Big lead for Labour according to ICM

First, the Guardian’s monthly ICM poll is out, showing the biggest Labour lead in almost a decade:

Labour 41% (+3%)
Conservatives 29% (-4%)
Lib Dems 13% (-2%)
Ukip 9% (+3%)
Others 8% (+1%)

The movements are more or less within the margin of error. Still, the Tories will be pretty disappointed to see the party get no bounce at all from David Cameron’s promise of a post-2015 EU referendum. Perhaps unsurprisingly it looks like the more the Tories bang on endlessly about the subject the more they help Nigel Farage. Couple that with the party’s determination to tear itself apart on issues like single-sex marriage and defeat in 2015 appears almost certain.

… But the 2015 election isn’t in the bag yet

And yet, and yet… the ICM poll has a sting in the tail for Labour, too. Asked to choose the single most important reason for the new economic downturn during the last quarter of 2012, here’s what voters say:

29% – Debts which the last Labour government racked up to finance unsustainable spending
16% – Chill economic winds blowing in from the troubled Eurozone
21% – Banks refusing to provide loans to firms that they need to invest in their businesses
23% – The sharp cuts in public expenditure being introduced by the coalition government

Growth may be at standstill (at best) but Gordon Brown is still getting the blame from a plurality of voters rather than George Osborne. If the economy grows even sluggishly over the next couple of years chances are it’s going to be Labour which has to defend its economic record in 2015, not the Tories or Lib Dems.

So Labour’s poll lead, whopping as the headlines might lead us to believe, could turn out to be very soft indeed if there’s any sort of viable economic recovery in place. That’s potentially good news for the Tories; but at least as likely for the Lib Dems since most of Labour’s extra votes since 2010 have come at our expense.

And a significant number of Labour supporters will still vote tactically for the Lib Dems

And here’s where the the third interesting poll finding today comes into play. YouGov’s Peter Kellner today published his assessment of the forthcoming Eastleigh by-election, which included the results of a question which put voters in precisely the dilemma that exists in those seats where it’s a Lib Dem / Tory face-off.

Imagine that political commentators and opinion polls were saying that only the CONSERVATIVE and LIBERAL DEMOCRAT parties had realistic chances of winning the by-election in your seat – how would you then vote?

What this table shows is that Labour supporters are still willing to vote tactically in favour of the Lib Dems where there’s a straight contest between us and the Tories. Sure, the proportion of switchers is unsurprisingly fewer than in the past. But it’s still significant. And it’s worth noting that this is a nationally representative sample, not a sample of voters who’ve been exposed to years of Lib Dem activity at a local level (as, say, in Eastleigh) where you would expect the number of potential switchers to be much higher.

Kellner’s conclusion?

… all else being equal, the by-election is for the Lib Dems to lose. They have a strong local party and an excellent record in recent local elections in the area. Our figures suggest that they should be able to squeeze Labour’s support to some extent. The Tories will hope to match this by squeezing UKIP support; but they may be disappointed. Past by-elections in the current parliament have shown that UKIP is able to win impressive numbers of votes even when they have had no realistic chance of winning the seat. Our poll also shows UKIP’s vote holding up in a Con-Lib Dem battle. To win Eastleigh, then, the Conservatives must overcome a number of handicaps. But if they do, Nick Clegg could be in trouble. … On the other hand, a Lib Dem victory would suggest that the party is able to defy national trends in the seats they are defending.

* Stephen Tall is Co-Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice, a Research Associate for the liberal think-tank CentreForum, and also writes at his own site, The Collected Stephen Tall.

Would you support or oppose changing the law to allow same-sex couples to marry?
Support: 55%
Oppose: 36%

Amongst Conservative voters the results are 44% – 49% (which is a statistical dead heat, when you remember to factor in the  margin of error).

Interestingly, the majority support comes despite the lead-up to the question being a tadge inaccurate:

Since 2005 same-sex couples have been able to enter into civil partnerships. While civil partnerships offer the same legal rights as marriage, same-sex couples are not able to marry.

In fact, the legal rights aren’t the same, for example for some pension rights, so if anything that preliminary wording is likely to have depressed the true ‘support’ figure. (I’ve had a brief discussion with the pollster about this and they think it is very unlikely to have much of an impact. I’m not quite so sure, but either way we can be sure that the wording isn’t inflating the figure.)

UPDATE: YouGov has since tested varying the word to cover the above point, and there was no statistically significant difference as a result.

* Mark Pack has written 101 Ways To Win An Election and produces a monthly newsletter about the Liberal Democrats.

