When will the Coalition end? Here’s what Lib Dem members say…

By Stephen Tall | Sat 25th August 2012 - 8:50 am

Lib Dem Voice polled our members-only forum recently to discover what Lib Dem members think of various political issues, the Coalition, and the performance of key party figures. Some 500 party members have responded, and we’ve been publishing the full results. The final parts are being published this weekend.

Three-quarters say Coalition will be bad for Lib Dem prospects in 2015

LDV asked: Do you think the Coalition Government will be good or bad for the Lib Dems’ electoral prospects at the next general election?

More than three-quarters of members in our survey reckon the consequences of the Coalition will be bad for the Lib Dems’ election prospects — the figure of 77% is the highest we’ve yet recorded. Less than a year ago, in September 2011, the figure was 59%. Still, 1-in-10 members remains optimistic, and about the same proportion reckons the outcome will be more or less neutral for the party. Here’s the trend over the past two years we’ve been asking this question in our surveys.

Three-quarters say Coalition will last the course

LDV asked: How long do you expect the coalition government will last?

Earlier this week, I published the results of the survey question asking when party members would like the Coalition to end: 75% said in 2015. Today’s survey question gets a strikingly similar result asking what members think actually will happen, with exactly the same proportion saying it will last until 2015. The differences between responses to the to questions emerge among those who would personally like the Coalition to end immediately – 10% in our earlier question – yet only 1% think that’s at all likely.

Over 1,200 Lib Dem paid-up party members are registered with LibDemVoice.org. Some 500 responded to the latest survey, which was conducted between 3rd and 6th August.

Please note: we make no claims that the survey is fully representative of the Lib Dem membership as a whole. However, LibDemVoice.org’s surveys are the largest independent samples of the views of Lib Dem members across the country, and have in the past offered accurate guides to what party members think.

For further information on the reliability/credibility of our surveys, please refer to FAQs: Are the Liberal Democrat Voice surveys of party members accurate? and polling expert Anthony Wells’ verdict, On that poll of Lib Dem members.

The full archive of our members’ surveys can be viewed at www.libdemvoice.org/category/ldv-members-poll

* Stephen was Editor (and Co-Editor) of Liberal Democrat Voice from 2007 to 2015, and writes at The Collected Stephen Tall.

3 Comments

paul barker 25th Aug '12 - 11:29am

My problem answering the 1st question is that I am unsure what it means.
Are we being asked to compare 2015 with our performance after 4 or 5 years of a majority tory government or an election after a tory minority ?
My guess is that most of us were answering another question entirely -” Will we do worse in 2015 than 2010 ?”
Greenfield 25th Aug '12 - 12:52pm

This isnt news – a marjority knew the Lib Dems would suffer at the next Gen election at the time of the agreement ….history shows this clearly, & most peole understood that. The big problem is if things (the economy) dont get noticebly better by 2015….they the party is screwed for the next decade.
Tim13 25th Aug '12 - 1:17pm

Greenfield, I am just surprised more people of influence in the party didn’t realise that things would take a very long time to get better, bearing in mind they had campaigned against a Tory approach to the so-called structural deficit. Again, looking back you can see many people warning of that at the time.