Lib Dem Polls - How Low Can They Go?

[butchersapron]

Is this the first 5%?

Mike Smithson
@MSmithsonPB
New TNS BMRB poll has LAB 35% (+4), CON 28% (-2), Ukip 19% (N/C), GRN 7% (+1), LD 5% (-1).

edit: no, one other from opinium in november.

 

[butchersapron]

Despite a rather odd 14% from one of the pollsters (ICM) this has been the worst months polling for the lib-dems in this entire parliament. (av 7.6%). And this is is exactly when their differentiation plan was supposed to start reaping rewards.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Despite a rather odd 14% from one of the pollsters (ICM) this has been the worst months polling for the lib-dems in this entire parliament. (av 7.6%). And this is is exactly when their differentiation plan was supposed to start reaping rewards.

Oh dear.
How sad.
Never mind!

 

[Trendy Lefty]

I think the Lib Dems will get annihilated in the next election. I wonder how many of their 56 seats in the House of Commons will be left come May.

They need to rebuild away from the Tories and probably with a new leader!

 

[killer b]

They need to fuck off.

 

[JTG]

They need to fuck off.

and die

 

[Pickman's model]

I think the Lib Dems will get annihilated in the next election. I wonder how many of their 56 seats in the House of Commons will be left come May.

They need to rebuild away from the Tories and probably with a new leader!

the seats will still be there.

 

[William of Walworth]

I think the Lib Dems will get annihilated in the next election. I wonder how many of their 56 seats in the House of Commons will be left come May.

Fewer than half of that figure.

I mean less than 28 -- smaller than that figure in terms of the number of digits, halved

 

[brogdale]

Fewer than half of that figure.

I mean less than 28 -- smaller than that figure in terms of the number of digits, halved

FWIW, the 'wisdom' of gambling crowds...at least those betting on this with Ladbrokes...suggest 29 or 30 seats for the LDs in May. I have a gut feeling that the final tally may end up just slightly higher; if I were a betting man, I think I'd go for the 20-1 punt of 32.

http://politicalbookie.com/2014/12/18/how-many-seats-will-the-lib-dems-win/

 

[William of Walworth]

brogdale

OK, I feel confident that you (and your link) know what they're talking about.

My post above was probably a tad overoptimistic

 

[brogdale]

brogdale

OK, I feel confident that you (and your link) know what they're talking about.

My post above was probably a tad overoptimistic

I hope your confidence is not misplaced....the Mount Gay XO is not as full as it was.

 

[The Boy]

FWIW, the 'wisdom' of gambling crowds...at least those betting on this with Ladbrokes...suggest 29 or 30 seats for the LDs in May. I have a gut feeling that the final tally may end up just slightly higher; if I were a betting man, I think I'd go for the 20-1 punt of 32.

http://politicalbookie.com/2014/12/18/how-many-seats-will-the-lib-dems-win/

Betfair exchange only offering 1.26 on <32.5 seats fwiw. Less than 2.0 on <25.5 seats.

 

[Dogsauce]

Weird that the prediction of Iain Dale (who that blog links to) is that Leeds North West is a definite Lib Dem hold (one of only 8 'dead certs'). It's a bit of a three-way marginal, in the 20 years I've been living up here it's been tory and labour, LD for the last two parliaments. Massive student constituency, can't see them being very forgiving. He's the typical sort of LD prick that is always in the local papers pointing at stuff and frowning (which counts as 'campaigning on local issues' even if the newspaper pointing is all they seem to do for these campaigns). Seem to remember him voting a bit dodgily on abortion, suggesting he might be a closet God botherer too, but he didn't have the balls to explain himself. Fingers crossed Dale is wrong.

 

[free spirit]

Weird that the prediction of Iain Dale (who that blog links to) is that Leeds North West is a definite Lib Dem hold (one of only 8 'dead certs'). It's a bit of a three-way marginal, in the 20 years I've been living up here it's been tory and labour, LD for the last two parliaments. Massive student constituency, can't see them being very forgiving. He's the typical sort of LD prick that is always in the local papers pointing at stuff and frowning (which counts as 'campaigning on local issues' even if the newspaper pointing is all they seem to do for these campaigns). Seem to remember him voting a bit dodgily on abortion, suggesting he might be a closet God botherer too, but he didn't have the balls to explain himself. Fingers crossed Dale is wrong.

