LDV survey: The new Lib Dem MPs who’ve impressed party members the most

By Stephen Tall | Wed 12th January 2011 - 7:18 pm

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.

LDV asked: Which of the newly elected Lib Dem MPs has genuinely impressed you to date?

Our sample of party members could tick as many (or few) of the 10 ‘newbie’ MPs as they liked. Here are the top five:

45% – Julian Huppert, Cambridge
17% – Tessa Munt, Wells
17% – Duncan Hames, Chippenham
13% – Stephen Gilbert, St Austell & Newquay
11% – Stephen Lloyd, Eastbourne

Congratulations to all five, and in particular to Cambridge’s Julian Huppert for impressing so many Lib Dem members so early in his parliamentary career. Bad luck to Simon Wright (Norwich South), Ian Swales (Redcar), Gordon Birtwistle (Burnley), Michael Crockart (Edinburgh West) and David Ward (Bradford East), who didn’t make it into the top 5,… this time.

A quarter of those who took the survey said they didn’t know or had no opinion, while an even-harder-to-please 13% said that none of the new intake had impressed to date.

Over 1,300 Lib Dem paid-up party members are registered with LibDemVoice.org. 662 responded to the latest survey, which was conducted between 3rd and 9th January.

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 accurately predicted the winners of the contest for Party President, and the result of the conference decision to approve the Coalition agreement.

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

7 Comments

DunKhan 12th Jan '11 - 7:23pm

Well done to Julian, though I’m surprised Ian Swales and Michael Crockart weren’t even in the top 10.
Chris Squire 12th Jan '11 - 7:37pm

Julian Huppert is the only working scientist in the House of Commons. Good to see that others here are aware of his quality.
Matt Downey 12th Jan '11 - 7:47pm

Julian Huppert is my MP, so I’m very happy with this result.
matt 12th Jan '11 - 8:24pm

Bad Luck to Simon Wright {My own Constituency MP} If the Vote had of included the public forum I would have voted for him, He is a man of Principles in my opinion for sticking to his Pledge and voting against the Rise in Tuition Fee’s.
Andrew Suffield 12th Jan '11 - 9:11pm

Julian Huppert is the only MP that has had a stunningly good story about him posted on this site. So this may be less indicative of general party opinion than most questions.

(Or maybe the rest of the party reads the site, I don’t know)
Andrew Tennant 12th Jan '11 - 9:23pm

Julian impressed even before becoming an MP, taking a stand against the Digital Economy Bill and making empassioned speeches to conference. Delighted when he was selected to follow on from David, and certain he’ll be an asset both to this parliament and many parliaments to come.
Nick (not Clegg) 14th Jan '11 - 8:18am

So “don’t know” scored higher than all but the top person on the list and 2none of the above” equalled the score of the person who came fourth.

Not very impressive!