holy shit, lib dems are on 35% in a post debate poll

[miscsoc]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/apr/16/nick-clegg-guardian-icm-poll-pm

course that's only viewers who watched the debate, but it's a good start. tories at 36, labour at 24

anyone think it's concievable that the lib dems could have a drastically good election and threaten labour as the major left of centre force?

i'm a labour member, but i've thought for years that it would be good for the liberals and labour to merge into one larger centre-left party, akin to the italian or u.s. democratic parties.

I'm voting lib dem since I am in a safe lib dem seat and the only credible opposition is the tories, whom I assume will make some gains, although if clegg emerges as a serious national leader things might be different. otoh if you are pessimistic you could compare cameron to bayrou in the last french presidential election, who for a little while seemed like a big contender but didn't make a real impression in the actual election, largely due to an unhelpful electoral setup

[non sociopath skin]

1. I don't think the Democratic Party is much of a role model for a broad-tent centre-left party ....

It certainly hasn't helped Obama - or Health Care in the States!

IMHO the 36% of viewers merely makes Clegg the Susan Boyle of Britain's Got Talent politics. "Gosh, who'd have thought it? - must vote for him".

I think his performance will give the LibDems some traction but I doubt if, in the long run, it will make a helluva lotta difference, at least under the present electoral system.

The Skin

[miscsoc]

2. are you a labour supporter?

I suppose the Italian DP is a more apt model, although they haven't done very well either.

I can't see the logic behind having two different mushy centre leftist parties in the presen t age. It would be a different matter if Labour's nominal socialist committments were actually manifested in policy at all; if the Labour left was strong enough to have substantial influence on policy in ways that were substantially to the left of the Liberals.

[non sociopath skin]

3. I'm certainly not a Lib Dem supporter ...

... as I live in a county where the LibDems present themselves as a centre-right option and have wreaked havoc with community facilities since gaining political control with Conservative support.

Broad tents worry me. The bigger the tent, the more scope for internal dissent. Better reform the electoral system to enable a range of voices to be represented, I think.

The Skin

[miscsoc]

4. where do you live?

i'm actually open to revising my opinions re the lib dems, since come to think of it i have read a bit about the way they work at a local level and should take this into account. specifically i've read they had a significant role in laying the groundwork for the rise of the bnp through race baiting in the nineties in certain areas.

i agree that reforming the electoral system would be the best thing, but it would involve both a hung parliament and some uncharacteristic self-sacrifice on the part of many many mps who would stand to personally lose from such changes. I'm sceptical that the right situation will arise to make reform possible soon.

[miscsoc]

6. DEVELOPMENTSSSSS

http://conservativehome.blogs.com/thetorydiary/2010/04/new-comres-poll-puts-lib-dems-in-second-place-on-35.html

this is from the main tory site, they initially pushed the comres thing, but withdrew it, and now claim that the liberals are on 24%. It's not credible, their logic is that the poll is meaningless because it only covered the quarter of the electorate that watched the debate. Obviously it's not representative of the entire proportion of the electorate who will actually vote but I'd certainly bet he'll be above 24 in the polls of the full electorate that will be released around the weekend.

First, people who watch this sort of thing are likely voters. This quarter of the electorate must amount to near half of people who will actually turn up to vote.

Secondly, people who watch debates lead opinion among the broader electorate.

BBC are promoting this poll, though, so it might have an effect on public opinion. Cameron's rise was largely based on a self-perpetuating media bullshit frenzy.

Also I changed my mind, Gordon would be the best PM. Wonder if I can be in his constituency to gawp at the count during the election, as a member of Fife Labour party.

[T_i_B]

5. Well I must say at this point....

...that aside from last night's debate (which I didn't watch) I don't actually think that the Lib Dem's have been running all that brilliant a campaign.

Mind you, I don't think any of them have been fighting a good campaign if truth be told. There's far too much negative campaigning and too much emphasis on trivial rubbish for my liking.

[muriel_volestrangler]

7. You have to wait for a poll conducted from today onwards

The most regular polls are YouGov ones - publishing 6 days a week, I think (every weekday, certainly). Their latest ones is marked 'fieldwork 14-15th' (http://today.yougov.co.uk/politics/latest-voting-intention-15), and that was published yesterday evening. So for a poll that was conducted entirely after the debate, we'll probably have to wait until Saturday evening. Unless a company has planned to be able to do all the work for a poll in a single day, which would be very unusual, I think.

As some commentator said, the people who'll answer phone polls after 10 o'clock in the evening are unusual, so not too much weight can be put on a poll done yesterday after the debate.

[muriel_volestrangler]

8. Update: YouGov delayed the start of their polling, so tonight's poll will be fully post-debate

See http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/archives/2606

"There will certainly be the normal YouGov poll later on tonight (thought with the start of the fieldwork delayed until after the debate), and may yet be other polls I’m not aware of. Apprently ITV’s Tom Bradby has just said it will show “a quite dramatic movement”. I couldn’t possibly comment."

