Nick Clegg has recorded an interview for the BBC’s Westminster Hour on Sunday about the challenges facing the Lib Dems.
According to the BBC story, Clegg reaffirmed the blindingly obvious – that the Lib Dems are, and will remain, an independent party fighting elections against the Conservatives.
On poll ratings, Clegg says
“I think it is one of the oldest rules in politics that parties in government… tend to get a dip in their popularity.”
“Do I think we are going to be able to defy those rules of gravity at a time we are taking very difficult decisions on deficit reduction?” Mr Clegg added.
“No. I think that is unlikely.”
The reality, of course, is that the Lib Dems are in a very similar position in the polls to the last few summers, and Lib Dem support always drops off after elections.
True, the party is getting a bit more publicity now, but most of the mainstream press coverage is negative. All Lib Dems would like the party to be polling higher, of course, but 14-18% is a pretty normal place for the party to be.
Anyone can (and often does) cherry-pick opinion poll findings to back up whatever case they want to make, but with membership up and by-elections being won, there are at least as many reasons to be positive as not.
Where the party is campaigning and getting its message across, support is holding or growing, which must be a good sign for the next few years.
To hear everything Nick said and not just the bits chosen by BBC news, tune in on Sunday.
Follow @libdemvoice.org on Bluesky
Like us on Facebook
Subscribe to our feed
Sign-up for our daily email digest
The Disneyfication of Haley Mills
Survation now put Andy Burnham 10 points ahead in Makerfield
Michael Meadowcroft: A Liberal of Intellectual Rigour and Uncommon Integrity
Debt-ridden graduates claim they are seen as cash cows
Ruth Bright
BigTallTim
Daniel Walker
Richard Good
Matt (Bristol)
16 Comments
@Iain Roberts “Anyone can (and often does) cherry-pick opinion poll findings to back up whatever case they want to make”
Agreed. And I agree that our poll levels aren’t surprising. What I’m sure of, though, is that once the cuts start to bite, they’ll get worse. It’ll be temporary, the poll rating will recover before the following election, but I’d expect it to last for two years at least. And we need to be mentally prepared for it.
I think Nick Clegg is right in stressing that without the coalition, nobody would be taking any notice of the LibDems at all.
In past years, it has often been frustrating to see how the media simply ignored the LibDems: even the very significant principled opposition to the Iraq War hardly changed that for more than a short time! How many individual LibDem politicians were even widely known to the public before these last few months?
Yes, the polls may be low at the moment, and may well go lower, but if one just looks at the benefits for the party, a higher profile, even if it’s not necessarily always flattering, surely has to be good. Though I bet that the media will make a dog’s breakfast of reporting the LibDem conference: I expect that the press will be full of ‘LibDems threaten to split the coalition’ or ‘LibDems about to split’ type headlines for days, whatever actually happens at the conference.
I have to say, I also enjoyed Nick’s comments on Labour’s attitude to the LibDems. Spot-on, in my opinion.
WTF?
You’ve completely edited out the main thrust of the piece.
“Coalition will go on even if AV reform fails”. Check the Guardian today to see.
I thought this site was liberal? You’ve taken a leaf out of Labour + Guido’s books by selectively editing-out what you don’t want your readership to see.
@cuse – a) Most of the ‘readership’ read elsewhere – they are not ignorant, b) an article might appear later – they don’t write themselves and have to be written (so hold your horses) and c) omitting a story from an article with a particular focus hardly makes a blog ‘not liberal’ or comparable with Guido or Labour. It is libreal precisely because Iain can write about what he wants.
Next you’re probably be demanding that every article on LDV covers every Lib Dem story of that day otherwise they must be engaged in a giant cover-up.
Cuse – that was again just restating something that was both obvious and already known, no matter how excited the media might get about it.
@ Cuse
What did you think he would say? Nick Clegg makes it clear that losing the referendum would not split the coalition. Woah! Surprise! Would we *want* a party that throws a hissy fit when the voters don’t agree with its plans? Of course not.
Moreover, if he did threaten to leave after a no vote, wouldn’t that make the referendum a vote on the government, rather than on electoral reform? I bet plenty of people would like that, but it would sort of defeat the actual purpose of the referendum!
As it stands now, people who want AV to go through have first to be worried about the Labour U-turn in voting against a proposal that was in their own manifesto three months ago. Given that situation, the hypocrisy from some Labour supporters in attacking Nick Clegg about his statements now is just staggering!
In any case, what Clegg said in that interview is the only answer that makes political sense, *especially* if you want to achieve the change. But of course, the ranters over in the Guardian CiF feedback section wouldn’t let sensible analysis get in the way of another nice round of bile directed at the LibDems. Charming.
