So the LD vote holding up better in opinion polls than it normally does after a General Election then? Coalitions good for poll ratings, obviously.

I did a bit of digging. In July 1997, the LDs were down to 12% for ICM, in 2001, it was 18%. In 2005, it was 23%, but that was during the whole “isn’t Iraw horrible” poll bounce that didn’t ever seem to reflect votes.

Given that the pollsters have all decided to reduce their LD weightings as they’ve decided, against the evidence, that they got it horribly wrong, instead of it being a late swing/lower turnout as the actual evidence says, those sort of polls are pretty good.

Especially when senior pro-coalition LDs were predicting poll ratings around 10% at several stages during this Parliament.

I do like the way even Mike Smithson has decided to ignore history and blame the slump entirely on the coalition, despite the slump being lower than normal.

Then, polls at this stage in the cycle completely meaningless. It’ll get worse. And it’d still have been the right thing to do given the circumstances.

What’s the worst that could happen, they slump completely, and we get a genuinely liberal party of the left without LAbour’s baggage instead?

“Backing for Nick Clegg’s party is down 5 points… Labour is up 1 point… and the Conservatives +4.”

And the headline is:

“Libdems losing support to Labour”.

Riight… I suppose technically it’s true, but not quite the full story, is it?

Mat: 1997 was a huge landslide for Labour and it obliterated the Tories as well. No point comparing to that.

in 2001, it was 18%. In 2005, it was 23%

But given that LAbour have just had their worst election for a generation, and the Libdems are able to push some of their policies in power – this is a pretty bad scenario isn’t it? Under what circumstance do you see Libdem vote actually going up?

MatGB@1

Glad you are able to whistle a happy tune. I’ll admit they are new circumstances and so it is very early, and nobody has a crystal ball.

But isn’t the standard explanation for lower LD poll ratings post an election and at most points in a parliament the relative lack of public media exposure that the third party has received, outside of the campaign period when there is statutory balance? Hence the tendency to rise in a campaign.

Clearly, the Coalition and being in government does not do that in terms of profile. The LibDems have had a higher profile and media exposure than ever in their history. But the ratings fall. And at a time when even that budget is generally popular and accepted (largely on the ‘give new government a chance’ principle, rather than for any detailed reasons, in my view, though the argument that “things are bad, so this is unavoidable’ is working well among the general public). Though the party is worried at losing its individual presence/profile, since major media appearances (eg most of Clegg, Vince on Question Time) involve vouching for the Coalition (and, hence, to the broad public, telling us all that Cameron and the Tories have changed, or why would the LibDems be vouching for the fairness credentials of their joint programme of government).

So I would have thought LibDems would be very worried at this early evidence that an early period of broad acceptance of/satisfaction with the Coalition boosts the Tories but not the LibDems. If we have a five year Coalition, it is bound to be broadly unpopular for a good deal of that period. That too may hurt the LibDems more than the Tories, or at least that is the dynamic most observers would anticipate.

Of course, this is a problem junior coalition partners very often face and the LDs will have known it at the outset. There is presumably an answer to this for party strategy, but it is not clear to me what it is.

“The LibDems have had a higher profile and media exposure than ever in their history. But the ratings fall.”

Given that the narrative has been that these cuts are the fault of the Lib Dems rather than the Tories, I’m surprised you feel the need to be so simplistic in your analysis here.

Sunder

this is a problem junior coalition partners very often face and the LDs will have known it at the outset

Exactly. It’s untested territory, but to be polling higher than is historically normal is unexpected, pretty much everyone was expecting a slump in the polls.

Yes, party strategy needs to adapt, and because it’s untested and they’ve had to reduce staffing it’s harder to do that, but given the circumstances, plus given the major LD policy areas aren’t really getting the traction in the news yet, staying high is a good sign.

Regardless, a) I don’t care for voting intentions polling outside of an election cycle, b) as Wells always argues, polls asking whether X changes your view or makes you less likely to vote in a certain way are notoriously unreliable, but also merely indicative of where the message may be weaker c) I care not about specific party.

If we get AV, plus STV for local government, all bets are off regarding party anyway, when people get used to AV, it’ll be the Greens Labour needs to look out for. Or indeed any number of “Real LAbour” splinter parties in the cities.

Sunny

given that LAbour have just had their worst election for a generation, and the Libdems are able to push some of their policies in power – this is a pretty bad scenario isn’t it? Under what circumstance do you see Libdem vote actually going up?

Labour had a terrible election, yes. And immediately afterwards, Gordon Brown, possibly their worst leader electorally during the same period, resigned. There’s a leadership campaign, and that’s getting media coverage.

Labour should be going up in the polls, that’s to be completely expected.

Under what circusmatnces do I see LDs going up? An actual election campaign, or a referendum campaign, or when LD specific popular policies are being implemented.

Outside of an election, Tory ministers announce a policy that’s LD influenced, or LD watered down. They get credit for not being as bad as people thought, or having a good policy, Tory supporting media give them credit, hard to get media traction for “why LD”. During election campaigns, I suspect you’ll see a significant difference, local elections plus others will be a real test.

Unfortunately, biggest English test will be London Assembly, where LDs seem to do terribly as a general rule anyway. I hope that last time was the low water mark, but they might get worse just because the strategy is wrong.

Scotland/Wales might be indicative, but the specific anti-Tory bias is stronger there, and LDs are stronger in England anyway.