In July this year, YouGov asked this question: ‘Imagine the British government under David Cameron renegotiated our relationship with Europe and said that Britain’s interests were now protected, and David Cameron recommended that Britain remain a member of the European Union on the new terms. How would you then vote in a referendum on the issue?’…

42% say they would vote to stay in, while 34% would vote to leave.

Tory voters swing right round, from 58-29% for leaving the EU when we ask the conventional in-out referendum question [without Cameron's endorsement for a 'yes' vote], to 55-34% for staying in, if that is what the Prime Minister recommends.

The degree to which Conservative voters can sway a referendum result if they get a strong steer from their party’s leadership mirrors the experience of the AV referendum campaign. When Cameron started campaigning strongly for a no vote in that referendum, Conservative supporters switched in large numbers and the overall figures moved sharply as a result.

* Mark Pack has written 101 Ways To Win An Election and produces a monthly newsletter about the Liberal Democrats.

It won’t surprise anyone to learn that Vince Cable performs better than Nick Clegg in all the measures of leadership qualities asked about. (You can see the results in the graph at the foot of this piece.) This leads Tim to conclude: ‘If the Liberal Democrats are looking for a leader who can increase their electoral competitiveness these are powerful numbers.’

Call me Mr Cynic, but I always take advice from those who work tirelessly in the Tory cause, such as Tim, with a smidgeon of salt. If Tim Montgomerie is urging Lib Dems to look for a leader like Vince the first question we Lib Dems should ask ourselves is ‘Why?’.

It’s not (obviously) because Tim has our best interests at heart. It’s because he thinks the Tories will profit, a view based on a wrong-headed assumption that Vince is basically a bit of a leftie. He’s not. It’s simply that his aim of promoting genuine economic competition doesn’t align with most Tories’ belief that he should give big business exactly what it wants.

But in the Tory world-view the Lib Dems having a ‘leftie leader’ might allow the Tories the chance to grab back the moderate voters they’re otherwise likely to lose as Cameron is dragged further to the right by his party.

What stands out for me from the ConservativeHome poll is this: the close correlation between Nick Clegg’s standing and the Lib Dems as a whole. Of the five qualities asked about, Nick marginally outpolls the party on three (making tough decisions, competent and effective, provides strong leadership), and trails on two (caring about vulnerable, understanding ordinary voters’ concerns). The ‘replace Nick with Vince’ lobby’s argument hinges on the assumption that Brand Vince would boost Brand Lib Dem.

Maybe. But it is also quite likely that Brand Vince wouldn’t survive intact actually having to lead the party. This is where what I’ve termed the ‘Alex Wilcock Realpolitik’ argument comes into play. Here’s how Alex described the leadership choice for the party last month:

I’m prepared to listen to the case for Nick staying or going in a couple of years’ time. But to suggest that a new Leader would stay shiny from now until the General Election and not rapidly become covered in as many layers of excrement as the current Leader has seems to me to be beyond delusional. If the coalition has broken Nick’s Leadership, the time to judge is close to the end of it, when a potential new Leader would be relatively untainted.

As for my own view on Vince Cable as leader, well I refer you to the answer I gave a couple of months ago over at Huffington Post:

Would he be a successful Lib Dem leader? I’m unconvinced. Though he has that rare ability to speak to the full spectrum of Lib Dems – an Orange Book liberal who prefers the label ‘social democrat’ – he has a habit of springing surprise announcements on the party, from his hasty welcome of the Browne Report’s fee-hiking recommendations to his proposal for a ‘mansion tax’ launched without any consultation at the party’s 2009 conference. It’s the kind of behaviour more forgiven if you’re not leader.

* Stephen Tall is Co-Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice, a Research Associate for the liberal think-tank CentreForum, and also writes at his own site, The Collected Stephen Tall.

So what does the public think of the Lib Dems’ and Conservatives’ role in the Coalition: how far do they think the parties have stuck to their respective sides of the deal? Well, YouGov has asked the question, and here are the results:

Three specific points to note:

1) By 45%-30% voters are more likely to believe the Lib Dems have kept to their side of the deal than that the Tories have. (It’s quite another matter, of course, whether voters agree with what’s being done.)

2) A majority – 51% – of the public says the Tories have failed to stick to their Coalition Agreement promises. Just 32% of voters think the Lib Dems have reneged.

3) Even among Tory voters, by 44%-36% they are more likely than not to think the Lib Dems have stuck to the party’s side of the deal.

