Post-Budget polls show drop in Lib Dem support

General Zod

What these polls show is the electorate moving belatedly to a position in which it would elect a majority Tory government. Time for the Orange Bookers to become Tories.

JohnAnt

"they could do with some things to please and reassure their base in the coming weeks."
The LibDem leadership could point out that a) they lost the election b) they are - quite undeservedly - in government, and c) few of the LibDem ministers appear to be in agonies of conscience. And that d) the Coalition Government policy agreement has already been hammered out, and isn't up for negotiation.
After all, LibDems wouldn't want to be seen as unreliable, coat-turning Vicars of bray, would they.

TrevorsDen

The Libdems are a small minority party, but they are in (or at least part of) government.

Not bad for them really.

What the coalition have to decide is how they fight the next election. 16% is still a pretty big number and probably represents the level of anti labour support in the country; flaky lefty libdem votes seem to have peeled away. The Lib Dems did always try to be all things to all people. Now they need to concentrate on being anti labour.

43+16 is 59. A bad figure for labour.

Mark Cannon

These polls are of no significance. There is no alternative Labour government to vote for. And the LibDems are a mishmash of seats which rely mainly on earlier bye-election victories and loyalty to the incumbent. No doubt the LibDems have lost some "progressive"/Guardian/Independent/BBC support as a result of having entered the coalition. But what matters to their MPs is seats. In that regard, I suggest that polls in Scotland are more significant.

Mycroft

Irrespective of whether the LDs enter into a coalition with Labour or the Conservatives, their poll ratings are bound to go down because they can no longer be all things to all people. It is a shame here that they are actually suffering now for having behaved responsibly.

2trueblue

How many Lib Dem MPs are there?
The reality is they have done very well with their share of the cake and need to continue to get on with the job. This is reality and you do not get a lollipop every time you get something right, you just keep going. They wanted power so badly and now they have to learn to live with the responsibility that goes with it.
We are all paying the bills Liebore/Brown/Balls/Blair left us. There is no escape. Thank you Liebore. The Lib Dems followers need to get real. Who did they think was going to pay the bills?

chris as usual

How long will the LibDems put what is best for the country ahead of what is best for them? If they have any sense, which some of them have, they will concentrate on the former, and forget the polls.

An election is years ahead. Either they show that they can work in a coalition or they can't. If they can't, then there is nowhere for them to go (except to Liebore).

But Liebore got us in this mess, all on their own, without any help from anyone. (Apart from the saps that voted for them).

Liebore's relative high standing in the polls is all about their client vote in the public sector. So Liebore had better tell us (1) how they would cut the deficit and (2) give us their own detailed plan in October to compare with the coalition's.

No chance. Rubbish Miliband type rhetoric is all we will get.

Neil80

The Lib Dems really are in a bind. They suffered a complete failure to understand their support base most of whom who will baulk at the policies which true-blue Tory voters will lap up. It really is no win for the Lib Dems and the Tories know they can ditch them in at the next election which will surely return to type and give a large majority to them or Labour. Even if they get PR now it is an academic point for them, probably more valuable to the Greens.

Major Plonquer 1

35% of people in the UK want Labour back in government.

Nuff said.....

strapworld

Well I can see a merger between those on the right of the Lib Dems + Vince Cable becoming left of centre Tories (which will help Cameron) with the promise they will retain their ministerial positions. And those, such as the ghastly Simon Hughes moving to the Labour Party. Of course the tories will attract more as the South West Lib Dems will know if they moved to the Labour Party that will seal their death warrant at the next general election.It will be dressed up as 'saving the country'
a message that will resonate within the country.

I also can see the likes of Kate Hoey joining the left of centre Tories followed by a number of other disenchanted labour mp's.

The coalition have captured the centre ground and much of the Labour turf. They will not want to lose that. With many Lib Dems joining them this will give them added attraction to many people who have never voted conservative. They could even change the name of the party, not to ConDem as the DM would wish but there are many suitable titles one could think of.

This, of course, means that the Tory right will be even more marginalised and that could see the emergence of a new Right of Centre Party which would attract all those anti EU party's and MP's to join.I would suggest an 'English' party would be of great attraction and prove very popular -IF they could be led by someone like David Davis!

