This one, in the FT, does have a quote from an MP:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7a84b1be-6d85-11dd-857b-0000779fd18c.html

However activists fear the strategy will damage their chances of repelling a resurgent Conservative party in Lib Dem heartlands in the south and south-west.

“Where we have made real gains against the Conservative party in the last 15 years we need to build and hold on.”

This is highly relevant – at least one of the seats we won in 1997 was only accorded “full target” status when the election was called.

That said, it seems to be common ground amongst all the sceptics of one tint or other here that we can expect to take significant numbers of Labour seats. Some parts of the Labour party are going to find that worrying. Good.

Well, we seem to be going round in circles.

All I can say is that I’ve set out in detail (8.26pm yesterday) why I think targetting 50 Labour seats is wildly over-optimistic.

It’s not really much of a response to say that it’s pessimistic because “the other posters disagree”, particularly as only two posters have commented on what I posted, and it’s not clear _whether_ either disagreed, still less why!

If your disagreement over the line taken by the leader is because you think the position is much less positive than being made out, then it’s “pessimistic” if the other posters disagree with you.

From what I gather, people seem to have the impression that you think every decision made by the party leadership is wrong; and that’s probably what’s behind the impression that you are overly “negative” as opposed to just disagreeing. It may be wrong, but that’s the way people work.

I was referring to the part where you said my “pessimistic” view “lends itself to the “Tory” allegations, and probably will do so in the future”.

But how is it a “pessimistic” view? What I did was to outline the most _optimistic_ scenario I could think of, and to calculate the number of Labour gains (28). And then I pointed out that in reality the scenario was likely to be less favourable – which on the whole you appeared to agree with.

It’s somewhat depressing to hear endless accusations of “negativity” and “pessimism”, when what is actually being expressed is disagreement with the line being taken by the party leader.

I don’t think my response was particularly negative (especially considering you had just said you weren’t surprised people were wondering whether I was a Tory in disguise!).

I said that if it would solve the problem I’d be happy to supply my membership details (which I did). But I asked how that would help, because there would be nothing to stop the whole thing happening again when someone else didn’t like what I was saying.

Obviously that was a reasonable thing to ask – because it has happened again, just over a week later!

But apparently my “approach” was – and still is – a problem. However, perhaps there are two sides to that problem, as so often …

There are ways of spotting if someone tries to take someone else’s name, such as the (computer) IP address used. (It’s a bit like if you are not sure whether a phone call is genuine and you check what phone number it came from).

As to not answering your question previously: your initial response to my offer to help if you wanted to demonstrate that you are a party member but to keep your anonymity was a rather negative one As you subsequently did get in touch to take up the suggestion (and before I’d had time to look at replying to your comment), I assumed that you’d either realised the answer or someone else had told you. My assumption, my mistake, though I think it is a shame that both in response to an offer of help and then this misunderstanding you have taken the approach you have.

Yes, that’s obvious.

I am certainly saying that we should target no more than 26 seats, beacuse that is the most seats that we would gain from Labour under the most favourable circumstances I can imagine. Doesn’t that make sense?

You ask what is less random about my figure than about Clegg’s. I had hoped that would be obvious. My figure is based on actually looking at the data, as detailed in the post you have just read.

On the basis of the current polls, our gains from Labour would be more like 6 than 26.

One point you are missing is that no one is standing with a gun to Nick Clegg’s head forcing him to predict the number of gains we will make from Labour. I thought it was now a truism in British politics that politicians avoided this kind of prediction – or (if they did name a figure) always gave an underestimate. Clegg seems to be going to the opposite extreme.

So there is obviously no need whatsoever to tear up our targetting plan and divert resources to dozens of unwinnable Labour seats, purely to save Nick Clegg the embarrassment of coming out with a less than inspiring headline. One might hope that that at least is the kind of problem the “great communicator” might be able to handle for himself!

My advice in 1997? Well, naturally, I would have looked at the state of the polls – I would have seen that the Tory vote was expected to fall drastically, and that we were in a close second place in a number of Tory seats, and I would have advised the party to target gains from the Tories.

Just as, right now, I would advise the party to target some gains from Labour, but not to pour money away targetting a wildly unreasonable number of them.

Oh – and I see you can’t resist another “secret Tory” gibe. I’ve done what you asked for – I’m posting under a pseudonym (which anyone else can copy, don’t forget). Do I really have to email Lib Dem Voice with my membership details again?

One man’s “most favourable possible spin” is another’s reality, and so I could say the same about your somewhat less favourable slant. Indeed, there are others who’ve pointed out your somewhat pessimistic view of much of what the Party does (which I think lends itself to the “Tory” allegations, and probably will do so in the future).

I’m struggling to understand here – you’re saying that we should target Labour seats, but fewer than 26? What’s really less random about that figure than 50?! (yes, I see that you want to make defending held seats a priority, but do you really think the party doesn’t?)

That would have made a fantastic headline wouldn’t it. “Clegg admits Lib Dems can only hope to gain handful of Labour seats”, “Lib Dems running scared of Tory resurgence” etc etc – as you (I think) point out from the Western Morning News story, we’re already getting that kind of nonsense. We’d have had it just the same if the message had been “let’s concentrate all our resources on saving held seats from the Tories”.

What would your advice have been in 1997?

And as I asked Mark Pack, how would that help, as anyone can post anything under any name on this site? Naturally, he never replied. (I’ve noticed he doesn’t tend to reply to awkward questions.)

But from now on, I’ll post as “Clegg’s Candid Friend”. I don’t pretend there’s no irony about that “moniker”, but at any rate we’ll see if it stops the incessant “You’re a secret Tory” nonsense. My firm prediction is that it won’t.