I made similar points up thread on that.

in my reading of it there is around 30k anti-tory voters, vs 10-15k tory or potential tory voters, with 10k or so fairly solid labour or lib dem, and the other 10k swing voters for whichever party looks most likely to keep the tories out.

If labour got their act together I reckon they could beat Greg Mullholland (lib dem) here, or even a little imlausibly, but if the greens have ended up with a lot of new members and ran a shit hot campaign.... they'd have to come from nowhere, but there's a hell of a lot of that lib dem vote up for grabs here IMO, and the greens are polling at 20-25% for students and the youth vote nationally, up about 10% in the last year, so with a massive student vote in the area anything could happen.

Alternatively it could all end up splitting the anti tory vote and letting the tories back in for the first time in 18 years.

 

[William of Walworth]

I have a horrid confession to make. APART from his LibDemishness , I actually like Greg Mulholland -- his CAMRA supporting, pub protecting, ale-favouring credentials are seriously impeccable -- as a CAMRA activist (mostly practical activism, mind ) I do know a fair bit about this.

There's some Labour and even Tory MPs who are pretty good on that specific subject, but ale-wise, Mulholland's up there with the best in politics. ONLY ale-wise, obvs.

Glad I don't live and vote in Leeds NW (any more -- I voted there in 1987, when it was still Tory )
If I was, I'd be confronted by my one and only Lib Dem related conundrum.

I'd still vote Labour there no doubt, just as I did 27 years ago , but ....

 

[co-op]

Fingers crossed Dale is wrong.

He was making Bermondsey a Dead Cert Lib Dem hold back in March and that's just rubbish but I see that he's amended it to a 'Probable'. I still know a couple of people in the Bermondsey Labour Party and after the 2014 local elections they are all sure they are going to win it, all the wards in the constituency voted and the Labour Party got more votes and councillors than the Lib-Dems for the first time since before *that* by-election in 1982 or whenever it was. Hughes has given up, he'll be in the Lords inside 12 months.

 

[free spirit]

I have a horrid confession to make. APART from his LibDemishness , I actually like Greg Mulholland -- his CAMRA supporting, pub protecting, ale-favouring credentials are seriously impeccable -- as a CAMRA activist (mostly practical activism, mind ) I do know a fair bit about this.

There's some Labour and even Tory MPs who are pretty good on that specific subject, but ale-wise, Mulholland's up there with the best in politics. ONLY ale-wise, obvs.

Glad I don't live and vote in Leeds NW (any more -- I voted there in 1987, when it was still Tory )
If I was, I'd be confronted by my one and only Lib Dem related conundrum.

I'd still vote Labour there no doubt, just as I did 27 years ago , but ....

careful now....

Ay, he's an alright bloke, and there's a couple of things he's done that were alright, but he's not rebelled anything like enough to get him a pass unfortunately.

 

[Nylock]

Practically none of them have tbf

 

[free spirit]

Practically none of them have tbf

have any of them?

 

[Nylock]

Hedging (with the use of 'practically') there

In my book, none of them have....

 

[ViolentPanda]

I think the Lib Dems will get annihilated in the next election. I wonder how many of their 56 seats in the House of Commons will be left come May.

In my estimation, they won't lose more than 20 at maximum, probably quite a few less, although Clegg's constituency is looking vulnerable. Annihilation isn't likely, but neither is any successful form of party regeneration in the short term.

They need to rebuild away from the Tories and probably with a new leader!

A "new" leader would inevitably either be drawn from the ranks of the Orange Bookers, or be an unknown around whom it'd take the party time to rally. Farron has been touted, as has Hughes and several others (including Cable), but they're all thoroughly tainted by their slavish support for Tory policies during the coalition, and with the violation of their manifesto pledge on tuition fees.

 

[ViolentPanda]

and die

The parliamentary L-D party won't die, though. They'll form a rump that will prostitute itself to whichever larger party promises it a few crumbs from the table, all the while telling themselves that they're politically-relevant, and persuading a few benighted constituencies to retain them as MPs.