Fergus Pickering

Doesn't Libdem support ALWAYS drop off between elections? And how are they a 'small' minority party? I would have thought they were a large minority party. Nearly a quarter of those who voted voted for them. I would say quite a lot of Libdem supporters, the young and stupid ones, say they will vote for Labour out of pique. Vote for Labour? Vote for a party that can't rub two ideas together except that cuts are bad? Vote for a party without a policy? Vote for a party that put us in the cartin the first place. Vote for a party that gave us warmonger Blair and deranged Brown as our two world leaders. Who can doubt that Nick Clegg would make a better PM than either of them? Of course Cameron is better still and we've got Cameron. Stick with us, Libdems. This is our best government for twenty years and, by God, do we need it. You've nullified the mad Tory right. All will be well.

davidk

Let's be clear, the cuts have yet to filter through and the LD decline will accelerate when they are eventually felt in terms of losses in jobs and services. The LDs will be obliterated at the polls, no question. The sense of betrayal amongst their party loyalists is more than matched by the view amongst the general public that the Lib Dems are cynical opportunists not worthy of support at the ballot. The attacks on the LD leadership, in particular, is visceral. In this scenario I doubt very much that the LD's will choose to further 'sully' their brand by lumping in with the Tories as a bloc in the next election.

Nicholas

I realise they have their public sector, arts and academia client base, and that their stridency has increased with the indignation that a supposedly "progressive" party should join the accursed Tories, but that 35 for Labour still surprises. I'm sure it must also represent the first tranches of brainwashed children emerging from New Labour's schools and the fruits of their secret mass immigration demographics change project.

The worrying thing is that these people don't seem to be able to see through the nasty, sleazy, corrupt, lying, propagandist , fascist party that New Labour was and is.

Unfortunately I think it is inevitable that we will have another Labour government after the present one and that they will complete their work of regressing Britain "progressively" into a reincarnation of the socialist East German state. People seem to want that.

TrevorsDen

Strapworld and Mycroft make good points. The lefty end of libdem support was bound to be flaky.

And PS
my earlier post was a bit of a mistype what i wanted to end with was -
'43+16 is 59. A bad figure for labour, and probably represents the level of anti labour support in the country.'

As time goes by then there is the prospect of this increasing. Will the LDs see there future as left wing conservatives? if this broad church can 'get on' then they can see themselves in power for some time and irrespective of what the polls say then for the current leadership thats not a bad thing.

If we speculate about the future, its possible to see a pact where each party agrees not to stand against the incumbent but at least to both stand where there is a labour incumbent.

strapworld

TrevorsDen, I never thought I would write this, but I agree with you!

Simon Stephenson

I suspect that a significant part of the LibDem support is little more than an ego defence by those who are unwilling either to get off the fence, or to be seen to be remaining on it. Between the end of the Great War and May 2010, voting Liberal has always provided these people with the opportunity to appear principled without actually being so.

I imagine that most of the 7pc drop-off of support consists of people who would never have considered voting LibDem had they known it would lead to the Party being part of government - people who, if asked now, would probably deny having voted LibDem at all.

John Edwards

As I suspected this coalition will destroy the LibDems and lead to a return to the old two party system. The Orange bookers will join the Tories and the rump will occupy the same marginal position as the Liberals in the 50s and 60s.

paulg

What the lib-dems need to realise is that in five years time after the state has been restructured, there will be millions of people still on the state payroll.

These people can only conclude that they are doing a valued job and their employment is safe, no more uncertaintly of Labour inflating their rank, rendering them all liable to the inevitable cuts that always are left as a labour legacy.

These people will ask themselves "should we stick with labour and go through all the pain and uncertainty again, or switch to the liberals?"

Human psychology states that they will switch to the safe and the certain, not for them the wild ride of a bunch of labour desperados.

yank

As here, the structural deficit overlays all.

So then, the policy is a done deal... the deficit must be reduced, and all know this. This is necessary policy, and thus good policy.

As here, the party of government will go into decline, and the party of good policy will rise. Watch here on the first Tuesday this November, for confirmation of same.

They say that good policy is good politics. Osborne is on to it, judging from afar.

TGF UKIP

What should be the remarkable figure but isn't, is the 35% Labour support. Disaster Dave didn't just fail to win what should have been the easiest ever Tory election victory, he comprehensively failed to destroy Labour. Indeed, he didn't even try.

He made no arguments against socialism, in fact the word socialism didn't even once pass his lips. The Cameron Tories had the best ever chance to destroy Labour and the Left for decades but they chickened out, terrified of what Gordon might say and preferring to stick to his language and his warped agenda.