I realise there are many people – Lib Dem (ex-)voters and others – who will say that this shows the problem: the naive Lib Dems have stuck to their promises while the ruthless Tories have happily shed theirs when they don’t suit. I don’t (perhaps unsurprisingly) buy that explanation. But that Tory MPs’ first major breach of Coalition faith, on Lords reform, has earned a Cameron capitulation will likely embolden the right-wing to push further, to see what else they can get away with. And just as the results of their rebellion on Lords reform is to make a Tory majority at the next election less likely, so will further such attempts. Maybe it’s time Tory MPs started thinking through not only the consequences of their actions, but also what the public will think of them?

* Stephen Tall is Co-Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice, a Research Associate for the liberal think-tank CentreForum, and also writes at his own site, The Collected Stephen Tall.

Lib Dem voters LEAST LIKELY to think Britain is best at cricket, MOST LIKELY to think we’re best at cycling

This may simply be a reflection that ‘Britain’ does not play cricket. Or perhaps just a subjective viewpoint: after all, England is currently ranked the best test cricket team in the world (though fourth in one-day internationals); while the poll took place towards the closing stages of the Tour de France with the British Team Sky cyclists dominating. In the circs, how do you judge which Britain is ‘better’ at?

Lib Dem voters are THREE TIMES more likely to walk to work than Labour or Tory voters

I imagine there are demographic and/or geographical explanations for this…?

Lib Dem voters MOST LIKELY to think it’s wrong to ask a tradesman for a discount if you pay ‘cash in hand’

Intriguingly, there’s a pretty slim difference between the two questions yet quite a big difference in responses.

The first question explicitly makes it clear that both the customer and the tradesman will benefit from illegally dodging tax, yet more than one-quarter of voters for all three main parties say there is nothing wrong with this. The second question implicitly makes it clear there will be tax-dodging (unless anyone seriously thinks the discount is equivalent only to the transaction cost-saving), yet more than half of all voters don’t think this is wrong. Lib Dems are significantly more likely than either Labour or Tory voters to believe in sticking strictly to the tax rules.

It seems public outrage against tax dodging is more a question of scale than morality: it’s wrong if millionaires like Jimmy Carr or Take That do it, but fair dinkum for the rest of us.

(All data from YouGov’s poll for 12-13 July 2012 and 26-27 July 2012.)

* Stephen Tall is Co-Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice, a Research Associate for the liberal think-tank CentreForum, and also writes at his own site, The Collected Stephen Tall.

For instance, a common answer I get when I ask fellow Lib Dems how many points they think we lost post tuition fees is “about 8%”.

What I want to do here is not to discuss the pros and cons of the 2010 Higher Education Act, but simply to lay to rest this lazy assumption and to reassert objective reality. Because the fact is that our poll numbers had fallen to the 10/11% level we’re used to now weeks before the Browne report had even landed, never mind the arrival of the protests and the unfortunate Millbank Tower incident.

For the purposes of making this simple, I’ll stick to YouGov polls as they have been the most consistent as well as being done semi-daily.

The Browne Report which formed the basis for most of the more controversial elements of the eventual Bill was published on October 12^th, 2010. Some polling from around that day: October 1^st, we polled 11%. October 5^th, 11%. On the 12^th itself: 11%.

But the tuition fees didn’t become a national story until after the protests of November 10^th. Our poll rating that day? 11%. Give the whole thing a week to set in. Our poll rating on the 18^th? 11%. Obviously there were variations day to day, but not much.

Going back further in time, the end of August is where our poll numbers really started to tumble. August 31^st saw our lowest yet poll rating with YouGov since the general election (and our first of many 11% ratings); we got a slight bump from Autumn 2010 conference, seeing a few 13 and 14% ratings, but after that we were back to 10-11-12% being the norm, a situation that has persisted to this day (with admittedly, 8-9-10% now being a more realistic assessment of what we get most days, but this is a minor variation).

Why is any of this relevant? I think it’s important when looking towards 2015 to realistically assess the whys and whens of our polling numbers.

And the truth is, by the time tuition fees came round we had already lost the support of many of the groups of people who had voted Lib Dem in 2010, most notably students and left leaning people under 25. In other words, those who had started answering “Labour” when asked who they would vote for at the next general election who had voted for us last time round had already left anyway, tuition fees or not, simply because we joined a coalition with the Tories. It just took a little time for that to take effect.

* Nick Tyrone is a Liberal Democrat writer. He blogs at nicktyrone.wordpress.com and works as Senior Adviser for Public Affairs at the Electoral Reform Society.

