An interesting snippet from the Guardian’s snap ICM poll (22:15) after the Question Time for Leaders last night. They didn’t find ever so many people who’s minds had been changed about how they were going to vote by the event, but of those who were, most were leaning towards Nick Clegg:
Relatively few votes are likely to have been changed by the evening: only 6% of the sample indicated that their mind had been changed by what they saw, as against 87% who said it would make no difference to how they voted. Among this small sub-sample, of 79 respondents, Clegg did the best – with 32% of switchers indicating that they might now lean Lib Dem, as against 25% who said Conservative, and just 20% who said Labour.
The Independent found someone who had been impressed:
“I’ve never considered voting Lib Dem until tonight” says audience member, 25-year-old Matthew Coucill. #bbcqt pic.twitter.com/SlhXB7R3pt
— Indy Politics (@IndyPolitics) April 30, 2015
I had a message from one of Nick Clegg’s sternest critics within the party just after the debate. I have rarely heard this person say a good word about our leader. Their words to me: “Nick Clegg smashed it tonight.” If he can win this person over, the rest of the country should be a doddle.
Cameron is being tipped the winner of the event, but how can he be when he just stonewalled on the issue of welfare cuts. You wouldn’t buy a new house without knowing whether it had central heating or electricity so why would you trust a man who has promised tax cuts for the richest but can’t tell you which of the poorest he’s going to make pay for it. Or won’t.
Miliband was a bit awkward. Saying “Let me answer this directly” and asking the questioner’s name once might be ok, but it seemed robotic and inauthentic every single time. That was nothing compared to the massive gaffe he made by saying, effectively, that he’d let the Tories in rather than talk to the SNP. Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy must have been crying into his Irn Bru. Labour sources quickly spun it into him saying that he was simply calling their bluff. Others think he was playing to England, not Scotland. Either way, it’s not an inspiring sort of politics. On one hand, it’s immature, on the other it’s encouraging English nationalism.
Clegg was always going to get a rough ride – but it felt like the awesome no-prisoner-taking audience warmed to him much more than either of the others. Everyone’s quoting that line where he turned Cameron’s comments about being locked in a dark room with him back on him. “If either Ed Miliband or David Cameron seriously think they are going to get a majority, they need to lie down in that darkened room. For me, though, it was that passionate pride in our decision as a party to go into coalition that I thought was particularly effective. He said the party had taken a short term political hit, but that the country was much better off for us being there.
He also gave us some good old fashioned liberal internationalist stuff – said how he thought it was crucial we stayed in the EU despite its flaws as bobbing about friendless in the mid Atlantic.
He was the most authentic of the three of them, but then that’s Nick for you. He always is.
* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings. You can find her on Bluesky at caronmlindsay.bsky.social
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24 Comments
I’m voting Lib Dem again because I want to support Clegg and those around him, but there are still areas he needs to improve on.
He is sound when he talks about reason and moderation and gives examples such as three rather than four submarines for Trident, or putting a date on Labour’s deficit reduction plans, but he came across once again as an EU fundamentalist, which is the same strategy that lost to Farage.
I don’t want to get into a debate about it, I’m just saying it is something that needs to be addressed.
I agree with Caron.
“Cameron is being tipped the winner of the event, but how can he be when he just stonewalled on the issue of welfare cuts”
Aren’t you projecting a little bit there, caron?
To my enduring amusement the British public are reported to be quite okay with the Tory tough on welfare sctich.
Get ready for this. I thought he did damn well. Cleansed of the Tuition fees fiasco he may well have won. Suggest a different face who voted against the rise of those Fees could have pushed us up several points in the polls and maybe saved us 10 seats. But there you go, we have hat we have, But yes he did okay with what he had to contend with. Well done the man.
“where the real choice is between Lib Dems or Conservatives, we would support the Lib Dems”……… Looks like all us Wessex Liberal Democrats have been endorsed by the Guardian.
Talking of switchers, the Guardian isn’t endorsing the Lib Dems this time around.
