What confuses me is Sheffield is full of students who supported Lib Dems. But why would they continue to support Clegg when he broke his tuition fee promise? It's rather odd.

 

I would love to see Nick Clegg lose his seat in the next general election, but it's unlikely. Watching his interview with BBC News today, he looked like a broken man. I'm not sure where Lib Dems can from here until the next election. They need to do something major to regain support, which I can't see happening in a year.

The Lib Dems' best hope is that the relative positions of the Labour and Tory parties stay roughly where they are. If there is a realistic prospect of a Tory majority they can appeal to potential Labour voters in Con / Lib Dem marginals by asking them whether they really want to risk making a Tory majority more likely.

What confuses me is Sheffield is full of students who supported Lib Dems. But why would they continue to support Clegg when he broke his tuition fee promise? It's rather odd.

They won't, but it was a Lib Dem stronghold well before the fees announcement and the widespread student support.

Dear Mr Farage,

 

Coming a very distant 4th, barely above the Greens and wholly thanks to a complete collapse in the LieDem vote, with your lowest votes share across the entire country by some distance is not a 'breakthrough' in Scotland. It's the dawn of 6 party politics and the reality of profiteering off the Scottish public's utter distaste and distrust of the Liberal Democrats after they left us with a Tory Government that we did not want nor vote for.

 

There's not a single Local Authority they cracked the top 2 on. NOT A SINGLE ONE.

 

Get a grip of yourself. Seriously. Also, it'd be super nice if you could go play with some of the Polish truckers on the M6.

 

Yours Sincerely

 

Silas xoxo

From The Guardian:

 

The electoral oblivion apparently confronting the Liberal Democrats as led by Nick Clegg was underscored on Monday by leaked opinion polls in four seats showing that the party will be wiped out.

 

Commissioned by a Lib Dem supporter from ICM and subsequently passed to the Guardian, the polling indicates that the Lib Dem leader would forfeit his own Sheffield Hallam constituency at the next election.

 

The party would also lose its seats in Cambridge, Redcar and Wells, costing MPs Julian Huppert, Ian Swales and Tessa Munt Westminster seats.

 

If the business secretary, Vince Cable, were to take over as leader, the Lib Dems would perform marginally better, the data suggests. Appointing Danny Alexander, the chief secretary to the Treasury, would give the party a more modest boost.

 

The damning verdict comes after a crestfallen and visibly exhausted Clegg said in the early afternoon that he would not buckle in the face of woeful European election results which cost the party 10 of its 11 MEPs and left it in fifth place.

 

Ukip topped the polls – winning 23 MEPs – leaving huge questions for all three mainstream parties, but especially for Clegg's strategy of confronting the Ukip leader, Nigel Farage, in two TV debates that he was deemed to have lost.

 

Facing calls to quit from some party activists and parliamentary candidates, Clegg claimed it had not "crossed his mind" to resign, adding that he would not hesitate if he thought it would help the Lib Dems in the long term.

 

"If I thought any of our real dilemmas would be addressed by changing leadership, changing strategy, changing approaches, bailing out now, changing direction, then I wouldn't hesitate advocating it," he said in a carefully choreographed interview.

 

Clegg's supporters insist no purpose would be served by swapping leader less than a year before the general election .

 

But the polls counter the claim that the party would do no better if Clegg stepped aside.

Edited May 26, 201411 yr by Common Sense

The party would do better with Danny Alexander at the helm in some places (as he's basically a tory) and really tank them in others (like anywhere north of the M25)

I can't imagine how that polling came out with Danny Alexander being a potentially more successful leader. :lol: Vince Cable would give them a legitimate chance of having a mini-revival though, since he remains quite popular (ironic given he engineered the tuition fees debacle).

The party would do better with Danny Alexander at the helm in some places (as he's basically a tory) and really tank them in others (like anywhere north of the M25)

 

Incidentally, I was quite shocked to see that Scotland was the region where the Lib Dems actually fell the LEAST in the Euros! Maybe they will actually hold onto a few of their Scottish seats next year after all.

Incidentally, I was quite shocked to see that Scotland was the region where the Lib Dems actually fell the LEAST in the Euros! Maybe they will actually hold onto a few of their Scottish seats next year after all.

As a proportion they probably have the most Lib Dem areas of all the regions - places like the Orkneys and Charles Kennedy's seat were always likely to hold on I think.

I can't imagine how that polling came out with Danny Alexander being a potentially more successful leader.

I imagine the latest superbug is more popular than cholera by default as most people haven't heard of it yet.