When Theresa May dismissed the advice of the chair of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, Lib Dems were silent. When Ken Clarke said the War on Drugs was failing but that decriminalisation wasn’t the answer… Lib Dems were silent. When an audience member of question time last week asked if it was time to control, regulate and tax drugs Ed Davey ignored Liberal Democrat policy and totally misrepresented the questioner’s suggestion.

It has been a hugely frustrating couple of weeks for me as the lead author of the motion we passed last year. I have long felt that communicating this policy to voters would enthuse many more than it would frighten, but I have heard not a peep from the representatives I tried to spur into action.

Finally yesterday we were provided with the evidence that backs up that assertion. A YouGov poll for The Sun has demonstrated widespread support for a government review of drug policy options and even strong evidence that a party calling for such a review might receive a significant poll boost.

One of the questions looked like a direct challenge of Liberal Democrat policy:

“Would you support or oppose a government review of drug policy options, to include the current system of criminalisation, a Portuguese style decriminalisation or full legalisation?”

And our policy came through with flying colours. 58% would support a review, 21% strongly. Only 22% would oppose with only 9% strongly opposed. 59% of those who plan to vote Tory would support a review, with only 22% against.

We have a truly popular drug policy.

The poll then asked how such a policy would affect voting intention:

“Would you be more or less likely to support a political party if it promised to review alternatives to criminalisation, including legalisation and regulation and decriminalisation?”

34% of Labour supporters would be more likely to vote for a party with this policy (the Liberal Democrats), as would 23% of Tories. Only 11% of Lib Dems would be less likely to vote for (us) while 50% would be more likely!

The results are well worth examining and are available here on page 8. The results on page 7 are also interesting.

Can we please now start telling the voters about this policy and make a concerted effort to get a drug policy review onto the government agenda? By the evidence of this poll the party taking the first step will be rewarded and we really don’t want to miss out.

The brave members who spoke in the debate from personal experience of addiction, domestic violence and heartbreaking loss have been disappointed for too long. Courage is not the issue any longer. Taking action is now a simple matter of political wisdom coupled with a principled determination to find a better way.

* Ewan Hoyle is the founder of Liberal Democrats for Drug Policy Reform and member of the Scottish Liberal Democrat policy committee.

Peter Kellner takes as his starting point his personal admiration for Nick Clegg as Deputy Prime Minister:

Faced with the awkward arithmetic of the last general election result, he has ensured that Britain could navigate the world’s financial storm with a stable government. Despite his MPs being outnumbered by Tory MPs by more than five-to-one, he has secured some important policy victories, such as raising millions of low-paid people out of tax. Yes, he messed up over student fees; but his mistake was not so much supporting their increase in government: it was his bonkers pre-election pledge to abolish them. He must have entered coalition knowing that many Lib Dem voters would peel away: but, bravely and unusually for a major politician, he has put country before party.

However… he then sets out the polling data, as measured by YouGov. Even if we think it’s on the Cassandra-side of pessimistic it’s still not happy reading: the party is polling on single digits level-pegging with UKIP, our 2010 voters now would prefer a Labour-led government after the next election, and Nick Clegg is unpopular even with one-third of those ‘die-hard’ supporters who remain. Ouch.

What are his remedies for the Lib Dems?

First, jettison the Coalition’s proposed boundary changes.

It’s always worth reminding ourselves what we Lib Dems committed to in the Coalition Agreement:

We will bring forward a Referendum Bill on electoral reform, which includes provision for the introduction of the Alternative Vote in the event of a positive result in the referendum, as well as for the creation of fewer and more equal sized constituencies.

Nick himself went on the record in support of equalising constituencies in August 2010, highlighting the unfairness that the votes of 87,000 voters in the East Ham constituency are worth less than the 66,000 voters living 10 miles away in Islington North.

A lot’s changed since then, of course, including the AV referendum being lost, meaning the Lib Dems are now much more exposed to a significant drop in popular support. As a result, the party’s 2015 general election campaign is likely to be largely defensive — back in March, PoliticsHome reported that party president Tim Farron ‘is thought to favour a “multiple by-election” strategy for election day’. However, such a strategy would largely be predicated on the Lib Dems’ traditional incumbency boost which comes from our MPs being deeply embedded within their constituencies, with high name recognition and established activist networks. Disrupted constituency boundaries threaten even that defensive stance.

At its most apocalyptic, the next election has the potential to become a ‘perfect storm’ for the Lib Dems: a first-past-the-post election fought against the backdrop of having been part of an unpopular government at a time of massive economic fragility on new and enlarged constituencies.

