R&T will be at 14% or more. That’s still below the bottom end of the professors’ projection.

Mike Smithson

Click to watch interview

Is the Lamb threat pointing to greater LD assertiveness?

I’ve been out all day and am only just catching up with the Norman Lamb interview on today’s Politics Show in which he threatened to resign over the NHS changes.

Although he is not that well-known Lamb is a key figure within the party and as well as being an assistant whip is also a close advisor to Nick Clegg. I cannot believe that he would have gone so far as to make the threats without having cleared it with the leader beforehand.

Norman Lamb is not the sort of politician who “goes rogue” – he’s a loyalist to the core and also a very nice guy.

In the following comment it’s clear that Lamb fully understood the wider implications of what he was saying – this goes to the very heart of how the coalition operates:-

“..We’re experimenting with Coalition Government, the first one since the Second World War. I hope that this period for reflection should allow mature debate about how we get these reforms right and that it should be possible for me to speak out and say what I think should happen — evolution not revolution — and in that way I think the Government can get itself off the hook that it’s on at the moment.”

I can’t see the Lansley plan going through unchanged and the coalition surviving – it’s as serious as that.

Mike Smithson

Which party’s the most to fear from AV?

The chart was prepared from polling data gathered by Professor John Curtice and presented to last week’s session on the alternative vote organised by the Political Studies Association.

For each election those who had voted were asked who their second preference would be if they had had a choice.

What’s striking about the historical line is that 2010 was the only one of the general elections where the LD split was not in favour of the overall winner on seats. The trend, however, is moving towards where it was in the 1980s – the Tories being most favoured.

Given the seepage of LD support to Labour it’s not surprising that the latest polling finds that Cameron’s party would pick up considerbly more votes – which could make a difference in marginal seats.

But yellow perceptions of the blues are based on how the party is currently operating in coalition – would it be different if the Tories had an overall majority and were able to operate without the need to consider the LDs?

My guess is that it would.

There is other data on Labour and Tory voters which I’ll feature at a later date.

Mike Smithson