articul8
Dishonest sociopath
Don't underestimate the possibility that Clegg might act as a lightning rod for all the hate and a post-Clegg era LD might start to rebuild bridges that he (and Laws/Alexander et al) burnt.
Why the lib-dems are shit
- Thread starter butchersapron
- Start date
Don't underestimate the possibility that Clegg might act as a lightning rod for all the hate and a post-Clegg era LD might start to rebuild bridges that he (and Laws/Alexander et al) burnt.
articul8
Dishonest sociopath
I wouldn't touch them with a 10ft barge pole...
Louis MacNeice
Autumn Journalist
Who is going to do the rebuilding? Why would anyone want to be linked to them?
Louis MacNeice
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
You're quite mad. How can you have such a lack of reality in your cold analysis? Who are you talking about bridges with and to?
Random
Ethnic nalgocrat
It's hard to believe this, since your fingers still smell of LibDem.I wouldn't touch them with a 10ft barge pole...
articul8
Dishonest sociopath
with what was formerly the liberal core vote - not the extra 7% or whatever that got suckered in around fees/Iraq. There's every chance a bunch of them will emerge after this like a battered wife who was treated horribly by a nasty bloke they unaccountably fell for and supported even though they knew how bad it was for them.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
What does this mean? Who/what was the lib-dem core vote? How big is it? Why would them feeling they were betrayed and treated like shit by the party mean that they would be open to voting for or joining the party?
Kaka Tim
Half Arsed and Slapdash till I Die
No - they will be consigned to polical wilderness for decades. Much of their vote was based on not being duplicitous lieing scum like the other two parties and - more recently - on being a vaugely more leftwing alternative to labour (pro public services - but agasint Iraq and ID cards).
On both counts they have spectacularly proved to be the opposite.
That only leaves their core support of 10% or so - and a good chance they will no longer be able to continue as a national party as their activist base drains away and the funding dries up.
The Greens could inherit their mantle with not too much ideological wriggling - soft focus social democracy plus whale songs and a 'clean' poltical slate.
Random
Ethnic nalgocrat
And you'll be on hand, to offer a cup of tea, a shoulder to cry on. And then rebound sex.
articul8
Dishonest sociopath
well done - in nearly a decade on here that's by the far most offensive post I've ever seen directed at me (and very possibly at anyone else either) - that I would cyncically befriend a victim of domestic violence as a ruse for getting my leg over
articul8
Dishonest sociopath
People with little if any politics who by inclination like to see themselves as moderate, centrist - not Tory not Labour but a "nice compromise". Feel pissed off at Clegg for jumping into bed with the Tories and evacuating the centre. Could be tempted back to a suitably chastened and apologetic LDs.
The afternoon is young.
Random
Ethnic nalgocrat
Don't be ridiculous. If anyone, you're the guilty party here, deciding to use a metaphor about domestic violence to describe a party that is attacking real vulnerable people.well done - in nearly a decade on here that's by the far most offensive post I've ever seen directed at me (and very possibly at anyone else either) - that I would cyncically befriend a victim of domestic violence as a ruse for getting my leg over
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Why did you chop off the first set of questions? "What does this mean? Who/what was the lib-dem core vote? How big is it?". These need answering to make your later conjecture relevant.
Have you noticed all these people that you're talking about today saying that they'll never vote lib-dem ever again. And have you seen the share of the vote for the two big parties rise from 66% at the time of the election to around 80% today? Those votes are gone. Get your head around it.
articul8
Dishonest sociopath
Typical short-sighted empiricist method. As though the structural role of a third party in British politics has evaporated because they aren't flavour of the month
It is much as I definted it above - except there is the added question of tactical votes they receive as the best placed candidate to challenge.
There's no question that they will do very badly at the polls for as long as Clegg is in charge. No question at all. But what is much less certain is whether - from self interest as much as ideological inclination - they'll chuck him overboard, and whether - if they do - they are capable of pulling back a section of their support that has got disillusioned.
Obviously, there is going to be a "don't trust the bastards ever again" element - but they might want to cut their losses. Alternatively, they really are bound to be a small rump adjunct to the Tories.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Typical intellectual - caught out by reality. The question of Clegg's leadership is irrelevant - apart from to people wishing to construct an elegant theory of the party coup, of the rank-and-file really just being jolly decent people suffering under a leadership that they elected and repeatedly endorsed.
What do you mean it's much as you defined it? You didn't define it - you offered some vague waffly type words that amounted to saying that the lib0-dems core vote is people who don't vote labour or tory but vote lib-dem - you didn't do what i asked. That is, identify this core vote, and who they are, what they represent and how big they are. That's what you need to do to make your suggestions about where the lib-dems might be going have some relevance.
I think that in future elections people will consider voting LibDem as similar to voting Raving Loony, UKIP, Green or other fringe protest vote material. With the effective merging of Tory and Labour policies the minority parties will pick up such protest votes, but they will be spread thinly viewed from a national perspective even if in certain localities they get noticeable numbers. LibDems might still get votes in Devon and Cornwall where they for years served as opposition to the Tories in the absence of Labour presence because of a lack of industrial work. Strangely UKIP features quite highly in that quarter in the media.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Gross empiricism.
Who else could come up with such a cler and cold analysis as UKIP - a party who always do well in european elections - doing well in european elections.
articul8
Dishonest sociopath
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Oh right, you hinge your cold analysis on the existence of this core vote yet cannot identify them, cannot, in fact, say a damn thing about them or who they are.
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
Rebuild what, though? They're sucking exhaust membership-wise even worse than Labour. They've lost the mass of the new members they got in 2008/2009/2010, plus alienating a good percentage of their activist base, who although a lot of them are right-of-centre Liberals, are not neo liberals in the way Clegg, Cable, the thief Laws and Beaker are.
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
I wouldn't touch them with a 10ft barge pole...
With your mouth is a different story.
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
It's far more likely that the Lib-Dems will do what the Liberals used to. Split, with the rightwingers going over to the Tories, and the centrist and left-ishist rump carrying on under a slightly different name and a different branding.
redsquirrel
This Machine Kills Progressives
Yes it's not just the fact that they're share of the vote has dropped through the floor and that they're held in utter contempt by most of the electorate.
As you say they're bleeding members, they've lost over a thousand councillors, even before the coalition they were being forced out of their Scottish heartlands by the SNP and they are now the 4th party in Scotland, Wales and London. They are big enough that they won't completely combust but they are nothing for the foreseeable future.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Regional party of the affluent parts of the south east. That's it.
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