Lib Dem Voice has polled our members-only forum to discover what Lib Dem members think of various political issues, the Coalition, and the performance of key party figures. Over 660 party members have responded, and we’re currently publishing the full results.
The Lib Dems have been in Coalition with the Conservatives for some eight months now — so we thought it would be interesting to find out who our sample of party members think is ‘hot or not’ among our Coalition partners.
LDV asked: Which of the following Conservative ministers have genuinely impressed you since the Coalition Government was formed? (Members could choose as many or as few as they wished.)
- 74% – Ken Clarke, Justice Secretary
- 49% – David Cameron, Prime Minister
- 43% – Iain Duncan Smith, Work & Pensions
- 29% – William Hague, Foreign Secretary
- 20% – David Willetts, Universities & Science
- 18% – Oliver Letwin, Cabinet Office
- 13% – Philip Hammond, Transport Secretary
- 13% – George Osborne, Chancellor
- 9% – Michael Gove, Education Secretary
- 9% – Theresa May, Home Secretary
- 9% – Eric Pickles, Communities & Local Government
- 9% – None of them
- 8% – Sir George Young, Leader of the Commons
- 7% – Francis Maude, Paymaster General
- 6% – Andrew Mitchell, International Development
- 5% – Baroness Warsi, Tory Chairman
- 5% – Jeremy Hunt, Culture, Media & Sport
- 4% – Andrew Lansley, Health Secretary
- 3% – Liam Fox, Defence Secretary
- 3% – Other
- 3% – Don’t know / No opinion
- 1% – Patrick McCloughlin, Chief Whip
- 2% – Lord Strathclyde, Leader of the Lords
- 2% – Caroline Spelman, Environment, Food & Rural Affairs
- 1% – Owen Paterson, Northern Ireland
- 0% – Cheryl Gillan, Wales
There’s no doubting who the most popular Tory is with Lib Dems: Ken Clarke, long ago touted here on Lib Dem Voice as our ‘sixth cabinet minister’, and winning the support of more than three-quarters of party members.
Perhaps more surprising is the high showing of David Cameron, with all but one-half of party members in our survey declaring themselves genuinely impressed with the performance of the Tory leader (in his capacity as Prime Minister at any rate). Iain Duncan Smith, re-born as a passionate advocate of social justice who has formed a strong partnership with the Lib Dems’ own Steve Webb, also attracts a high score of 43%.
Of those Lib Dem members who named Tories not on the list, only two names were mentioned more than once: Grant Shapps (a long-time friend of the Voice), who has impressed many as housing minister, and Tory renegade David Davis.
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32 Comments
“43% – Iain Duncan Smith, Work & Pensions
29% – William Hague, Foreign Secretary
20% – David Willetts, Universities & Science”
Frightening.
What, too high? Too low?
The only thing that “frightened” me was that as many as 9% of participants said that Eric Pickles had impressed them.
Interesting Lansley only got 4%, yet we are condemning [no pun intended] Britain to unmandated changes to the NHS.
Even Cameron appeared to admit this morning that the wrecking of the NHS has been planned since well before the financial collapse.
Wake up Lib Dems, please. In the end, when Clegg and the rest of the deceitful leadership are enjoying their directorships, after losing their seats, the public will never forgive the Lib Dem party for selling off their health service by the pound.
I would be amazed if Grant Shapps has “impressed” anyone. Why don’t you ask which ones we loathe? Apart from “all of them” I would choose Pickles, Spelman, Lansley, Fox, Hunt, Paterson, Gove, Osborne and Hague.
If anyone likes them they must be a Tory.
Simon
If you don’t see why that’s frightening, I think you really must be a Tory …
@Depressed Ex Lib Dem
Like you were ever a Lib Dem?
I, for one, am not in the least bit surprised that Iain Duncan Smith came out as high as he did.
But please don’t bother to explain what you find “frightening” about these survey results.
“Even Cameron appeared to admit this morning that the wrecking of the NHS has been planned since well before the financial collapse.”
Cameron said in his speech, that they have been making plans for these policies, all the time they where in opposition.
