Options
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Polling Matters on the Lib Dem fightback – how high can their

On this week’s PB/Polling Matters podcast Leo Barasi talked about the Lib Dem fightback with Mark Pack, a campaign strategist and expert on the party. You can listen to the episode below or by clicking here.
0
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
The LibDem vote has always correlated strongly with what canvassers would put down as soft Tories. Hence all the second places back to Liberal days in the Home Counties. At the moment soft Tories are happy to send the government a message about Brexit by voting LibDem locally, but are telling pollsters they are sticking with May for the GE. Whether that changes depends on how Brexit pans out.
(Though I'd qualify by saying as well as locally, they can sometimes manage that regionally, in SW England for example).
They will have to deny that they would accept that in a coalition with Lib Dems.
Or reverse their position.
So by being so pro REMAIN they risk losing support as well as winning support.
Rather than being seen as liberal, Lib Dems risk being tagged as pro EU, which is not the same by any means.
We'll put you down as a 'possible'.
There seemed to be copious mentioning which ceased when the 'them Muslamics' line of enquiry fizzled out.
I do hope you've not felt unduly constrained.
The Guardian quotes a campaign briefing written by the Party’s Deputy Campaigns Director Dave McCobb:
McCobb says the Lib Dems are making up ground fast and are on 31%, with Labour on 51% – a level of support that is, he says, “running well ahead of where we were in the Witney byelection".
What a lot of this misses is any grasp of just how badly Brexit could go wrong & just what is happening to Labour. Its not just Local contests, over the last year Labour Polling average has been on a steady slide, losing roughly 1% every 2 Months. The causes of the decline are well known but there is nothing anyone in Labour can do. Even the Nuclear option of a split is of the table because both Left & Right are divided over Brexit.
Labour members are leaving at around 3,000 every week, largely unnoticed by The Media. Of course with nearly half a Million members that slow leak can drag on a long time with no obvious effect but it is damaging whats left of Labour morale.
The Libdems cant yet challenge Labour for 2nd place In The Polls (on the ground is another matter) but wait a year or two & look again.
Bring back Disraeli versus Gladstone is what I say.
And as I have seid before so apologies for repetition:
The extent to which the labour parties strength and resilience is based on the funding it gets from the Trade unions is vastly underestimated IMO. With the Trade Union Act 2016 now in effect, we will almost certainly see Union members opting out of the political fund (or more precisely not opting in) this will not happen overnight, but by 2025 it will be a significant proportion. and makes the possibility of Lib Dems overtaking them much more likely!
One caveat: if there were a serious UK recession (which is blamed on Brexit, irrespective of the ultimate causes), and Corbyn were still to be running Labour, then I think they might be able to do even better. Were Farron to be replaced by Clegg or Lamb, then I think - under the same circumstances - they might be able to approach 1983 levels of support.
But.
In all likelihood Corbyn will go before the 2020 election, and while I'm more pessimistic than most on the UK economy (for non-Brexit reasons) I don't expect a major recession. Put those together with the fact that Farron isn't going anywhere, and I think the most likely outcome for the LibDems is that they get 12-14 seats on 12-14% of the vote.
I have seen a number of videos from westerners living in China saying the housing bubble is insane and requiring constant intervention by the state to stop it going pop. Insane price increases + piss poor quality building / maintenance + massive oversupply & all the Chinese rich to poor have sunk crazy amounts of money into this flawed and false market.
The Canadian Liberals as a bit more left and less libertarian than I would consider ideal, but not by that much.
[turns on the Formula1]
It is of particular concern given our low birth rate, as it implies that far too many people have not saved for their retirement. (Or, perhaps, that they're planning on making big withdrawals from the Bank of Bricks and Morter.)
If the UK savings rate were to normalise, it would undoubtedly trigger a recession (as it would imply that consumption fell by 4-5%). If it were to move to the same level it did following the 1990-92 recession (15%), then it would likely involve a 2008-9 level of increase in unemployment.
I wont clame to be an expert, but 1) the Canadian liberals are not supported by the union, and 2) they have just legalised Pot.
So that's 2 thing they have going for them that mainstream left parties don't.
I find it staggering that the Chinese banking system now has more debt (aka "assets") than the US one. That's in US dollar terms, and I would suggest that China is likely to have a nasty "bump" as it readjusts its economic model away from gross capital formation and towards consumption.
(This is not to say that China won't become the undisputed largest economy in the world in the next ten years, just that it's not likely to happen without at least one pratfall along the way. The extraordinary level of debt formation practically guarantees it.)
Luckily we never get those sorts on PB.
The question is whether a new fault line in politics, between liberal/internationalist and conservative/nationalist, is emerging - the reverse of the process that allowed Labour to exploit the emerging class divide in politics early in the last century, leaving the Liberals stranded on the fence. It took less than a couple of decades and a split to play out. Then it was done for more or less a century.
https://twitter.com/europeelects/status/853623719742365698
And, in a democracy, the ruling party almost always gets turfed out, sooner or later.
It's like @Platosaid and her links! Someone had to fill the void, well done
Well done for being the void!!!
"exclamation" btw.. don't be in such a rush
Possibly he will add a halo-smiley.
(Surely Corbyn would go if Gorton goes and Local results are bad?)
@EuropeElects
Turkey: After 80% of the votes counted:
Result projection:
Yes: 49.6-51.8%
No: 50.4-48.2%
You'd need a heart of stone etc etc
You and your fellow Spurs fans will love it.
Turkish Republic, 1923-2017. RIP.
#TurkeyReferendum: Following the dramatic fall in YES votes, #SupremeElectionCouncil stops sharing ballot data with the main opposition #CHP
April 16, 2017
@EuropeElects
Numbers presented here are based on the results published by the Turkish authorities. We cannot confirm if rigged or not. #TurkeyReferendum
That's a bit worrying.
UK, Italy, Greece, Spain, Bulgaria, Hungary, Sweden all very much 'No'.
Austria, Netherlands and Germany very much 'Yes'
Could it be.....?