(The blogger is a YouGov employee - the one who wrote up the yougov link in my post above).

[muriel_volestrangler]

9. Con 33%, Lib Dem 30%, Lab 28% in today's YouGov poll

http://www.today.yougov.co.uk/politics/latest-voting-intention-16-april

Wow.

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Politics/Sun-YouGov-Poll-Puts-Labour-In-Third-Place-Lib-Dems-Up-Eight-To-Second-After-First-Leaders-Debate/Article/201004315606044?lpos=Politics_First_UK_News_Article_Teaser_Region_2&lid=ARTICLE_15606044_Sun_YouGov_Poll_Puts_Labour_In_Third_Place%2C_Lib_Dems_Up_Eight_To_Second_After_First_Leaders_Debate

[miscsoc]

11. I put those figures into some online eectoral calculus type app

apparently if they recieved those shares of the vote the largest party would be labour, the third largest party by vote share, though they'd be only a few seats ahead of the tories. the liberals would only be on 100 or so, less than half of either of the other parties.

i'd actually very much like that sort of result, firstly i want labour in power, and secondly the undemocratic nature of the result will produce pressure for electoral reform in the direction of proportionality.

[miscsoc]

12. 30 + 28 is 58, by the way

suggests there's a solid majority who if not actually very leftist are at least hostile to the ideological right, even in cuddly cameronite packaging.

[mwooldri]

10. I'd say this poll is pretty close to what the public really think.

They're fed up with Gordon Brown. They think David Cameron's got no new ideas and is just windpuffery. They want something else, and the Liberal Democrats are the easiest bandwagon to get on with this when it comes to Westminster politics.

My hope is that we do end up with a hung parliament with the Lib Dems able to be in coalition with either Labour (eurgh) or the bloody Tories (bleurgh vomit puke cough vomit). If the Lib Dems get the Single Transferable Vote system in place as part of an agreement to be in coalition and it becomes law, then UK politics will be very, very different.

[non sociopath skin]

13. Yes, I'm coming round to the idea that a Labour-Lib Dem coalition ...

... would be the least worst option, even though I don't trust the LibDems as far as I could throw them.

I'm an agnostic on electoral reform, but we need to mend the broken system rather than continuing to tinker with it.

The Skin

[LeftishBrit]

18. I agree that it would be the least worst option

I don't trust *any* of them much further than I could throw them, but both Labour and the LibDems are much better than the Tories. I like my own LibDem MP and will vote for him. Three years ago, I would also have said that I massively preferred LibDems to New Labour; but I have found Brown surprisingly better than Blair - almost as though a moderate Labour government had actually replaced a Tory one. No, I don't think that Brown is the greatest, and he is still far to the right of Labour PMs of long ago; but I've noticed quite a lot of improvements in health and education since he took over from Blair. (I had not expected Brown to be an improvement on domestic policy, though I did think that he'd be less of an imperialist adventurer abroad; so this has been a somewhat pleasant surprise to me - and I don't want to lose it all to the silly upper-class-twits Cameron and Osborne and the Thatcherites who will pull their strings.

[non sociopath skin]

20. I actually take heart from the fact that Clegg probably came over as MORE liberal ...

... than the LibDems actually are, and got a lot of traction out of it.

The Social Democratic majority of the Thatcher years is apparently still there.

The Skin

[muriel_volestrangler]

14. ComRes poll: Con 31%, Lib Dem 29%, Labour 27%

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/election_2010/8627292.stm

That one was taken on Friday and Saturday (16-17th); ICM for the Sunday Telegraph has

Con 34%, Lab 29%, Lib Dem 27% http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/election-2010/7601435/General-Election-2010-Lib-Dems-surge-to-two-points-behind-Labour-in-Sunday-Telegraph-poll.html

but that one was taken 14-15th, ie Wednesday and Thursday - mostly before the actual debate.

[muriel_volestrangler]

15. And, to cap it all: Lib Dems take lead, in BPIX poll

There is a BPIX poll in tomorrow’s Mail on Sunday which has topline figures of CON 31%(-7), LAB 28%(-3), LDEM 32%(+12). That’s the biggest drop for Conservatives so far, and the biggest surge for the Lib Dems – and it puts the Liberal Democrats up in first place. The Lib Dems were in equal first place in a poll back in 2003, but I think you need to go back to around 1982 to find polls with them (or their predecessor parties) consistently in first place (Update – Tom in the comments has flagged up one poll from 1985 that had the Alliance ahead)

As with ComRes today and YouGov yesterday, all three parties are within 4 or 5 points of each other, so realistically if the polls remain like this it shouldn’t be a surprise to see polls with any of the three parties in the lead.