Reading the full report on the polling from Hallam is quite interesting. It took place at the start of the month yet the local and European voting intentions of the test group basically mirrored what actually ended up happening last week. I was initially very sceptical about such a big Labour lead (and still think it wouldn't be 10 points when you factor in the tactical Tories) but I'm more optimistic having read it in full.

Dear Mr Farage,

 

Coming a very distant 4th, barely above the Greens and wholly thanks to a complete collapse in the LieDem vote, with your lowest votes share across the entire country by some distance is not a 'breakthrough' in Scotland. It's the dawn of 6 party politics and the reality of profiteering off the Scottish public's utter distaste and distrust of the Liberal Democrats after they left us with a Tory Government that we did not want nor vote for.

 

There's not a single Local Authority they cracked the top 2 on. NOT A SINGLE ONE.

 

That's partly because a lot of council seats are elected in thirds - almost the only ones that weren't, were in London which is too ethnically diverse to be good ground for UKIP.

Referring exclusively to Scotland there.

That's partly because a lot of council seats are elected in thirds - almost the only ones that weren't, were in London which is too ethnically diverse to be good ground for UKIP.

Maybe. But I'm pretty sure that most white British people in London aren't too attracted to UKIP despite London being one of the places where the 'natives' are affected the most by the so-called perils of immigration. I am making assumptions here, but I think it's generally the white British from the least ethnically diverse areas that complain about immigration the most. One case in point is the most white British town in the UK is an old pit town in Derbyshire whose constituency, Amber Valley, gave UKIP a comfortable majority on Thursday. To me that speaks volumes about how legitimate such 'there's too many!!' concerns actually are.

 

(I love a good tangent)

Edited May 27, 201411 yr by Harve

Where?

 

Err, the one at the start of the thread? :rolleyes:

Referring exclusively to Scotland there.

 

Sorry, that wasn't clear to me.

 

But we've already covered the issue of nationalism iro Scotland earlier in this thread, and IIRC you strongly disagreed with my suggestion that the SNP & UKIP's nationalism had a very similar underlying basis (though I'm not sure if you explained *why* you disagreed)?

Err, the one at the start of the thread? :rolleyes:

In a thread/forum that touches on opinion polls regularly, forgive for forgetting about probably the least representative one of the lot.

 

In answer to your question, it's probably the ridiculously small sample size and the slightly skewed demographics of an internet forum.

I think UKIP did badly in London mainly because economically the region is doing so much better than the rest of the UK (rather than because of its diversity), and is dominated by the young and more affluent, who are obviously more liberal. Places like Great Yarmouth, Rotherham and Thurrock are dominated by those who have either been made redundant or feel disillusioned after seeing their disposable income fall sharply during the so-called 'cost of living crisis' that has been ongoing since 2008, especially seeing an increasing disparity between the richest 1% and the remainder of the population. I think a lot of these people feel forgotten or left behind and so much of the UKIP vote is a protest and will, if the mainstream parties focus their efforts well (looking at YOU Labour) collapse sharply in May 2015.

 

Of course there is also a pretty strong support in areas which have seen large surges in immigrant population (as you would expect) and this will persist sadly.

 

It is no coincidence that anti-EU and anti-immigration sentiment has rocketed across Europe (even outside the UK) since the 2008 global recession.

It is no coincidence that anti-EU and anti-immigration sentiment has rocketed across Europe (even outside the UK) since the 2008 global recession.

 

Absolutely this. ANYONE when they're being hammered is going to look for someone to blame; lazy example, but the Germans were the most educated and tolerant society in the world in the early 20th century and even they weren't immune to looking for someone to blame when their living standards were destroyed. And right-wing parties are the only ones pointing the finger at anyone and providing an easy scapegoat for desperate people to latch onto at the moment.

 

As the legendary Owen Jones says, the only way for the Left to combat it is by redirecting people's justified rage away from immigrants (and benefit claimants), and towards those who deserve that rage, the fat-cat bosses who think they don't need to pay their workers decent wages and give them decent conditions, and the super-rich who think they don't owe anything to society and have no qualms about stashing all their money away in offshore accounts while sponging off the British society that everyone else is paying for. But, as long as the mainstream left-wing parties (all over Europe, not just here) are too scared to point the finger of blame where it's deserved, and instead just spout mealy-mouthed waffle and stupid slogans which the average person can immediately identify as the vacuous tinkering-at-the-edge bullshit it is, then the shameless populist right-wing parties who ARE prepared to point the finger at someone are ALWAYS going to fill that void.

Edited May 28, 201411 yr by Danny