48 Comments

• Mouse 29th Jul '08 - 4:12pm

  Is the blurry image intentional? Why does the camera angle keep changing so he’s not looking at the camera? It doesn’t make it less boring!

  Surely one room at Cowley Street can be converted for these video’s rather than have naff backgrounds and traffic noise.

• David Morton 29th Jul '08 - 4:39pm

  The blurry image and shifting camera angle was a bit Blair Witch/Cloverfield.

• Mouse 29th Jul '08 - 5:12pm

  Good coverage on the BBC website though – they probably read the press release!

• Gordon 29th Jul '08 - 5:47pm

  Mouse,

  I always find myself agreeing with you.

• Anonymous 29th Jul '08 - 6:38pm

  “So I’m shifting our resources to put more campaigners and more effort into those seats where we are taking on Labour. I’ve instructed our campaigns chief to step up our campaigns in the 50 seats where we’re best placed to beat Labour.”

  I assume this is primarily PR. I mean, we’re not really going to be directing resources to seats which we would need a 13% swing to win, rather than to seats we already hold that are vulnerable to a swing of 1-2% to the Tories. Are we?

• Manj 29th Jul '08 - 7:43pm

  Anonymous

  It might be prudent to do so. LD gains from Con are going to be pretty hard to come by

• Anonymous 29th Jul '08 - 8:45pm

  Manj

  I didn’t say anything about gains from the Tories! I’m talking about the priority of defending what we hold.

  Put brutally, as the polls stand now, if the ratings were translated into a uniform swing in a general election, we would gain perhaps half a dozen seats from Labour, but we would lose about 30 to the Conservatives.

  Faced with that scenario, it would be lunacy to prioritise safe Labour seats where we would need a swing of 13% to win.

• Hywel Morgan 29th Jul '08 - 9:53pm

  Paul Walter says Nick says that he will be launching a special fundraising drive for these 50 Labour target seats in the autumn.

  Won’t that be a bit late if, as Nick said elsewhere, a general election is just a few months away?

• Manj 29th Jul '08 - 9:54pm

  Ah, sorry, I misread it.

  You’re quite right, but I doubt Nick is going to make a public statement about defending seats- it gives the Tory challenge more credibility and publicity. Much better to publicise an offensive against Labour

• Ashley 30th Jul '08 - 1:05am

  I think this is absolutely the right tack. Targetting Labour like this – and holding what we’ve got should be our priority. We can do both but we need to work hard to do it from now onwards. My concern is any strong 3rd party Tory vote in those Labour constituencies. There’s a fair few right wing Labourites who will switch directly pretty easily and happily

• Jo 30th Jul '08 - 11:45am

  I think there must have been someone in the bushes filming Nick from the side – they’d better get that checked out

• Anonymous 30th Jul '08 - 12:41pm

  “Targetting Labour like this – and holding what we’ve got should be our priority.”

  Surely holding the seats we have in which the Tories are the challengers should be the first priority, given the strength of the Tories nationally.

  As far as targetting gains, obviously it makes sense to prioritise vulnerable Labour-held seats rather than Tory-held ones. But to talk of directing scarce resources at _50_ Labour seats is bizarre.

  I’ve just been looking at the data on Labour-held seats (2005 data from electoralcalculus, adjusted for boundary changes). The good news is that there are 82 such seats where we were at least 5% ahead of the Tories. The bad news is that in most of them the majorities are very large. On a 5% swing we would gain just 10. To gain 50 of these seats we would need a uniform swing of 15% from Labour!

  I don’t understand the point of this even as propaganda. Why raise expectations with wholly unrealistic talk of 50 gains? The only reason I can think of is that this is some sort of attempt to raise morale among the membership – and I notice that in this video Clegg again talks of the possibility of an imminent general election (“We’ve got to be ready for anything!”).

  Oh, and there’s that talk of a “young party” again. I really do think a terrific “age gap” must be developing between the party at Westminster and the party in the country …

• David Heigham 30th Jul '08 - 2:56pm

  We are going to lose some to the Tories. We defend well tactically, so it is reasonable to think of losses in the 10-20 range. Nick Clegg’s reply seems to be “If Labour are doing badly, we could take 30-40 off them. So let’s concentrate some effort on the 50 or so best hopes.”

  Look’s reasonable to me. In addition it will add to the dismay among Labour and help keep the Tories wondering about a hung Parliament. Always remembering, of course, that a summer is a very long time in politics; and a likely general election date is a long way down the line.

• Anonymous 30th Jul '08 - 11:37pm

  “Nick Clegg’s reply seems to be “If Labour are doing badly, we could take 30-40 off them. So let’s concentrate some effort on the 50 or so best hopes.””

  But what evidence is there to indicate we could take 30-40 seats off Labour? That would require swings of 11-12% – nearly ten times the swing that’s indicated by the current opinion polls – which are already showing Labour at historic lows, of course.

  I reckon this party has achieved the success it has, against the odds determined by our electoral system, as a result of very careful and disciplined targetting of our limited resources.

  If we’re really going to be diverting these resources towards a lot of safe Labour seats, when we are under acute threat from the Tories in up to half the seats we currently hold, on the basis of some figures plucked out of the air by the party leader for a “video-opportunity”, I think we must have collectively taken leave of our senses.

• Richard Church 30th Jul '08 - 11:47pm

  Anonymous,
  You answer your own question. The evidence that we can take seats disproportionally off Labour is our ability to target. Applying national opinion polls to our held or target seats is utterly meaningless, as we have proved in every election since 1997. If national polls meant anything, we would have been wiped out in the local elections in Lib Dem / Tory marginals this May, and we weren’t.