As you’re broadly agreeing with much of what I said – though trying to put the most favourable possible spin on it – I won’t comment on that part of your message.

But as far as this goes:
“You seem to be arguing that we should just aim to defend our held seats.”

No, that is not what I am arguing. I have said that it is sensible to target Labour seats that are vulnerable to us (and vice versa). Though, in the current climate, defending the seats we hold should obviously be the top priority.

What I am arguing is that it is nonsensical to pluck a figure of _50_ target seats out of the air, and to divert resources towards that many seats. That is far more seats than we can realistically hope to win on the current evidence we have.

If we are really diverting significant resources to Labour target seats 26-50 (for example), then we are going to end up losing more seats to the Tories than necessary.

@ Anon –

“What will happen in reality? I think in fact (1) the Tories will overtake us in quite a few of the seats where we were previously second to Labour,”

[Well yes, the Tory vote will increase, and I'm sure that in some places it will displace us from second to third. But surely 1997 is the nearest parallel, and that actually saw our seats almost double - even though our national share of the vote dropped from 1992, down to around circa 16%.

"(2) Labour’s poll rating is going to be higher than 26% two years from now,"

[Again, undoubtably. But this is also going to mean that the Tory poll ratings aren't going to look quite so rosy.]

“(3) other things being equal, many of those who voted Lib Dem to protest against the Iraq war in 2005 will return to Labour,”

[Indeed, some will but Labour are also a fair amount less popular than they were in 2005. Many of those protest votes from 2005 still won't be cast for Labour in 2010. Whether they are cast for us, is another thing.]

“and (4) some of those who desert Labour will go straight across to the Tories, because the national picture will be one of a “two-horse race”.”

[The national picture is always of a "two-horse race". Let's not pretend otherwise. Some Lab will go straight to Con. It was always going to, just like some Con went straight to Lab pre-1997. What we as a party have to do, is to defend the defensible against a stronger Conservative party than we're used to in recent years, hoping that our MPs have managed to dig in, to make up for our lack of resources in comparison. But we also have to accept that we will lose some seats to the Conservatives. As a party we have to decide where we can make up that difference, which is probably against the nearest Labour targets - so that we end up with at least a comparable number of MPs (hopefully more).

You seem to be arguing that we should just aim to defend our held seats. As a strategy, I do actually think the leadership's position is more realistic. We will lose some seats to the Conservatives no matter how well we defend. But to stem that, we need to take some seats from the Party that's currently weak.]

Oh, not again!

I’ve been a member of the party for 20 years. It’s only a week since I was last faced with this “Tory in disguise” nonsense. Mark Pack offered to verify my membership details (which I duly supplied) then. But I asked at the time “Do we have to go through this every time someone disagrees with something I say?” Apparently the answer is “Yes”.

Do you really not understand that at least some people in the party think that this policy of diverting resources into 50 Labour “targets” could be a disastrous mistake?

So, please, argue the facts if you disagree. Don’t call me a Tory, just because you disagree with what I’m saying – as someone who’s given up a hell of a lot of his time over the last two decades to fight the Tories, that is _incredibly_ insulting!

Or if it’s really no longer acceptable for party members to disagree with the line coming from the leadership – if that really merits personal vilification of this kind – just say the word. For all my faults, I’m not a man to outstay my welcome.

But I’ll say two things:

1. There is little evidence that even with big rises in Tory poll ratings they are making much (or any) headway on the ground in Lib Dem held seats.

2. Being the party that can take the fight to Labour in areas that the offical opposition can’t helps to define the Lib Dems as an anti-Labour party, which in turn helps to stop the Tories winning seats from us on an anti-Labour tide.

OK. Let’s be wildly optimistic. We’ll include all the seats where we were the “nearest placed” challengers last time – even the ones where the Tories were only a few percent behind us. We’ll assume Labour’s poll rating in 2010 is every bit as bad as its rating now – down about 9 points. We’ll forget about the absence of the Iraq factor, which gave us such a boost in Labour seats last time. We’ll even forget about the fact that we’re down in the polls ourselves – so we’ll assume that the whole of that 9-point drop in Labour support comes straight across to us, producing a 9% swing.

How many seats would we gain, under those wildly optimistic assumptions? I make it 28 seats. Little more than half the number we’re going to direct resources into.

What will happen in reality? I think in fact (1) the Tories will overtake us in quite a few of the seats where we were previously second to Labour, (2) Labour’s poll rating is going to be higher than 26% two years from now, (3) other things being equal, many of those who voted Lib Dem to protest against the Iraq war in 2005 will return to Labour, and (4) some of those who desert Labour will go straight across to the Tories, because the national picture will be one of a “two-horse race”.

I said before that I thought 20 gains from Labour would be an outstandingly good result for us. I see no reason to alter that view.

Not as an absolute rule, perhaps.

But against the background of the Tories being more than 10% up in the polls compared to last time, and us being more than 5% down, it’s pretty clear that we won’t be seen as the natural challengers in Labour seats where we got less votes than the Tories in 2005.

Labour are probably going to lose the next election big-time. We are possibly going to lose around 10-15 seats to the Tories in the south. I don’t want that to happen, I’m not arguing for that, but simple that the electoral and opinion polling data means it’s very likely.

Now, when Labour is suffering a big swing against it nationally, the public are more than likely going to vote for the nearest placed challengers to Labour in the seats they are in. So the idea that we are going to challenge Labour in 50-odd seats is not stupid, it’s very smart politics.

At least one of our gains last time (Leeds NW) was from third so I don’t think it’s true to say 3rd place = not the challengers.