 

[butchersapron]

Summary of lib-dem performances in parliamentary by-elections this this parliament:

 

[brogdale]

Summary of lib-dem performances in parliamentary by-elections this this parliament:

11 of which resulted in a lost deposit.

 

[frogwoman]

I made similar points up thread on that.

in my reading of it there is around 30k anti-tory voters, vs 10-15k tory or potential tory voters, with 10k or so fairly solid labour or lib dem, and the other 10k swing voters for whichever party looks most likely to keep the tories out.

If labour got their act together I reckon they could beat Greg Mullholland (lib dem) here, or even a little imlausibly, but if the greens have ended up with a lot of new members and ran a shit hot campaign.... they'd have to come from nowhere, but there's a hell of a lot of that lib dem vote up for grabs here IMO, and the greens are polling at 20-25% for students and the youth vote nationally, up about 10% in the last year, so with a massive student vote in the area anything could happen.

Alternatively it could all end up splitting the anti tory vote and letting the tories back in for the first time in 18 years.

The tories are back in

 

[joevsimp]

I made similar points up thread on that.

in my reading of it there is around 30k anti-tory voters, vs 10-15k tory or potential tory voters, with 10k or so fairly solid labour or lib dem, and the other 10k swing voters for whichever party looks most likely to keep the tories out.

If labour got their act together I reckon they could beat Greg Mullholland (lib dem) here, or even a little imlausibly, but if the greens have ended up with a lot of new members and ran a shit hot campaign.... they'd have to come from nowhere, but there's a hell of a lot of that lib dem vote up for grabs here IMO, and the greens are polling at 20-25% for students and the youth vote nationally, up about 10% in the last year, so with a massive student vote in the area anything could happen.

Alternatively it could all end up splitting the anti tory vote and letting the tories back in for the first time in 18 years.

unlike a lot of towns and cities, the green vote in Leeds is split fairly evenly across the parliamentary seats, and the main stronghold is in the West constituency, the LibDems managed to get 29% across the four wards in NW and stayed ahead of Labour (who still have to jump from third bear in mind), so Mulholland may hang on

 

[belboid]

another 5% in the Observer. Way to wither and die

 

[free spirit]

unlike a lot of towns and cities, the green vote in Leeds is split fairly evenly across the parliamentary seats, and the main stronghold is in the West constituency, the LibDems managed to get 29% across the four wards in NW and stayed ahead of Labour (who still have to jump from third bear in mind), so Mulholland may hang on

maybe, but this is a constituency with a high student population, (though a lot less so than in previous elections due to several thousand new student beds in the city centre / university area and lower student numbers). The latest polling has lib dems on 3.7% among students, down from nearly 50% around the last election. (and greens up to 20%).

The change in the student vote by itself could easily halve the lib dem majority here.

That said, I'm not seeing any evidence of any increased activity from labour, but maybe it's too early for that yet.

 

[butchersapron]

Two quick things - a later poll showed further green rise and lab drop:

and that the above and this are national polls, not polls in Clegg's seat or any other single constituency.

Secondly that student vote only effects a handful of seats - in most they are too small and the majorities too big to make a difference. The report says circa 10.

 

[free spirit]

That conversation was in regard to the Leeds NW constituency (rather than Clegg's), which has a very high level of students, though probably quite a lot less now than at it's height in 2006 or so. Most of the university halls are in the constituency for both universities, and beckets park campus, as well as historically a huge amount of private rented student conversions in the headingley, hyde park, burley, far headingley areas (28.6% students according to the report you linked to, with a 21% lib dem lead over the tories / 26.5% over labour at the last election, much closer between lab and lib dem at previous election, and labour winning twice before that)

The first poll I gave was a recent (last couple of weeks) web based poll of 1000 students voting intentions, one key difference being that it includes the don't knows at 25% whereas that one you posted excludes don't knows / is of all who are likely to vote. The one I posted may not be that accurate if it's based on a survey of forum members or similar, it was just the most recent I came across.

Then again, given the rise of the greens in recent weeks it's not that improbable that their student vote would have risen further to closer to labour, but if so that'd look like it's mostly come from the labour votes