Category Archives: LDV Members poll

All this week, Lib Dem Voice is publishing the results of our September survey of party members conducted through Liberty Research via our private members’ forum. This is the second of our monthly surveys – if you have ideas for future survey questions, please email me at [email protected].

Today we publish the results of the first poll asking how Lib Dem members might vote in the event of a contested election for the party presidency.

LDV asked: Any member of the Liberal Democrats is eligible to stand for the Lib Dem presidency: they do not have to be a Parliamentarian. Three candidates …

All this week, Lib Dem Voice will be publishing the results of our September survey of party members conducted through Liberty Research via our private members’ forum. This is the second of our monthly surveys – if you have ideas for future survey questions, please email me at [email protected].

We began by asking about the party presidency. Every two years, the Lib Dem party membership has the opportunity to elect a Party President, and Simon Hughes MP has been party president since 2004. His term of office ends this year, and a ballot will take place this autumn to elect his successor.

LDV asked: What do you think the main role of the President should be?

Here’s how you rated the four options on offer:

* To become a known face in the media representing the Lib Dem position on the TV and radio news. 12.5%
* To tour the country visiting constituency parties, listening to members, and representing their views to the Parliamentary party. 45.8%
* To become a senior behind-the-scenes figure, chairing key policy and organisation committees, balancing the wishes of the membership and the leadership. 33.3%
* To lead the party’s fundraising among the membership and wealthy supporters, ensuring the party is on the best possible election footing. 8.3%

Of course none of the options are mutually exclusive, and doubtless many members will be looking to the presidential candidates to spell out how they will achieve all four of them (and more) if elected. But it was interesting to note that the role felt most fitting for the president should be to ‘rally the troops’ up and down the country; though the desire of members to see the president full involved with policy formulation was not far behind. Neither the PR nor the fundraising aspects to the job were felt by members in this survey to be of prime importance.

LDV then asked: How effective do you think Simon has been as party president?

Here’s what you told us:

Very effective: 9.4%
Quite effective: 15.6%
Okay: 34.4%
Quite ineffective: 27.1%
Very ineffective: 13.5%

Simon’s tenure as Lib Dem president has attracted a fair amount of critical muttering around the blogosphere, so he may be reasonably gratified to discover that 59% of LDV members (who are a pretty hard-nosed bunch) rated his performance as okay or better. Of course, that still leaves 41% who felt his performance had been ineffective to one degree or another.

To drill-down a little further LDV then asked: What do you think has been Simon’s greatest achievement or failure during his time as party president?

Some 60% of those who completed the survey chose to answer this. Most were critical, chiefly of Simon’s unfulfilled pledge to double the Lib Dem membership – though events largely beyond his control haven’t exactly assisted him for the past three years. Here’s some of what you said:

All this week, Lib Dem Voice has been publishing the results of our first ever survey of party members. Some 133 of you accessed the survey via our private members’ forum. We don’t pretend it’s a representative sample, but that doesn’t mean it’s without value either. We hope you, LDV’s readers, find it interesting. Perhaps the wider party will, too. This is the first in what we intend to be a monthly survey – if you have ideas for future survey questions, please email me at [email protected].

The final question asked members to rate out of 10 the current …

All this week, Lib Dem Voice is publishing the results of our first ever survey of party members. Some 133 of you accessed the survey via our private members’ forum. We don’t pretend it’s a representative sample, but that doesn’t mean it’s without value either. We hope you, LDV’s readers, find it interesting. Perhaps the wider party will, too. This is the first in what we intend to be a monthly survey – if you have ideas for future survey questions, please email me at [email protected].

The fourth question asked about the current direction of the party.

LDV asked: Do …

All this week, Lib Dem Voice is publishing the results of our first ever survey of party members. Some 133 of you accessed the survey via our private members’ forum. We don’t pretend it’s a representative sample, but that doesn’t mean it’s without value either. We hope you, LDV’s readers, find it interesting. Perhaps the wider party will, too. This is the first in what we intend to be a monthly survey – if you have ideas for future survey questions, please email me at [email protected].

The third question asked about Nick Clegg’s leadership of the party.

LDV asked: Are …

All this week, Lib Dem Voice is publishing the results of our first ever survey of party members. Some 133 of you accessed the survey via our private members’ forum. We don’t pretend it’s a representative sample, but that doesn’t mean it’s without value either. We hope you, LDV’s readers, find it interesting. Perhaps the wider party will, too. This is the first in what we intend to be a monthly survey – if you have ideas for future survey questions, please email me at [email protected].

The second set of questions asked what you think of the Lib Dems’ …

All this week, Lib Dem Voice will be publishing the results of our first ever survey of party members. Some 135 of you accessed the survey via our private members’ forum. We don’t pretend it’s a representative sample, but that doesn’t mean it’s without value either. We hope you, LDV’s readers, find it interesting. Perhaps the wider party will, too. This is the first in what we intend to be a monthly survey – if you have ideas for future survey questions, please email me at [email protected].

We began by asking about the party’s performance in recent by-elections.

LDV asked: …