Ian Duncan Smith has contributed his fair share of vilifying those on welfare and on sickness benefits.
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3254131/We-are-living-in-a-shirkers-paradise-in-the-UK.html
“Paying a fortune to the five million on handouts – like X Factor reject Wagner Carrilho – is a major reason the UK’s deficit soared to a crippling £155billion, Tory minister Iain Duncan Smith told The Sun”
“In remarks that will spark controversy, he became the first cabinet minister to draw a direct link between our economic turmoil and the workless”
Blaming Those on sickness benefits for the deficit in my opinion is disgusting.
He also blames, Economical turmoil, on the Unemployed.
This Nasty little being is no better than then other Nasty little Tories.
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/pdfdir/lmsuk1210.pdf
There are over 2.5 million Unemployed. With only
There were 445,000 job vacancies in the three months to November 2010 those jobs included Part time and Temporary Positions, Actual Full Time positions are more like 300’000,
The figures are down 12,000 from the three months to August 2010.
So it makes me really angry when I hear Tories saying things like this, It makes me even more disappointed to see Liberal Democrats vote for these people, saying they have impressed them
I’m surprised some of these percentages come out so high (including those in single figures).
I was disappointed that this question on the survey did not offer a comment box. My comment (submitted via the ‘other’ category) was maybe surplus to requirements. I’ll just say that somewhere in there it involved the word ‘weasels’.
The 4% who are impressed by Andrew Lansley should be named and shamed.
As an anti coalition Lib Dem, I think all except the 9% “None of them” voters should go and listen to that prescient Disney song “Never Smile at a Crocodile”.
I’ve seen angry Tory commentators blasting Ken Clarke as being , in secret, really a Lib Dem, his decades of being a Conservative notwithstanding, so I’m not surprised he tops the list.
Cameron probably gets quite high marks for being willing to accomodate LDs in a Coalition when a significant part of his party would have preferred to go it alone, and giving off a sense of being willing to compromise – the reality of that is one for a debate naturally.
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If anyone likes them they must be a Tory.
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What an incredibly blinkered view, either with us or against us. Besides, the question was about being impressed by them. I would imagine most of that would be about being impressed how accomodating they have been to the LDs and what not, but you can still be impressed by people even if you disagree with what they do. The Earl of Clarendon praised Oliver Cromwell’s wisdom, ability and industriousness while still calling him one of the most wicked men ever to walk the earth, and said that though he had all the wickedness for which hellfire is prepared, so too did he have virtues which have led men in all ages to be celebrated. So perhaps a Tory could still be decent, even impressive of character and ability and a good coalition partner, given I highly doubt most of our MPs are truly evil?
Note: I’m not a Tory; I’m a perennial fence sitter.
@depressed ex libdem. You are right, we know nothing about you because you tell us nothing. If you want people youare what you claim, why not give your name & the constituency you were a libdem in ?
Sorry, insert -to beleive- in the above.
@Kieran: Thanks for re-introducing some sense into this thread.
Perhaps for balance the next LDV survey should ask which members of the Shadow Cabinet have impressed us? And indeed as suggested by Mr Payne, why not ask which ministers have disappointed us?
Niklas Smith – likely to be a short thread, that one. How about which shadow cabinet ministers have disappointed us?
“If you want people youare what you claim, why not give your name & the constituency you were a libdem in”
I’m not really that bothered whether people like you and Simon Shaw believe me or not. But it’s stupid and arrogant to imply I’m lying when in fact you don’t know anything about it.
What beats me is why you are sceptical about people being ex Lib Dems. The opinion polls suggest that around half the people who voted Lib Dem last year would no longer do so. By my reckoning that implies there are well over 3 million ex Lib Dems around at the moment!
@Kieran – I agree that one can and should separate the performance of a politician from what they stand for.
I am impressed by the political skills displayed by David Cameron in managing to sustain a veneer of reasonableness and compassion while occupying a space to the right of Mrs Thatcher, and George Osborne has to be given some credit for perpetrating such a deeply unpleasant suite of policies while managing to keep a relatively low profile and put the Lib Dems in the firing line for most of the voters’ discontent. But I disagree with just about everything they stand for.