Though the Lib Dems have long campaigned for a reduced number of MPs in the House of Commons, this was always as part of a package of electoral reform measures which included the introduction of proportional representation. Taken on its own, it is the re-drawing of constituency boundaries which Peter Kellner states — and I also believe — is likely to be the biggest threat to the Lib Dems’ continuing sizeable representation in the Commons after 2015.

What are the politics of this?

Well, there are plenty of Tory MPs also unhappy at the proposed boundary changes, both on principled and similarly self-interested grounds. At one time the thought of reducing the number of Labour MPs in Scotland and Wales attracted Tories, but it’s quite another matter now individual MPs are facing a form of electoral musical chairs with a diminished number of seats to occupy when the Coalition music stops. Nonetheless, it’s hard to see Tory high command simply agreeing to drop the proposed boundary changes without a quid pro quo from the Lib Dems — which brings us full circle to House of Lords reform.

Secondly, the Lib Dems should also jettison Nick Clegg before the next election, says Peter Kellner:

I don’t think pulling out of the coalition in advance will be enough. If they fight the next election with Clegg as their leader, I can’t see many anti-Tories who voted Lib Dem last time returning to the fold. They will need a new leader whom voters regard as more even-handed. That is why, for all my admiration of Nick Clegg, I suspect that his future beyond 2015 will lie outside government, outside the Lib Dem leadership and very possibly outside British politics altogether.

It’s a view shared, according to our most recent survey, by some 34% of Lib Dem members. It’s not one I agree with for the reasons I set out then:

First, because I think that one of the commonly held criticisms of the Lib Dems is we’re “a bit flaky”, nice guys who are out of our depth when it comes to the serious rough-and-tumble of grown-up politics, that we’ll run at the first sniff of unpopularity. Defenestrating another leader — the first one in 80 years to lead the party into government — would be taken as a further sign that Lib Dems can’t stand the heat in the kitchen. … Secondly, I don’t think it makes sense because it assumes Nick’s successor would prove more popular. However, as I’ve pointed out before it’s not Nick Clegg who’s the current problem for the Lib Dems: it’s that the economy is in dire shape, the government is unpopular, and our party is identified with both those drags. I don’t see that situation changing just because the face at the top does. In fact, though Nick’s currently the least popular party leader, he is also the only leader to out-poll his own party’s standing in the polls.

Whatever my view, though, this isn’t a debate which is going to disappear by being wished away.

* Stephen Tall is Co-Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice, a Research Associate for the liberal think-tank CentreForum, and also writes at his own site, The Collected Stephen Tall.

Since the coalition’s formation, its importance has rapidly dropped. Some of the reasons are straightforwardly good ones – such as delivering on several of the major civil liberties promises, including scrapping ID cards. However, it is also the case that due to the dominance of the economy as an issue, civil liberties have slipped back down the political agenda. That leaves the left-right spectrum more important once again.

It is also the spectrum that was asked about in the YouGov polling into former and current Liberal Democrat voters, about which my Co-Editor Stephen Tall blogged last week and which includes a large number of people who said at the time that they were voting Lib Dem in May 2010 and have been polled again late last year, allowing comparisons to be made over time about this group.

People were asked to place themselves on a spectrum from 0 (left) to 10 (right) and for the following I have grouped people into left (0-3), centre (4-6) and right (7-10). What they show amongst Liberal Democrat voters is a shift to the centre:

Lib Dem voters in May 2010: 26% left, 47% centre, 7% right
Lib Dem voters in  Nov 2011: 16% left, 66% centre, 6% right

That drop in self-identifying left-wing voters is primarily explained by the loss of tactical voters. Of the people who said their prime reason for voting for the party in May 2010 was tactical voting, only 10% have remained Liberal Democrat supporters. Amongst those tactical voters, 34% put themselves on the left (and only 8% on the right, which matches up with the failure to squeeze further the Conservative vote in a range of key seats in the last general election).

As I talked about in my email newsletter write-up of the poll findings, a key group for the party to appeal to is the large number of people who have switched from being Liberal Democrat to ‘don’t know’. (The existence of this sizeable group also explains the systermatic differences in results from different pollsters, because the way in which such don’t knows are treated is one of the major differences in their methodologies. YouGov’s methodology treats these don’t knows more harshly than ICM’s from a Lib Dem perspective, for example.)

