Sheffield Hallam - How Would You Vote?

[Pickman's model]

I've only had ..... far far fewer than 20, and I'm not standing for election, either

aw

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

So there has been some stuff around today suggesting the Tory vote might be collapsing tactically towards Clegg in Hallam. What do Tory voters think they're going to get for that? Do they think that if the Libdems lose their leader they're going to chicken out of supporting a second coalition? Do regular Tory voters give enough of a shit?

 

[brogdale]

So there has been some stuff around today suggesting the Tory vote might be collapsing tactically towards Clegg in Hallam. What do Tory voters think they're going to get for that?

One of their own?

 

[SpackleFrog]

but still equal before ICM's adjustments of certain to vote and DKs to last election (50% Clegg)
also a phone poll will miss many first year students out. Amongst 3rd year students, 29% supporting Green apparently.

There really aren't as many students in Hallam as people think. Most Sheffield students from both uni's live in Central.

 

[SpackleFrog]

One of their own?

That's exactly it. They know Clegg would go with them a second time and so would Cable, Danny Alexander, and most of the Lib Dem key players. A Lib Dem leadership election puts Tim Farron in, who would campaign on a "we're supposed to be social democrats" type platform, making the LD's fuck all use to the Tories.

Anyone else get the feeling the predicted Lib Dem meltdown won't be quite as extreme as predicted by the way?

 

[brogdale]

That's exactly it. They know Clegg would go with them a second time and so would Cable, Danny Alexander, and most of the Lib Dem key players. A Lib Dem leadership election puts Tim Farron in, who would campaign on a "we're supposed to be social democrats" type platform, making the LD's fuck all use to the Tories.

Anyone else get the feeling the predicted Lib Dem meltdown won't be quite as extreme as predicted by the way?

d'Ancona addresses this exact point....

But it will not be Clegg’s formal seniority that concerns his former Tory partners. Their (justified) anxiety will concern the identity of his successor, which depends in turn upon the number of leadership contenders who survive the night. It is a measure of the extent to which Cameron needs Clegg to survive that his next best hope is Ed Davey, the Lib Dem energy secretary, who has said that he finds it “incredibly difficult” to envisage another pact between his own party and the Tories. When you are pinning your hopes on the gap between “incredibly difficult” and “totally bloody impossible”, you know your strategy is perilous.

 

[Yossarian]

Anyone else get the feeling the predicted Lib Dem meltdown won't be quite as extreme as predicted by the way?

I think there may be an element of Lib Dem voters being too ashamed to admit it to pollsters. Though this may not help them in Sheffield Hallam - when the day arrives, even Tory voters may find they have too much self-respect to actually vote for Nick Clegg.

 

[SpackleFrog]

in Sheffield Hallam - when the day arrives, even Tory voters may find they have too much self-respect to actually vote for Nick Clegg.

I really don't know why you wrote this as it's patent nonsense.

 

[brogdale]

Anthony Well's take on this latest Hallam polling.....

The ICM poll had a sample size of 500, the Ashcroft poll had a sample size of 1000. Hence it could well be that there isn’t any difference at all between the polls, that it’s just normal sample variation around a small Lib Dem lead. Its also possible that there has been movement towards Clegg in the days between the two polls as the election looms and people consider a tactical vote.

Sheffield Hallam remains an interesting race. Normally the idea of party leaders losing seats is regularly drummed up but incredibly unlikely to happen. This time, while my personal expectation is that Clegg will hold on and this poll will probably end up about right, there is a least a non-zero possibility of him being ousted. We shall see.

OTWT

 

[Dogsauce]

Anyone else get the feeling the predicted Lib Dem meltdown won't be quite as extreme as predicted by the way?

Classic expectations management, make people's expectations so low that if you exceed them it can be presented as a victory.

I think the pro-life turd-pointer in Leeds NW will also hang on, as Tories are tactically voting for LD there too, and all the progressive types I know over that way are kidding themselves that the Green Party can do something there (spurred on by crappy bar charts and 'winning here' rhetoric peddled to them most likely by former lib dems that have jumped ship).

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

Anyone else get the feeling the predicted Lib Dem meltdown won't be quite as extreme as predicted by the way?