I feel that most of the others are deeply unimpressive as politicians. They are complacent and self-satisfied, just blundering and bungling, not mastering their brief properly and not thinking through the policies they are advocating. You end up with a contradictory mush and most stakeholders alienated. The damage that is being inflicted in British society is going to be immense and long lasting for those reasons alone. That I disagree with just about everything they say is a given. [And no that doesn’t mean I’m in denial about the need to make cuts etc etc. I just don’t think they’re doing it in a very intelligent (or compassionate) way]
9% for Pickles? Who are these people?
This is a sad indictment upon the 662 members who responded (minus 9% answering ‘none of them’) although I can say I’m not the least bit surprised given that this site tends to attract those inspired by the Liberalism preached by Hayek, Freidman and other naive Chicago School ‘liberals’.
Wow. Just…wow. I can’t believe there are so many LDs who are “impressed” by IDS: the man who is taking away benefits from the sick and disabled and blaming them for the financial crisis. With LD support, of course.
I always thought a good measure of the morality of a country was how it treats its most vulnerable members: the sick, the disabled, the vulnerable. What, exactly, is Liberal or progressive about taking benefits away from those who are clearly unable to work? For putting them through stressful and inhumane tests while the stress can often exacerbate their condition?
And why is there so little said about disability on this site? You used to stick up for disabled people like me, especially when Labour was treating us like crap. So why are you all quiet now? Willing to accept power in exchange for dropping some of your previous stances? It makes me sick.
At least we now know NONE of the three main parties care about the disabled. You’ll have disabled people becoming homeless and destitute in a year or two..is this what you mean by “all in it together”? It makes me more sick than I already am!
Instead of arguing about who you do or don’t like in the Chamber of Horrors which passes for the Tory Party, perhaps you should be noting that among Liberal Democrat voters at the last election, only 30% think that Clegg is doing a good job as a leader, as opposed to 36% for Ed Miliband.
The same YouGov/Sunday Times poll revealed that 66% of people who voted Lib Dem at the last election do not trust Clegg, and that 58% of people think the Liberal Democrats have little or no influence on this Tory-led government.
http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/
@Alex M
Sadly, you’re absolutely right.
What I also can’t understand is the so-called LibDems love of Ken, the same Ken that is denying essential legal aid to so many needy people. I know Labour would probably have done the same thing but pre-election we were not that sort of party.
I know Ken’s a big avuncular europhile who wants to avoid sending 3000 people per year to jail so that they can scrub off graffiti whilst wearing the modern day equivalent of the stocks, but he’s not a Liberal Democrat definitely not.
Meh. I can’t lie, I said I was ‘impressed’ by three of them: Ken Clarke (who I think is doing a much better, more liberal job than any of the Labour Home Secretaries, or than any other Tory would, or, whisper it, most Lib Dems), William Hague (who has been sensible and sober as Foreign Secretary and hasn’t launched an ideological crusade against Europe or decided to back Israel to the hilt), and David Cameron (who has surprised me by his maturity). The fact is, though, that I said I wasn’t hugely impressed by the rest of the Cabinet. And I always liked a number of ministers in the last government – I thought that Alistair Darling was a decent Chancellor, and I always admired Alan Johnson before he went to the Home Office. Yet when I confess approving of a politician who happens to be a Tory implementing parts of a liberal programme, I am a foul crypto-Tory who should go and swear homage to Philip Blond, despite the fact that I think at least half of the Cabinet is a useless shower*.
In particularly, I don’t see how anyone could really be impressed by Eric Pickles, even a Tory! Also as much as IDS is a decent guy trying his best, he is undoubtedly overseeing some of the nastiest things we will do in government.
* Compared to the past government, where 3/4 were a useless shower. Lib Dems, making a difference in government…
FG – the first sensible thing said on this thread LOL
Seriously, Ken Clarke? Somebody who approves the sale of tobacco to children? He has a huge amount of blood on his hands.