Editorial: The Guardian view: Britain needs a new direction, Britain needs Labour
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/may/01/guardian-view-britain-needs-new-direction-needs-labour
We watched this while stuffing envelopes, so didn’t see much of. Cameron and Miliband until later. We did watch. Clegg though. At the start there was little warmth or applause from this steel hard Yorkshire audience, by the end,I thought he had won many of them over. The applause was louder and more sustained. Good job Nick!
Watching the other two later, Miliband made a number of mistakes, not least about the last govt’s borrowing and spending; Cameron stonewalled.
With 10m undecided voters, there is a lot to play for – particularly among women voters. Our Red Lines say who we are and what we stand for.
An outstanding performance from Clegg – talking about leaving it to the last minute! – such a pity there’s only six days to save the party instead of the six months we need to change the public’s opinion of us. He’s pulling out all the stops – will it be enough ?
“He was the most authentic…” Perhaps if you set the standard at ankle height. None of them is credible.
Clegg has been practising his act for months now, but I don’t find it any more convincing. He implies that leaving the EU would involve leaving the single market and ceasing all trading with European countries. Now I know he doesn’t actually say that, but his scaremongering is designed to give that impression.
Another irritating part of the act is how only he can pull the Tories back from the right and Labour back from the left. Show me a Lib Dem who thinks that the party occupies the middle ground. Many Lib Dem supporters are incandescent that the party is not as left as it was. They are switching to the Greens, an outfit left of Genghis Khan.
Clegg’s act is full of his personal fantasies which he projects rather like a creepy hologram. Finally, perhaps the most cheesy one is how our hero stepped up to the plate to save the United Kingdom at its moment of crisis. What a man!
@Peter “They are switching to the Greens, an outfit left of Genghis Khan.”
Left of Genghiz Khan isn’t the most exclusive pitch to occupy …
@PB Brown Guardian endorses Labour shocker. In 2010 even the Graun realised the fame was up after 13 years, 2 wars and a recession.
I thought he came across very well but then again he did last time too. If I didn’t know better this time around I would have been won over too. the weakest line was comparing us to Greece, which has no control over its currency, to Britain which can push a whole load of quantitative easing into the economy when it needs to. The chap who picked him up on it was quite correct.
I didn’t think that Zmiliband was saying he would let the Tories in at all. He was obviously saying he would dare the SNP to bring him down – that by saying he would not do a deal with the SNP even if it meant he would not be PM, he was obviously upping the ante with Sturgeon et al. In all honestly Ed will not need a deal because there are likely to be more left wing seats (Labour, PC, SNP, Greens) than there are right wing ones (Tory, LD, DUP, UKIP) and voting against Ed will mean the others bring in a Tory govt. The SNP would be finished in Scotland if they did that. Of course Labour would then see a resurgence in Scotland. So maybe it’s a win-win for Labour.
He made a decent fist of it.
It doesnt surprise me that Clegg won over more of that tiny number who were prepared to move but I still think the main effect of the non-debate will be to remind voters in England & most of Wales that votes for Others will have no effect. I still believe that we will get a lot more votes than even the final polls give us; whether that will give us any more MPs I have no idea.
” I still believe that we will get a lot more votes than even the final polls give us; ”
That would be a first. Where do you think they will come from?
An adequate to good speech, but there was never any doubt he can talk the talk. Sadly voters make up their minds by looking at what he said and what he did last time as well, and that he can never undo. However, what really worries me is that there are still some Lib Dems out there who think that a failed, but nice speaker is much more important than a good doer.
“He was the most authentic of the three of them, but then that’s Nick for you. He always is.”
If you say so.
There was a fascinating tweet last night from former Tory special adviser James O’Shaughnessy, which I’m editing not for decency but to dodge the LDV robo-censor :-
“Clegg talking c*** on tuition fees. He wasn’t between ‘rock and hard place’. I was in the room when he decided to vote for it. He was keen.”
At last we have a tantalising first-hand account of what happened in that “darkened room” when Clegg decided to break the NUS pledge he’d signed just weeks previously.