This group, unlike the ex-tactical voters, is predominantly of the centre:

People who voted Lib Dem tactically in 2010: 34% left, 42% centre, 8% right
Ex-Lib Dems, who are now ‘don’t know’: 8% left, 48% centre, 2% right (and a huge 42% also said ‘don’t know’ to their place on left/right spectrum)

That makes for two different groups the party needs to appeal to: those who see themselves in the political centre (or don’t know where they are on the political spectrum), have been Lib Dem in the past but now don’t know who to support, and those on the centre and left who were not won over by policy promises or by Nick Clegg, but rather by bar charts and the like.

The size of this group shows why a skillful use of the tactical voting message has been so important to the party in the past (and yes, skillful means rather more than simply sticking a badly designed bar chart on a few leaflets and thinking that’s it). Even the most skilful of tactical voting campaigns is unlikely on its own to be sufficient to appeal to these people. A more sophisticated approach that marries up tactical voting with national policy achievements is needed – because the way to appeal to such tactical voters at the moment is to persuade them that a Conservative/Lib Dem coalition is better than a pure Conservative government.

* For full details of the polling dates, sample size and so on, see here and you can sign up to my monthly email newsletter about the Liberal Democrats here.

* Mark Pack has written 101 Ways To Win An Election and produces a monthly newsletter about the Liberal Democrats.

One is the similarity in many of the findings between YouGov’s poll and the Liberal Democrat Voice surveys of party members, a similarity which we’ve found before. That’s good news – and reassuring too, given how often our surveys are now quoted by the media as being ‘what Lib Dems think’.

The other is that it means the YouGov poll mirrors both our own findings and my own experience talking to Lib Dem members in many different parties – and that is the popularity of Vince Cable. If you’ve been asleep or incommunicado for the last nine months you might wonder why I’d comment on Vince’s popularity – because after all, he’s Vince, isn’t he?

But in that intervening period there was the matter of tuition fees.

And it’s not as if that’s an issue that is over, done and forgotten.

Nor is it an issue that Vince was absent from. Far from it, he was at the centre of it in Parliament, in the media and in the party.

Yet the YouGov poll gave him a net +57% score on how well/badly members think he’s doing and the last Lib Dem Voice survey gave him a net +51% on how effective/ineffective members think he is.

It’s arguable that members could rate him as effective whilst still disagreeing with what he’s doing, but his score on that measure did plummet during the height of the tuition fees debates before then recovering – whilst of course YouGov’s wording is different.

Hence the question: why is Vince so popular with Liberal Democrat members? The comments thread awaits you…

That does, of course, leave the question of whether coalition or a minority Tory government would be preferable. A minority Tory government, with Liberal Democrats providing support on “confidence and supply”, certainly sounds tempting to some in the party. (Though given that the “supply” part of the phrase is voting with a minority government on the big financial votes, it’s worth remembering that would have meant voting for George Osborne’s financial measures.)

But what do the voters think?

Courtesy of polling carried out last Thursday and Friday by YouGov we have some pretty up to date evidence (with all the usual caveats about one poll etc, but as you’ll see the margins are pretty hefty).

The poll shows that current Liberal Democrat voters think the party should stay in coalition, but express its differences with the Tories more often (with my bolding in the questions):

Do you believe the Liberal Democrats should now distance themselves from the Tories?
No, they should remain in the coalition and continue to make the compromises necessary for the coalition to work: 36%
Yes, they should remain in the coalition but refuse to back policies they oppose: 48%
Yes, they should leave the coalition altogether: 9%

Less than one in ten Lib Dem voters saying the party should leave the coalition is a clear message. But, you may ask, that’s current Lib Dem voters – what about those who used to be Liberal Democrats? That’s a fair question as the YouGov poll put the party on 10%.

However, the poll also records results from people who were recorded by YouGov last May as having voted Lib Dem, both those who are still Lib Dem and those who are no longer Lib Dem. Their views collectively are not that different:

Do you believe the Liberal Democrats should now distance themselves from the Tories?
No, they should remain in the coalition and continue to make the compromises necessary for the coalition to work: 23%
Yes, they should remain in the coalition but refuse to back policies they oppose: 48%
Yes, they should leave the coalition altogether: 21%

So when you look at the views of people who voted Liberal Democrat last May, 71% still think the party should remain in coalition. The idea that leaving the coalition would somehow win back the support lost since last year isn’t supported by this evidence. In amongst the 21% are certainly some very vocal voices, but they are the 21% not the 71%.

What the figures show is that many Liberal Democrats – both currently and the 2010 voters – want the party to distance itself from the Tories, but by a massive majority wants to stay in the coalition.