Yep as I've said before the really interesting thing will be how they have shrunk down to the seats they currently hold and a few local council areas and they way there throwing everything at keeping the seats they have means that there will be an even further hollowing out of the party. This will probably see them do better than expected but sow the seeds to lose even more members, even more councilors/activists over the next 5 years - especially assuming they prop up the Tories again.

ETA: will also be interesting to see how pragmatic Tories in places like Hallam will be this time as it's been a while since you've had significant numbers of Tories vote tactically for an anti-Labour candidate.

 

[Dogsauce]

Shamelessly cut'n'pasted from a comment on the Guardian, but a nice list of those Clegg achievements in full. Feel free to print out and stick to lampposts around Hallam if you're local:

Clegg's record in government, of what he outright supported or failed to oppose...

* NHS re-organisation (not wanted by anyone other than outsourcing companies, costing us around £4billion)
* Privatisation of Royal Mail (opposed by 80% of voters according to YouGov)
* Privatisation of East Coast (creating a Stagecoach monopoly on all Intercity rail routes heading north)
* Privatisation of Eurostar (which turned a profit)
* Privatisation of the probation service (a hard right wet dream), which is now leading to mass redundancies and probation officers replaced with computer terminals.
* Secret Courts
* The DRIP Bill (opposed by David Davis - Conservative and Tom Watson - Labour - no word from the Liberal Democrats)
* Massive support for TTIP (hawked by Clegg in the US - and the Whigs support full ISDS mechanisms be included - allowing foreign multinationals to sue Britain in secret tribunals if we pass laws that restrict their profits / activities in the public interest)
* The bedroom tax (voting for it repeatedly despite pretending to oppose)
* Cuts to 16,000 police officers, whilst trying to cut mandatory sentences for carrying knives
* Cuts to 12,000 military personnel, whilst voting to bomb Syria. Redundancies affected soldier's pensions and soldiers who suffered from injuries have been hit by ATOS sanctions and bedroom tax.
* Massive cuts to legal aid
* Fees of £1,000 for workers to bring industrial tribunals against unfair dismissal
* ATOS / Maximus and sanctioning of the poor and disabled
* Rising foodbank use
* Promising to scrap tuition fees, then voting to treble them
* Supporting the lobbying bill to muzzle trade unions and charities from campaigning agains the government (which has little effect on corporate lobbyists)
* Further prison privatisation to G4S (with predictable consequences)
* Blocking Zac Goldsmith's MP recall bill (very liberal and democratic)
* Supporting workfare, then supporting rectroactive legislation to bypass a Court of Appeals verdict ruling it unlawful
* Supporting the disaster of 'free schools', trialled originally in Sweden (and found to fail there)
* The miserable compromise of Alternative Vote, rather than Proportional Representation, which was sunk by an electorate, partially to give Clegg a kicking
* Curtailing judicial review
* Handing over rape crisis centres to G4S
* Spoke of Tory VAT bombshell, then supported them hiking it up to 20%
* Voted to oppose amendments to the Official Secrets Act which would protect whistle-blowers from from prosecution if they exposed child sex abuse (Labour / UKIP / SNP / Plaid and Green voted for the amendments, with a small number of Tories).​

 

[brogdale]

I suspect this dissimulation is exclusively intended to help neutralise the threat of Con -> LD tactical voting in Lab facing LD marginals like Hallam.

Senior Labour figures are considering the option of forming a minority coalition with the Liberal Democrats, the BBC has learned.

The move is to counter claims a Labour government would lack legitimacy if it won fewer seats than the Conservatives.

I don't think Lab think that the LDs would ever prop them up. It remains blatantly obvious that Clegg wants in with the vermin once again, even to the extent that he's refused to include opposition to an 'in/out' EUref in his list of "red lines".

[Also posted in 'next coalition' thread]

 

[Jeff Robinson]

1. Nick Clegg - Liberal Democrats
2. Steve Clegg- English Democrats
   
   For anybody thick enough to vote for Nick Clegg, this is going to cause real problems on the ballot paper. I wonder if the English Democrats will see a surge in support in that constituency...

 

[maomao]

i'm prrsonally not persuaded thst polls which take place when many thousands of electors absent will be accurate. although you seem happy they are.

Told you so.