Tag Archives: Polls

How the left/right balance of Liberal Democrat voters has changed

By Mark Pack | Published 11th January 2012 - 10:25 am

It is common to use two political spectrums to sort out where people or parties sit ideologically: the left-right spectrum and the authoritarian-libertarian spectrum. The latter is important in explaining the politics of the coalition’s formation, as it was a defence of civil liberties against New Labour’s post-9/11 authoritarian streak that both saw senior figures in the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives often co-operating in Parliament and also carved out a large area of policy agreement between them.

Since the coalition’s formation, its importance has rapidly dropped. Some of the reasons are straightforwardly good ones – such as delivering on several of …

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Posted in News | Also tagged , | 30 Comments

LibLink: Mark Pack – The Graph May Be Boring; The Political Message Isn’t

By Nick Thornsby | Published 26th November 2011 - 1:58 pm

Over at the Huffington Post, the Voice’s Mark Pack has a post examining some interesting – and surprising – polling data, complete with a graph (don’t say Mark doesn’t spoil you).

Here’s Mark explaining what the graph shows:

It comes from polling carried out by MORI, asking the same question over the years: “How interested would you say you are in politics?” The graph shows how many people gave one of the two positive answers (“very” or “fairly”) – and so also shows how the public’s interest in politics has been pretty consistent, at a high level. (You can get the

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Posted in LibLink | Also tagged , | 5 Comments

Pollwatch – State of the parties (summer 2010): Reasons to keep calm and carry on

By Stephen Tall | Published 21st August 2010 - 5:57 pm

There have been a rather astonishing 36 opinion polls in the six weeks since LDV’s last polls round-up at the beginning of July. Thirty of those 36 originate from just one polling company, YouGov.

So let’s bring you up-to-date with July and August’s polls in chronological order of publication:

    Con 40, Lab 36, Lib Dem 16 (YouGov, 4-5 Jul)
    Con 41, Lab 36, Lib Dem 15 (YouGov, 5-6 Jul)
    Con 40, Lab 36, Lib Dem 17 (YouGov, 6-7 Jul)
    Con 42, Lab 35, Lib Dem 16 (YouGov, 7-8 Jul)
    Con 42, Lab 34, Lib Dem 17 (YouGov, 8-9 Jul)
    Con 42, Lab 35, Lib Dem

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Posted in Op-eds, Polls | Also tagged , , | 18 Comments

100 Days: the Coalition is still enjoying a honeymoon

By Stephen Tall | Published 18th August 2010 - 2:15 pm

Last month, YouGov’s Peter Kellner penned a rather premature post, which stated categorically: The honeymoon is over. I took him to task at the time, and stand by my view that the Coalition is still regarded generally favourably by a plurality of the public.

It’s been interesting, then, to read some of the barrage of opinion polling which has greeted the Coalition’s first 100 days. Perhaps most significant is this article in The Guardian – Coalition winning argument on economy – detailing ICM polling which shows 44% believe the coalition is doing a good job in securing economic …

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Posted in Op-eds, Polls | Also tagged , | 13 Comments

Huhne on Lib Dem poll ratings: “Frankly, it doesn’t worry me”

By Stephen Tall | Published 2nd August 2010 - 9:40 am

We’re into August, the dead political season, so doubtless we can expect plenty more media stories about the collapse of the Lib Dem vote, the imminent collapse of the Coalition, the collapse of Nick Clegg’s ratings etc, etc.

The latest miniplosion of noise has been sparked by YouGov’s latest poll, showing the Lib Dems polling 12% (compared to the Tories’ 42% and Labour’s 38%). For some, strange reason the papers seem much keener to report this poll finding than they were to report ICM’s 19% rating for the party a few days ago. We’ll be looking back fully on July’s polls …

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Posted in News | Also tagged | 80 Comments

Is the Coalition Government’s honeymoon really over?

By Stephen Tall | Published 27th July 2010 - 7:25 pm

Forget the Lib Dems’ current poll-ratings for a moment – though today’s 19% from ICM will have done a fair amount to repair nerves frayed by YouGov’s poorer recent scores – and let’s focus on the Coalition Government as a whole.

Last week, YouGov’s Peter Kellner stated categorically: The honeymoon is over. His logic was simple enough:

Over the past four weeks, the coalition’s approval rating has slipped slowly but remorselessly. Our latest figures report a net rating of plus four (approve 41%, disapprove 37%). In just over two months, the coalition’s rating has declined to levels that were not

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Posted in News, Op-eds, Polls | Also tagged , , , | 39 Comments

Poll of teachers puts Lib Dems in third place at 14%

By Stephen Tall | Published 16th January 2010 - 7:20 pm

Now LDV doesn’t, as our readers know, usually focus on individual opinion polls – but this one’s a little out of the ordinary, as it focuses on the voting intentions of teachers. The survey of nearly 4,000 teachers for the education charity the Sutton Trust by Ipsos MORI revealed the following voting intentions:

  • Labour 25%
  • Tories 18%
  • Lib Dems 14%

Here’s what the Independent had to say about the poll in relation to the Lib Dems:

Today’s poll showed the Liberal Democrats lagging behind the two main parties with just 14 per cent. Traditionally, third parties have done well in polls

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Posted in Polls | Also tagged | 16 Comments

Official: Lib Dems the winners in 2009 local by-elections

By Stephen Tall | Published 23rd December 2009 - 3:45 pm

There’s been a fair degree of criticism of the Lib Dems’ parliamentary by-election performances in the last couple of years: the 2006 ‘glory days’ of beating Labour in Dunfermline, and coming oh-so-close against the Tories in Bromley have seemed an increasingly distant memory. So, let’s celebrate an arena where the party is doing well: local government by-elections. And not merely doing well: in fact, doing better than the other two major parties.

(Hat-tips to John’s Liberal Revolution blog and to middle englander on the Vote 2007 website).

Here are the summary results of the 280 by-elections held during 2009:

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Posted in Local government, Polls | Also tagged , , | 2 Comments

Daily View: 14 December 2009

By Stephen Tall | Published 14th December 2009 - 9:30 am

Mornin’ all, welcome to Monday, and to the beginning of the last full working week before Christmas. What other things happened on this day in history, you ask? Well, 54 years ago, Hugh Gaitskell was elected leader of the Labour party, succeeding Clement Attlee, and six years ago Saddam Hussein was captured. But enough of the past, and on to the present …

2 Must-Read Blog-Posts

A couple of weeks ago, Iain Dale was casually dismissing the revelations that trustafarian Tory millionaire candidate Zac Goldsmith has been avoiding tax by registering for non-dom status: “lots of sanctimonious guff,” he told …

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Posted in Daily View | Also tagged , , , , | 7 Comments

Saint Vince, the canonisation continues …

By Stephen Tall | Published 16th September 2009 - 8:15 pm

Yesterday saw the launch of Vince Cable’s and the Lib Dems’ plans for tackling the fiscal crisis, widely praised by commentators (though perhaps less so in Wales).

Today it’s not just the Guardian which is singing Vince’s praises, the Economist’s Bagehot is also writing In praise of Vince:

The real winner of today’s fiscal tussle, however, was Vince Cable.

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Posted in News | Also tagged , , | 3 Comments