Need some like-by-like comparisons of actual voting, but my normal preference of ignoring the polls as they’re wrong stands.

1997 was a huge landslide for Labour and it obliterated the Tories as well. No point comparing to that.

Well, John Major did poll higher than Gordon Brown…

That’s true Tim, but also Sunny, 1997 was a record breakthrough for the LDs, they got a lot of positive coverage, Blair appointed Ashdown and others to some Cabinet committees, why not compare it to then?

MatGB

AV would be very good for Labour-Green cooperation. It would allow the Greens to poll their full support without wasted vote arguments; it would allow us to appeal to similar voters on a red-green argument if we can develop a credible and good environmental part of a broader social democratic argument.

Labour has little reason to fear any number of splinter left “real Labour” parties and candidates in the cities. They would need to overcome the big problem of their lack of popular appeal: if real Labour didn’t work for Scargill et al, why should we think the electoral system is the barrier to its breakthrough? I can’t see a shift to AV doing much at all for the left-of-Labour left, outside v.specific local and personality-driven campaigns (eg Dave Nellist, George Galloway precedents). The Scottish Socialists getting 6-7% in full PR elections in 2003 (before of course disappearing from the scene by 2007) strikes me as quite a bit better than any similar UK-wide party would do overall, and again AV also gives those voters the opportunity to transfer to Greens, LibDems, Labour, or indeed the Tories if they want!

It’s not really surprising, the Lib Dem support always falls between elections, and then increases at Elections. The other question to ask is whether the fall would actually lose them any seats, I suspect the answer is probably no. You also have to remember that one of the things that the Coalition has promised to do is look at electoral reform. If they do this and introduce a system which more adequately reflects a parties support, the Lib dems would actually increase the number of MPS they have, as even at 18%, it is more than the 10% they currently have.

“Given that the pollsters have all decided to reduce their LD weightings as they’ve decided, against the evidence, that they got it horribly wrong, instead of it being a late swing/lower turnout as the actual evidence says…”

Firstly, the pollsters have not universally decided to reduce their LD weightings, at least not in the crude manner you imply. It is more that they have changed some of their demographic sampling to correct for bias that they came across during the course of the post-election inquest, e.g. as MORI, for example, did after calling the London Mayoral election wrong and discovering that public sector workers were over-represented in phone polls.

For example, YouGov are now breaking down in more detail by social class and also ensuring more representative samples by educational attainment, as graduates were consistently over-represented in some age brackets.

Secondly, I’m highly sceptical that anyone can prove why the polls were wrong on the Lib Dems, but if it was a lower turnout from LD supporters then that is actually something that polls are very specifically designed to predict – the final voting intention polls are very explicitly NOT snapshots of public opinion, but attempts to measure the behaviour of the electorate.

They cannot of course be expected to deal with a swing that occurs after the poll is conducted, but I think the evidence is far from conclusive that that was the only factor at play.

For example, Ipsos MORI’s final poll of the campaign was conducted entirely within the 24 hours before polling opened but they still had the Lib Dems at 27% and their immediate post-election poll (without any past vote weighting) had them on 28%.

Now, this is a highly arguable point and there is evidence the other way as well, but I don’t think you can simply state that “the evidence” shows it was a late swing.

MattG

I’m a paid up member of the “this coalition will cost the Lib Dems support, but early polls stand as little proof of a long term trend” brigade.

So my instinct was to agree with you about these polls not showing anything quite that significant.

However

You’ve oddly convinced me otherwise.

Lib Dems fall in support after elections because of a lack of publicity. Obviously that’s no problem this time round.

Likewise new governments tend to surge immediately after the election because of their new-ness and the heavy focus on them and their early activities at the expense of focus on the losers.

But again – this doesn’t explain it as the Lib Dems are in power and so benefit from the newness and focus on their early activities.

Which suggests something else is up.

And maybe that something else is that the coalition deal is not seen as a good one by a large number of people who voted Lib Dem?

I don’t agree they’ve shifted to Labour. Way too soon for that. They have probably become “none-of-the-aboves”

but even so – some explanation is needed.

@facthunter

I think the polls misjudged the LibDems by misjudging the dynamic behind not voting.

east london saw a big boost in turnout. But that simply boosted the Labour majorities in the area with little extra support for other parties – despite the awful election trend nationally for Labour.

It would be interesting to know if raised turnouts in middle class rural areas saw similar trends. So for example, did a raised turnout in Mid Sussex almost entirely benefit of the traditional party for the area. (Tories)

I imagine it would. And certainly the strong result for Labour in heartland areas, (places like Rochdale which it had lost to the Lib Dems previously) suggests it was not just East London that felt that trend.

If so – that would imply that waving non-voters – ie those who often don’t vote but sometimes do if the national result is at stake – are in fact party loyalists who don’t bother voting normally, but who are driven by traditional influences and so tend to be Labour or Tory – not Lib Dem.

@ 1 MatGB

Ok, let me make this simple for you…. I voted (have done since ’97) LibDem, my parents voted LibDem so did my neighbours to the right, opposite and several doors down in each direction. Oh, musn’t forget, my brother did too and so did at least five of my friends.

Having spoken to all of them, we’re all of similar minds…. something big and coalition jarring if not breaking would have to happen in order for us to ever consider voting that way again. To put it plainly, the LibDem Party digust me and that’s the perceived consensus.

This constituency is a LibDem/Tory fight and we voted LibDem because we DEFINITELY didn’t want Tory.