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Lib Dem Polls - How Low Can They Go?

treelover said:
surely they can't continue to govern if the poll ratings go down any further? they will have no legitimacy.
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There's no constitutional requirement for them to do anything without a vote of no confidence, and that can't happen whilst they're still desperately clinging onto power. Nick Clegg's seat has gone from safe Lib Dem with Labour third to three-way marginal with Labour second, and most of the Lib Dem MPs are seeing similar changes in their local polls. The only way it will happen is massive public pressure for a new election in which the Tories seek a mandate for their policies and the Lib Dems try to persuade us that they sincerely agree with whoever ends up with the most seats.

That will have to be massive public pressure because they know fine well they do not have that mandate and that there is no electoral majority which will hand it to them if asked.
 
they are here to stay. this man was cruising from one news network to another defending the cuts on the green by the parliament on wed afternoon and there was just one protester there. i was shocked...

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Odd snippet from Michael White in the Graun today:

More paranoid than ministers in their coalition limos, the right also looks askance at the fixed term parliaments bill, now in the Lords. Once it is passed – and a five-year parliament is entrenched unless two-thirds of MPs vote for an election – the Lib Dems would be free to bolt from the coalition and shore up a Labour minority government in the runup to polling day. Their price? Easy. No to Trident renewal. Nick Clegg deplores such speculation as unreasonable cynicism. But the Osborne gamble on the recovery, itself unreasonable and cynical to many, opens the way to such hobgoblin calculations.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/oct/21/michael-white-spending-review-electoral-reform
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Is that right? That the fixed term parliaments bill does not preclude a change of government mid-term without an election?
 
At the end of the day it,s down to votes a government that cannot command a majority in the house is fucked
 
shagnasty said:
At the end of the day it,s down to votes a government that cannot command a majority in the house is fucked
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Well, yes. The question is, how does that government get replaced in the middle of a fixed-term parliament? Two-thirds of MPs are required to call an election early, but that article implies that there will be a mechanism to force a change of government without calling a new election, instead of them just limping on until the end of the term.

I shall do some googling.

<time passes>

OK, it's all a bit of a mess, but this article makes it reasonably clear.

The government has already changed the bill to clarify the procedure when the Commons passes a motion of no confidence so it is clear parliament must be dissolved if no new government can be formed 14 days after the motion is passed.

Previously, the bill simply said a fixed-term parliament could only be brought to by a two-thirds majority of MPs.
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What it will end up as is anyone's guess - looks like another piss poor bit of policy-making, judging from the rest of that article.


Political and Constitutional Reform Committee's take on it
 
I see your points but the tories could end up as a government in name only if they lose the majority they will not be able to pass their political programme.the country will be in a constitusnal mess
 
shagnasty said:
I see your points but the tories could end up as a government in name only if they lose the majority they will not be able to pass their political programme.the country will be in a constitusnal mess
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I am making no point, I was asking a question as this is the first I had heard of a mechanism to change the government in the event of a vote of no-confidence in the middle of a fixed term parliament.

The point you are making appears to have been taken on board in the amendments to the bill.
 
A taste of May 2011?

Here in Sheffield there was a by-election in the Manor Castle ward yesterday. It's a safe-as-houses Labour seat, and a fair distance (geographically and demograpically) from Clegg's Sheffield Hallam constituency, but Lib Dems polled a respectable 25.5% and 22.4% the last two times the ward was contested (in 2010 and 2008) - Last night they polled a little under 11%, and the Labour candidate was returned with 75% of the vote.

The make up of Sheffield City Council remains LD 41 cllrs, Lab 40 cllrs, Greens 3 cllrs.

Clearly Labour and the Greens could out the Leader, spouting something about needing a leader in the Town Hall who'll stick up for Sheffield against the axe, but they seem to be keeping their powder dry for next May.
 
No, he means the latest YG tracker - YG being the only people doing a daily tracker. I'm sure if the tracker is saying something different in 5 months time (6% maybe) then i'm sure the thread title will once again be updated to reflect that.

And don't start getting ratty because you can feel the peoples anger at your back. 34% to 10% in 6 months. Astonishing.
 
moon23 said:
You mean cherry picking the lowest poll you can find and updating the thread to represent it.
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Perhaps you'd rather talk about Clegg's attack on the IFS following his previous praise for them; give me some of that new principled politics.

Louis MacNeice
 
ymu said:
Odd snippet from Michael White in the Graun today:



Is that right? That the fixed term parliaments bill does not preclude a change of government mid-term without an election?
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It is, in that respect, no different to the situation we're in at present.
 
past caring said:
It is, in that respect, no different to the situation we're in at present.
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It does seem that the bill is repeatedly back-tracking to include aspects which are more or less the status quo. They'll probably drop the fixed term parliament bit soon. :rolleyes:
 
I'll try to dig out a link, but I think I said something similar at the time of the initial policy announcement; there'd be no way they could get rid of a dissolution of parliament on the loss of vote of confidence (requiring only a simple majority of votes cast) - the fixed-term thing requiring a 2/3rds majority of MPs in the house for an early dissolution (i.e. where's there's been no loss of a confidence vote) was only ever - and only ever intended to be - a Tory sop to the Whigs, a guarantee that they wouldn't call a GE the moment polls looked favourable and hang Clegg and co. out to dry in the process.
 
Ouch.

Tower Hamlets mayoral election last night - most of the publicity seems to have gone to the split in the Labour Party there but look at that Lib-Dem vote - a paltry 2,800, just a few ahead of the Greens, about 5.6%. To put that in context they got a healthy 18.8% in exactly the same borough with exactly the same electorate back in May.

I'd be reluctant to compare the two elections for a number of reasons but all the same that is a collapse - less than one third of what they polled just 5 months ago. When a vote goes south like that, the message is coming through loud and clear.

And this is not a borough where they are historically weak - the SDP <spits> and the Lib-Dems <spits again> held the council between 1986 and 1994.

Ouch.
 
'Tower Hamlets mayoral election last night'


Anyone starting a thread about that?, alleged IFE supporter now in control of 1 Billion pound budget
 
killer b said:
the tories did badly too - has their share dropped?
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Yes - it halved (as a percentage), one of the reasons I'd be a little dubious about comparing this with May is that in a first-past-the-post one-off where only the Labour candidate(s) have a chance the other parties' voters will be a little apathetic. But then again the Labour split should have at least opened the possibility that someone else would sneak in, thus motivating voters.
 
co-op said:
But then again the Labour split should have at least opened the possibility that someone else would sneak in, thus motivating voters.
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nope - didn't happen. Tory candidate miles behind in 3rd, lib dem limped home 500 votes ahead of the Greens' one
 
There's a lot of abstention/NOTAs hidden in these results. Not many of these percentages add up to even 90% and some a lot less.

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