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’re publishing the full results.

11.5% swing in favour of the Olympics among Lib Dem members!

LDV asked: All things considered and with the benefit of hindsight, do you think London should or should not have bid to host the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic games? (Compared with June 2012 results in brackets.)

69% (+12%) – It should
23% (-11%) – It should not
8% (-2%) – Don’t know / No opinion

Not even Lib Dem members are immune, it seems, from London 2012 fever — by a 3:1 majority, you say it was right that the city bid to host this year’s Olympic and Paralympic games. That’s a big shift from a couple of months ago, when the London 2012 enthusiasts more narrowly out-ran the sceptics by 57% to 34%. Here’s a selection of your comments:

Of course it should have bid. The Olympics are brilliant. I am very proud of what a great job we’re doing of hosting the Games.

I’ll reserve my opinion when I see the balance sheets. has it cost us more than it is making? Empty streets in London, empty seats at venues. It doesn’t look good! Arrangements for selling and allocating tickets has been a farse!

Who gives a damn about hindsight, it looked like pretty good foresight at the time.

In the scheme of things it is pretty much chicken feed, but the benefits are a once-in-a-lifetime joy

No use crying over spilt milk. The priority now is to ensure that the legacy promises are met.

As a northerner I’m fed up to the back teeth at the impression that London is all there is to the UK. Spending the same amount of money in the north would have had a much bigger impact. I really don’t care about the gold medals or the supposed global image of London.

I never wanted it to. But having “won” the hosting it should have been paid for by land taxes (as even the Tories under Paul Channon agreed would be a good way to fund Crossrail for example). The original landowners walked away with huge profits taking a large chunk of the original budget before even building commenced.

At the time of the bid, the full damage of Labour’s mismanagement was not apparent. But the Olympics have given a huge national boost as well as bringing tourists in… the atmosphere in London is great! Proud of how it has all been handled (apart from G4S)

As recent news articles have demonstrated, London is NOT awash with tourists. The fiscal multiplier will be zero at best and most probably negative.

It should have made an honest bid – we knew at the time that Coe’s £2.4bn cost estimate was nonsense and it would be over £10bn. We should have won on merit, not spin.

I was opposed all the way up, but looks like I was wrong.

It’s a lovely spectacle, but if we’d spent the money just on regeneration we could have done so much more.

We haven’t got any bread left so we might as well enjoy the circus.

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