One of YouGov’s post-Royal Wedding questions was about Royal primogeniture and found overwhelming backing for the change:

Currently male children of the monarch take precedence over female children in terms of the succession. Do you think men and women should be treated equally in the line of succession to the throne?

Should 76%
Should not 14%
Don’t know 10%

A slightly different question last year found 70% backing the proposed reform.

There was also support, if not as strong, for removing the bar on Catholics from the monarchy (43%-36% with 21% don’t knows).

If there were local council elections in your area on May 5th, how likely would you be to vote in them, where 0 means you will definitely not vote, and 10 means you definitely will vote?

10 – will definitely vote: 52%

This poll is not unusual in showing more people saying they will certainly vote than seems credible – and polls before previous elections (i.e. where we know the actual subsequent turnout) have often shown the number of people saying they’re certain to vote exceed the number who do. Where research has compared such results against the marked register, there is a relationship – the more likely people are to say they will vote, the more likely they actually are to vote, but even so a fair number of those “certain” to vote in reality aren’t.

This poll, by the way, was an online survey so the possible peer pressure from talking to a fellow human being and giving the answer you feel you should does not apply.

An ICM poll has found the Yes camp leading by 35% – 22% (with the balance don’t know or wouldn’t vote), which compares to a 35% – 41% deficit on the latest YouGov poll.

However, there is an important difference between the wording of the two polling questions, with YouGov’s question starting, “The Conservative-Liberal Democrat government are committed to holding a referendum…” whilst ICM has no mention of the Conservatives in its question which begins “A referendum is due to be held…”. Though there are also other differences in the wording, this looks to be the most important difference.

Meanwhile, there was good news for the Yes campaign yesterday with a wide cross-section of notable Labour Party figures signing a letter to the Guardian, including Alan Johnson, Ken Livingstone, Jon Cruddas and both Glenys and Neil Kinnock:

Next year we have the opportunity to vote for a fairer voting system – one in which everyone’s vote counts and every MP is required to get the backing of a majority of voters. It means that every Labour party member and supporter, in every seat in the country, can cast their vote for Labour and then mark any other preferences, knowing their vote won’t be wasted.

First past the post isn’t working. When just a few thousand people determine every election result in a few swing seats, the interests of the Labour party and the people we represent go unheard. The alternative vote means the majority get their voices heard; it will shut the door on extremist parties like the BNP.

You can read the full letter and see the signatories here. Thought not listed as a signatory, Ed Miliband earlier in the week also indicated his own support, confirming his earlier similar comments:

Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, will tomorrow join eight other shadow cabinet members in backing the Labour Campaign for the Alternative Vote, brushing aside concerns that support for AV would be seen as a distraction from Labour’s declared main task in May of doing well in the Scottish, Welsh and English local elections…

Miliband’s decision to put his name to the AV campaign is a sign of his willingness to combat the big Labour beasts who have come out against changing the voting system, including Lord Reid, David Blunkett and Margaret Beckett. (The Guardian)

UPDATE: For some further analysis of more recent polling since this post was written, see Anthony Wells’s post.

The Market Research Society Code of Conduct (to which YouGov subscribes, along with other British political pollsters), states that “researchers shall be … honest” and “researchers shall protect the reputation and integrity of the profession”. However, when clearing YouGov of all complaints from other people on a wide range of matters, the MRSB also cleared it of a complaint I had lodged over the use of a polling question which falsely stated that Nick Clegg has taken money from “a criminal on the run”. This is untrue (though the party under a previous leader, Charles Kennedy, did take money from someone who subsequently was convicted of fraud and went on the run).

As a general principle, the MRSB ruled that it was ethical to ask a question about false allegations which had been publicly aired prior to the poll in order to see what the impact of those allegations was on public opinion. Many people are likely to see such actions as contrary to protecting “the reputation and integrity of the profession”, but such polling can at least be defended on the grounds that it is researching what the impact is of something already in the public domain.

However, not only did the MRSB not attempt to draw any limits around the circumstances in which such polling of false allegations is acceptable (e.g., by saying that only those affected by those allegations can poll to see their impact but not opponents whose interest may be to try to exploit the false claims), the MRSB also in practice further decided that the false allegations need not previously have been made in public at all.

That is because the MRSB ruled YouGov’s polling acceptable on the basis that, “All the statements has [sic] appeared in the media prior to the project. (The “criminal on the run” claim had been made by Mr Cameron during the first leaders’ debate on 15 April 2010)”.

