The Lib Dem Position in the Polls

Taking a look at the implications of the Liberal Democrats worsening position in the polls.

Last night the YouGov polling agency recorded the Liberal Democrats at 7% in the polls with a net government approval rating at -20. As YouGov point out; this is within margin of error for a result of 8 or 9%, and some pollsters are recording the Lib Dems at around 11-13%.

Now, I know that many of you will be saying things like “there are 4 years left of the parliament” or “polls aren’t accurate, remember cleggmania!” so I shall explain why the current polling is so significant.

Unlike ‘Cleggmania’ the current polling for the Lib Dems has consolidated in a consistent trend across all pollsters, ‘Cleggmania’ was a short and sharp spike in opinion polls that suggested a phase as opposed to consolidating opinion; which is one being demonstrated by the current downward trend. The graph displays a moving average of the polls since the start of the year.

For those who are now shouting at their screens about how there are “4 years until the next General Election”, well for a start there are the local elections coming up in 4 months meaning that the Liberal Democrats are going to struggle to hold onto Councils like Sheffield City and any Liberal-Conservative coalitions in local government are going to take a beating.

This is important for party morale, if candidates are worried about keeping their seat due to national unpopularity it will raise questions in their mind over whether staying with the Liberal Democrats is a good idea, whether Nick Clegg is a good leader or whether being in the coalition is doing them any favours.

Note also that after first set of cuts were announced, the Conservatives and Labour both improved in the polls whilst the Liberals dropped like a stone almost as fast as Cleggmania shot up. The difference being of course that after Cleggmania the upward trend did not continue whilst after “anti-cleggmania” the downward trend did.

So what if the economy recovers? Will the Lib Dems recover? It would be fairly logical to assume a slight recovery but the question on the economy will mostly fall down to the Conservatives. In the Lib Dems U-Turn after the election on the economy and the “taking the sting out of the conservative” rhetoric will do little to persuade the Lib Dem ‘achievements’ saved the economy. Indeed Conservatives may well argue that the Lib Dems may have made the economy recover at a slower rate than if it had been a Conservative majority.

So what can the Lib Dems do? It is difficult to suggest that the Liberal Democrats will reach pre-election levels by the next General Election without doing something truly impressive. The last time the Liberals reached this low a level in the polls it took 20 years and a party merger to truly recover. But then again, who knows what might happen!?

So where has the Lib Dem Support Gone?

When the coalition formed and started undergoing their austerity agenda I stated that the votes that the Liberal Democrats would lose would go to various parties, some would go to Labour but large chunks would go to Green/other Left Wing Groups.

How wrong I was, the overall swing has almost entirely gone to Labour; 59% of former Liberal Support has ultimately gone to Labour and 11% to the Conservatives. Indeed there has been almost no change in support for smaller parties. Whilst UKIP and the Green Party have very slightly improved their standings other parties like the SNP and BNP have dropped on a similar scale. However, if Lib Dem supports keeps falling at the same rate that it is the Liberals are likely lose their place as the 3^rd party to UKIP by the end of the year.

So, Nick Clegg? How is your pledge to double the number of Liberal Democrat seats going?

Ah...not well by the looks of it.