Frank: Your view of those who completed the survey isn’t backed up by the other answers, covered in other posts – such as the strong support for more equal distribution of income than would sit with a Friedman type view. (By the way, if you doubt why it’s possible to be impressed with someone even if you disagree with much of what their political party stands for, take the case of Abraham Lincoln – I’m impressed by much of what he did, but that doesn’t make me a fan of the Republican party he was a member of.)
@Foregone Conclusion
“Also as much as IDS is a decent guy trying his best, he is undoubtedly overseeing some of the nastiest things we will do in government.”
I’m impressed by IDS because of Universal Credit.
The nasty things he’s overseeing are partly Osborne’s fault and partly the international financial crisis.
But they are mostly the fault of Brown, Balls and Miliband for massive overspending, which resulted in a huge deficit when the tax windfall from a huge temporary bubble vanished. And we should keep reminding people of that at every opportunity, because otherwise they’ll forget.
@George Kendall
“But they are mostly the fault of Brown, Balls and Miliband for massive overspending, which resulted in a huge deficit when the tax windfall from a huge temporary bubble vanished. And we should keep reminding people of that at every opportunity, because otherwise they’ll forget.”
I disagree George, Your now falling into the same trap as everyone else, Blaming the welfare budget for the huge deficit.
You start by saying your impressed by IDS universal Credit. However The nasty things he’s overseeing are partly Osborne’s fault and partly the international financial crisis.But they are mostly the fault of Brown, Balls and Miliband for massive overspending,
Yes we have a deficit over spending, but not at the fault of those on welfare.
And when they read these threads and articles, it’s all they ever see.
Can you not see, how this adds fear and anxiety to the most vulnerable people?
There is a £185 Billion Pounds Benefit Bill.
Over £100 Billion goes to Pensioners and Pension related benefits.
I think people should take the chance to inform themselves, on where the benefit bill actually goes, towards those out off work, and those on sickness and Disability Related Benefits. I am Talking about direct benefits, Not indirect benefits like Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefits.
Once you see how small this budget is in Comparison to other budgets, Then People will start to give those on welfare a break.
When we keep hearing that the welfare budgets is higher than education and higher than defence, People should remember, It’s The Pension Related Benefits, that higher, Not the sickness and Unemployment, and yet it is the sicke and unemployed being vilified again
@matt
As you know from my previous comments, the cuts in certain welfare benefits are the policies that I’m most worried. So, obviously, I’m not blaming the welfare recipients.
In an ideal world, I’d like to roll back Labour’s spending programme to where is was a couple of years before the crisis. But this isn’t possible. Barring that, I’d like cuts in the health budget, a higher retirement age, and pensioners benefits to be withdrawn for higher tax payers. But Osborne didn’t want to do that – hence the reason I blame him – instead he went for the welfare cuts.
But, at root, is a £150bn deficit, about two thirds of which isn’t due to the international crisis, but Labour’s overspending. In my opinion, that overspending was partly driven by pre-election spending prior to 2005, then spending to stimulate an artificial boom from 2005 – because Brown had planned to call an early election once he became leader.
This seems to be clear evidence that the Lib Dems have lost a large proportion of members on the Left of the Party.
How 20% can be impressed by David Willetts, a man who has, in cahoots with Vince Cable, set social mobility back drastically, is, for a Party whose supporters are said to regard themselves as left-of-centre, baffling.
However, I do see a reporting in these results that is a complete lie. Both myself and my father mentioned every Tory MP who voted against or abstained from the regressive Tuition Fees et al Bill, of which there were certainly more than two! Perhaps LDV would care to re-examine the results that they received and report the correct results.
@ Ciaran Smith
“However, I do see a reporting in these results that is a complete lie. Both myself and my father mentioned every Tory MP who voted against or abstained from the regressive Tuition Fees et al Bill, of which there were certainly more than two! Perhaps LDV would care to re-examine the results that they received and report the correct results.”
Never ceases to amaze me how quick people are to use the word ‘lie’ on the internet when they mean ‘mistake’ — seeing two identical sets of answers, I (incorrectly) assumed the system had produced a mistaken duplicate. My apologies for the error.