http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/archives/2610

The YouGov poll is:

YouGov’s daily poll tonight has toplines of CON 33%(nc), LAB 30%(+2), LDEM 29%(-1). Labour are back into second place, but there isn’t really any significant change from yesterday, it’s just random sample error between the polls and while the parties remain this close we should expect to see some with the Lib Dems last, some with them first.

http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/archives/2611

[fedsron2us]

16. Don't really give a toss any more

since the choice is between a Conservative Tory, a Liberal Democrat Tory and a Labour Tory. At least Brown is not as air brushed as Clegg and Cameron whose contrived posturing just get on my tits. I also hate all this emphasis on leadership debates since the whole point of voting in the election day is to choose an individual to represent your local constituency not some arsehole in Number 10. The whole exercise is a perversion of British Pariamentary democracy and the cult of the leader thing has a whiff of totalitarianism about it.

[LeftishBrit]

17. But hasn't it always been to a large extent about the leader?

Gladstone vs Disraeli...Churchill vs Attlee... Thatcher vs everyone who wasn't Thatcher? I agree that there's a certain tension between the different purposes of an election: voting for an MP and voting for the government.

FTR, I just want a government, which (a) doesn't have a huge majority; and (b) isn't run by Tories! I think we will probably get (a) but I fear that we won't get (b). The real Tories ARE worse than the imitation Tories, as we'll find if (ugggghhhh) they get in.

[non sociopath skin]

19. Absolutely. Just because the political discourse has moved to the right ....

... doesn't mean that all the parties have moved EQUALLY to the right.

As someone who works in the community education and caring sectors, working with children and vulnerable adults, and as a man in late middle-age with a wife and a mother both with serious medical conditions, I would have a lot more to worry about in the event of a Tory victory than I would in the event of a Labour and/or LibDem administration.

The Skin

[fedsron2us]

21. At least Atlee and Churchill did not engage in media gurning contests

This is just political X factor. It wont be long before Simon Cowell and the other TV jokers are inviting us to phone in our votes (at a premium rate of course). The public in this country whine about their corrupt and useless representatives yet they take far too little interest in the person who is going to be their MP or Councillor. Far too much attention is paid to the kinks in the leaders personalities or what their spouses are like. At the end of the day if voters have a problem that needs resolution it is the local representative they will have to approach. If they have elected a complete duffer they are stuffed. Politics in this country is not going to get better until we improve the quality of the people being put into office.

[non sociopath skin]

22. I empathise with your frustration and anger, Feds.

But maybe the question is what are WE ... politically aware and concerned enough to want to spend time on a political message board and radical and intenationalist enough to make it DU ... going to do about it? We can't just sit around waiting for someone to come along and turn it all around.

I was an elected local politician for 12 years but became disillusioned, largely because of NewLab in general and Bush's wars in particular. As I've said elsewhere, the one really heartening thing about Clegg's success last Thursday is that he was actually making radical and caring noises that seemed to the left of the Thatcherite consensus - and it struck a cord - particularly, it seems, with those younger voters they've all been trying to engage.

So the Social Democratic majority is probably still there, even with those dreadful self-interested disengaged youngsters that the Mail and Sun get so het up about. And maybe all is far from lost, even with the X-Factor Generation.

But where do we go from here, dear friends. Any thoughts?

The Skin

[T_i_B]

23. "take far too little interest in the person who is going to be their MP or Councillor"

This is one of my pet gripes. Unless you live in Witney, Sheffield Hallam or Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath you won't have a party leader as your MP so IMHO the party leaders are not the main thing to be concentrating on.

And on that note I must admit that I am planning to attend a debate between the candidates in my constituency, although I do expect it to be about as pleasant as having your teeth pulled out without anaesthetic. Maybe I ought to enliven things by bringing a large quantity of rotten vegetables to chuck at the candidates?

[non sociopath skin]

24. So no thoughts on the above other than rotten vegetables, Thanx?

The Skin

[T_i_B]

26. Actually I do have other thoughts on the above...

...I may well try and ask a few questions myself, you never know.

But given the crap that's on offer, I think a few rotten tomatoes may well be in order as well.

[Anarcho-Socialist]

25. Latest YouGov poll (18 April): Lib Dems 33, Tories 32, Labour 26

Source: http://today.yougov.co.uk/politics/latest-voting-intention-18-april

Using an electoral calculator, the Beeb reckons that the Commons would look like:
Con 246
Labour 241
LD 134
Other 29

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/election_2010/8626154.stm

The Lib Dems will have to work hard to keep that number against the larger ad budgets of the big two. The Tories also have the option of encouraging the right-wing rags to turn from attacking Brown to attacking Clegg for a while, so who knows what effect that will have.

The thing the Lib Dems have in their favour are the potential of the next two leadership debates. A strong showing on both is worth more than a 1,000 paid billboards.