Yet the transcript of the first debate shows that David Cameron’s statement in the first debate was in fact about the Liberal Democrats taking money from a criminal – a reference to the donation the party received from Michael Brown. That donation was in fact received when Charles Kennedy was party leader and at a time when Nick Clegg was not only not party leader but also not in any other post, such as treasurer or cheif fundraiser, which could count as having ‘received’ the money.

On this discrepancy being queried, the Market Research Society has stuck to its ruling, insisting that the failure of the debate transcript to reflect the wording of the polling question is no reason to rethink its ruling. In other words, it is ethical in its eyes to take a past fact about a political party, rewrite it into a false statement about the party’s current leader, and then put that statement in a public opinion poll – and it is still ethical to do so even if no evidence is presented of the rewritten false claim having been made in public by anyone.

The MRS may view that as ethical, and YouGov were cleared of all complaints, but that is the sort of verdict which should cause leading figures in the industry to scrabble to rewrite their rules.

Men: Yes 51%, No 43% – net +8%
Women: Yes 25%, No 63% – net -38%

Net scores by political preference:

Conservative: 0%
Lib Dem: -22%
Labour: -25%

Source: YouGov, fieldwork 30 Septemeber – 1 October

Whether that will calm Cameron’s nerves when faced with the full fury of the Daily Mail remains to be seen.

In 2003 on average 49% of people said they trusted different professions on average to tell the truth a great deal or a fair amount. This fell to 42% in 2006 and 37% in 2007 but was 39% this August. The two point rise is not statistically significant but does end the run of statistically significant declines.

Between 2007 and 2010 trust in NHS hospital managers increased by 12 percentage points, though still only reaching 29%, as did trust in leading Conservative politicians (also reaching 29%) with people who run large companies getting an 11 point gain to take them to 28%. Leading Labour politicians increased by 9 to 23% and leading Liberal Democrats by 8 to 27% with “my local MP” increasing by 7 to 36%. The biggest decline was among judges – down by 7 points to 63%.

Overall family doctors are most trusted (85%, down 4), followed by school teachers (76%, down 1), people who run national charities (67%, up 3) and local police beat officers (66%, no change).

Least trusted are journalists on red-top tabloids (10%, up 3), estate agents (14%, up 4) and senior officials in the EU (16%, up 2).

Though other newspaper journalists do better, none are trusted by more than 50%, reinforcing my often expressed view that coping with the large volume of free news available is not simply a matter of technical issues or business models for newspapers – they also need to win people’s trust.

If people don’t trust you, you are not exactly making it easy to persuade people to give you money, especially the generations of media consumers now growing up who are not starting with a newspaper reading habit.

The margin of error on the poll figures is +/-3%, but the changes between the different polls are only statistically significant if greater than c.5%. The wording of question was “How much do you trust the following to tell the truth?”. Source data here; 2008 has been excluded as some professions were omitted in that year.

As you may know, there is currently debate about whether or not the UK should replace its Trident nuclear weapons system. Current policy is to replace the Trident submarines with a new fleet of boats, and to replace the ballistic nuclear missiles they carry at a later date. Which of the following options would you favour most?

Replace Trident with a broadly comparable system: 7% YouGov, 3% LDV
Replace Trident with a cheaper system: 32% YouGov, 38% LDV
Not renew Trident and give up nuclear weapons altogether: 57% YouGov, 55% LDV
Don’t know: 4% YouGov, 4% LDV

As you may know, the UK government is planning to build a replacement for the Trident nuclear weapons system. Do you support or oppose plans to replace Trident with a ‘like-for-like’ system?

Strongly support: 4% YouGov, 1% LDV
Tend to support: 8% YouGov, 5% LDV
Neither support nor oppose: 8% YouGov, 4% LDV
Tend to oppose: 28% YouGov, 32% LDV
Strongly oppose: 49% YouGov, 56% LDV
Don’t know: 2% YouGov, 1% LDV

The questions and answers were worded the same, though the rest of both surveys was different and the fieldwork dates were slightly different.

Broadly speaking the figures are reassuring for both LDV and YouGov as we are both finding similar results. The differences on the second question suggest LDV may be polling people who are more opposed to nuclear weapons (potentially leading to speculation about them being more likely to be activists) but the variations on the first question do not support that.

All in all, this suggests that our survey results are generally pretty representative of the membership as a whole, as has also been suggested by the results in internal party elections which we’ve also surveyed.

The important caveat is that our survey results are skewed towards men. This does not appear to affect the results (e.g. surveyed party members of one gender do not give party figures of their own gender better or worse ratings than members of the opposite gender), but it is possible to imagine questions where it might.