Apparently, according to the Guardian, Nick Clegg has risked enraging Lib Dem grassroots by restating the bleeding obvious. What would have happened if Clegg had answered: “No, if the AV referendum is lost, I’ll throw a strop and end the coalition”? Uhm…
I, along with many others I’ve spoken to, voted Lib Dem because we specifically did not want the Tories in charge and we wanted a change from Labour.
The very least I expected when the Lib Dems went into coalition was that we would get proper voting reform so that the centre-left majority of voters in our nation would be properly represented in future elections.
Now I am left with a choice of voting for AV with Tory favouring boundary changes or rejecting it and facing the party I voted for propping up an extremely right wing government.
Justify it all you want but you have completely sold out.
@ Timak,
Unless you are a member of parliament, you won’t be forced to vote for the boundary changes, in fact, you won’t have a chance to vote on them. That’s down to the vote in the Commons in September. The referendum, if it happens, is on AV, and AV only.
As things are panning out, if you vote no in May you’ll get the boundary changes anyway, but without a new electoral system. So it might be worth considering whether you want to stand with the Tories on AV or with the LibDems and Labour’s manifesto. I am not saying that I consider this an optimal situation, but that’s what it is.
I have to say, given the arithmetic and the situation after the election, we have to be astonished that the Tories conceded anything at all on electoral reform: it’s absolutely against their instincts..
@Timak – on what basis do you say the boundary changes favour the Tories? Labour supports equalising constituency sizes based on number of voters and the two exceptions for enormous rural constituencies are a Lib Dem and an SNP seat.
What would you have done in the Lib Dem’s shoes after the election?
I really do have reservations regarding the proposed equalisation of constituency electorates. It seems fair but is representation a matter of quality as well as quantity ?
A compact city or urban seat can have easy access to its M.P. and the M.P., can have easy access to his/her constituents. In a vast – continent of a – constituency access is not easy at all. Let us say that Brecon and Radnor, Wales’ largest geographic constituency, is joined to the southern part of Mongomeryshire, it could take many hours to travel by car from the north to the south – from Machynlleth bridge to Ystradgynlais . We might have about 70,000 voters but we have very many more miles to travel – let us say a 3 hours journey. This is very different from one candidate who told me he could WALK across his urban constituency in 30 minutes ! Other rural areas have the same problem.
When the Boundary Commissions make their outline proposals surely this factor should play a vital part in their deliberations.
Must admit that I am only parroting the view of others on AV – if that is what we are voting on then I will still vote for it, albeit wishing PR was what was used.
I am just very frustrated with the situation. If I look at the website of my local Lib Dem MP I agree with almost all his thoughts and policies. http://www.julianhuppert.org.uk/
How can someone with these views vote the same way as the Tories? I appreciate you are in a coalition but surely that doesn’t mean you vote for things you fundamentally disagree with, and campaigned on.
I expect the Lib Dems to be actively and openly disagreeing with the things that are against. To see the likes of Clegg saying how well you are all getting on, and to have Cable go from Keynesian to Austrian economics without a bat on an eyelid disgusts me. Simon Hughes in the same government as Osbourne and being all smug and smiley is horrific.
I didn’t vote Lib Dem to get Tories and neither did anyone else.
@ Timak
Simon Hughes is most definitely not part of the government, and he is anything but smug and most definitely not smiley. Might you be thinking of somebody else?
In fact, as far as I can tell, he understands his role as deputy leader of the party very much as doing exactly what you want LibDems to do. There he is, almost every day, it seems, to raise a dissenting LibDem voice.
That said, if you don’t like the LibDems nationally, you definitely stil have the privilege of having a particularly awesome LibDem MP…..
BTW –
I didn’t vote LibDems to get the Tories, either – but I also didn’t vote LibDems to keep the Tories out.
I voted LibDem to get them into government if at all possible, and I am willing to put up with the compromise for now….
Clegg’s theory of new governments enduring poll slips might have weight if the Tories were going down too. They are not.
Plus, the Lib Dems have, previously, benefitted from being the outsider partuy. The party rising above the grubby politicis of the two main parties. That of course is no longer an option. So the poll impact is in a new context and shouldn’t be dismissed as if the Liberal Democrats aren’t in a very diferent position.
Sometimes it seems that some Lib Dems are simply determined to only see the best positive spin on any negative story about us. I think is is, and continues to be, a strategic error.
Surely the drop in the polls is due more to the loss of support from many left leaning voters who supported us as an alternative to labour who feel let down by the coalition with he Tories rather than ‘being in office’ syndrome? Would there not have been similar dissolution had we been seen to prop up a failing labour party?
The party simply has to employ its guerilla politics on the ground to get over the message of what has been achieved. I’m not comfortable with everything but the party has had to compromise. It’s a coalition! But we must hammer home the long list of LIBERAL measures that have been implemented. And we must start staying it now….bang the drum loud enough and long enough and it’ll sink in.