Phyllis – there are likely to be more left wing seats than right wing ones?…. I don’t think the Greens, PC, TUSC and Respect are going to outnumber the Tories, DUP and UKIP….. I presume you must have meant illiberal authoritarian control freak parties in which case Labour and SNP may well outnumber the THREE right wing parties.
Interesting to see this reaction. I also have just watched Andrew Neil’s ‘This Week’ and ITV’s The Agenda, which discussed the BBC’s Question Time Leaders special.
If I could vote for Jeanette Winterson I would do. Someone sign her up to our party, she is exactly the sort of person we need to rebuild the Lberal Democrats.
Clegg did put in a good performance and no doubt impressed some voters. Regard my earlier negative comment as subjective rather than objective. Nick Clegg develops a story on which to hang his presentation. It gives coherence and authenticity to the speech and impresses those who have not followed the reality closely.
You can’t quote a poll and then dismiss it as wrong in the same article 🙂
BTW margin of error on that sample – assuming an audience of 8 million is about 11%
As I write, the Tories are ahead of Labour by 9 seats [Guardian pooling polls]. This is bad for LDs as it might trap us into another coalition with Tories – which would likely cause even more departures of our members and a permanent move into 6th or lower in the future polls. I’m sure we have made the most we could by working with the Tories but I’m not clear why we need to be involved with the Labour-SNP coalition. I like what it could achieve but we need to see, first, who leads our party on May 8. If it is Tim or Vince, there will be a delay in our negotiating but we can talk about support for the left coalition. However, if NC survives, we should go into opposition and sort ourselves out – because Labour will surely not negotiate with Nick after Gordon’s ‘dismissal’.
I couldn’t watch it live as I was attending a local hustings where the Labour candidate talked a lot about helping the poor and vulnerable but didn’t say what he would do particularly for these groups. I watched a recording of it.
When a member of the audience gave a personal example of running out of money as being the same as the government and saying that the UK was bankrupt. I wanted Miliband to say the UK was not bankrupt, that financing a government is more like financing a business that personal finance. People lend money to the government much like shareholders interest in a company by having shares as a safe investment. Like shares the government debt does not have to be paid back. For over a hundred years we have had a larger National Debt in terms of our GDP than we had in 2010 and than we do now. It was right to pursue economic policies to stimulate the UK economy and keep people in work. When Labour left office economic growth was about 0.75%, but the cuts of the Conservative led government destroyed this increasing growth producing four quarters of a declining economy out the next nine quarters.
Nick Clegg gave his rehearsed answer to the broken pledge on tuition fees. He should be able to do better. He should have by now an answer that states which of our cuts and tax increases we wanted to use to finance it that the Tories rejected and a list of Tory cuts that were not implemented. He really should be able to express exactly what the alternatives were (with details).
He should know that we are not like Greece, because our economy is much larger and we have our own currency and are not in the Euro zone. (Also doesn’t Greece have a problem getting people to pay taxes that we don’t have in the same way?) His answer to the leak by Danny Alexander was hopeless. He didn’t address the question. How can he say that neither Miliband nor Cameron will be PM – brain fade?
On food banks and benefit sanctions he started badly and can’t really answer the question why he let this system be implemented but now he is changing his mind to reforming the sanction regime with yellow cards.
At least he recognised that a government can be formed that excludes the party with the most votes and seats. I would have liked him to rule out forming a government that involves a referendum on the EU, but he took care not to do so.
He gave a good answer on Trident and for there being no justification for someone to be a terrorist.
But he couldn’t say what the party stands for. He thinks it is “getting the right balance of creating a strong economy and doing so fairly”.
@ Caron
32% of 6% said Nick did best and they were thinking about voting Lib Dem.
Therefore if all of them did vote for us we will get another 2% in the poll. I am not sure what difference it will make to 600+ local parties if we get 8% or 10% (or 11%).
Caron – “but it felt like the awesome no-prisoner-taking audience warmed to him much more than either of the others.”
@ Flo Clucas – “The applause was louder and more sustained.”
David Cameron got the loudest applause when he was leaving the stage.