• Anonymous 30th Jul '08 - 11:56pm

  The other thing that’s perhaps being forgotten is that in 2005 we performed disproportionately well in Labour/Lib Dem contests in urban areas owing to the Iraq factor.

  Taking Manchester as an example, we achieved on average an 11% swing, compared with the 5% swing indicated by the national votes.

  But Iraq is not going to be a significant issue in the 2010 general election. The loss of that factor may well counteract the small Labour to Lib Dem swing indicated by the current state of the polls. So we may do well to hold our own against Labour, let alone making 50 gains!

  By all means put resources into Labour marginals vulnerable to us (and Lib Dem marginals vulnerable to Labour). But don’t pour them down the drain in safe Labour seats where we would need swings of up to 15%.

• Anonymous 31st Jul '08 - 12:15am

  “Applying national opinion polls to our held or target seats is utterly meaningless …”

  It’s not an exact science, certainly. We can achieve a certain amount by putting a lot of resources into a seat and campaigning on particular issues.

  But as anyone who has observed at least one general election knows, there’s a limit to how far we can defy political gravity in that way.

  Unless something dramatic changes, we are just not going to win 50 seats from Labour. We’re no going to win half that number. I reckon winning 20 – and compensating for losses to the Tories in that way – would be an absolutely outstanding result for us.

• Mouse 31st Jul '08 - 6:53am

  The parties accounts are published today on the electoral commission. While Labour and Conservatives have cut their debts, the Lib Dems are pretty stable at £1.3 million in debt.

  I’m not sure what Nick means by targeting resources at 50 Labour held seats.

  £10,000 will not transform a seat and 50 seats at £10,000 a seat means £500,000 that party doesn’t appear to have. [Unless Mr Brown is be approached again ;-)]

  It would have been better to put the emphasis on a political appeal to disillusioned/ex Labour voters rather than announcing a targeting strategy.

• Mark Pack 31st Jul '08 - 7:42am

  Mouse: BBC, “The Lib Dems ended the year £1.3m in the black”, not £1.3m in debt. See also page 5 of the federal party accounts pdf on the Electoral Commission’s website.

• Mouse 1st Aug '08 - 6:42am

  Apols – yes Mark your quite right, the Lib Dems are £1.3 million in the black.

  And does that include the £1 million or so outstanding loans?

  Still, the main point was really that targeting takes time and resource, both of which are in sort supply. A million wouldn’t pay for an agent in 50 seats for a year.

• Richard Church 1st Aug '08 - 9:45am

  Mouse,
  We are not starting from scratch. A number of these Labour seats are already targets, have their own resources and are getting additional support in a number of different ways.

• Mark Pack 1st Aug '08 - 10:27am

  Mouse: it includes the party’s debts.

  One thing to bear in mind with the Electoral Commission figures for party loans and debts is that these include unusued borrowing facilities.

  If a party, for example, has an unused over-draft facility for £500,000 then that appears as £500,000 rather than £0 when the Commission does its publication of loans and debts.

  There’s a certain logic to that, but it means the media reports of those figures often wrongly turn them into actual debt.

• Anonymous 2nd Aug '08 - 11:57am

  This article in the Western Morning News reports some reaction from Lib Dems in the region to Nick Clegg’s latest diktat:
  http://www.thisiswesternmorningnews.co.uk/news/Fighting-Tories-priority-Clegg/article-248262-detail/article.html

  “… the move will come at the expense of battles with the Conservatives who are the Lib-Dems’ main rivals across Devon, Cornwall and Somerset.

  One Lib-Dem MP said he felt he had been “cut loose” while other senior figures warned that the party faced “wipe-out” at the hands of a resurgent Tory party.

  Several said Mr Clegg should be concentrating on “consolidating” the 63 MPs he has at present instead of opening up a new battlefront with Labour. “I wish he had told me first,” said one Lib-Dem MP faced with a close battle against the Conservatives.

  …

  … the move was greeted with dismay in the Westcountry where activists had been hoping Mr Clegg would “take the fight” to the Tories.

  …

  Senior Westcountry Lib-Dems in the privately fear they are “facing wipe-out”.

  “We are going to be squeezed out again and again,” said one.

  “I just think people from North Cornwall to Plymouth will be thinking ‘what are we playing at?’””

• boldkevin 2nd Aug '08 - 12:53pm

  So ‘anonymous’ posts some ‘unattributed’ quotes. Dont know why you bother really.

• Anonymous 2nd Aug '08 - 1:08pm

  boldkevin

  I think there was rather more point to my post than yours!

  Do you have nothing serious to say about this policy of putting resources into safe Labour seats, rather than defending the seats we currently hold that are at acute risk from the Conservatives?

  On that subject, there’s another article in the local press that has some interesting information on this new targetting strategy:
  http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/liverpool-news/regional-news/2008/07/31/pm-crisis-doomed-merseyside-mps-64375-21438569/

  According to that report, Warrington South is one of Clegg’s 50 target Labour seats. That’s a seat in which we were in _third place_ at the last election!

  Does anyone really think we are currently in a position to win Labour seats from third place? (Hint: Look at what happened in Crewe and Nantwich, and Glasgow East.)

• Liberal Neil 2nd Aug '08 - 5:16pm

  I don’t think Clegg has said anything about putting lots of resources into ‘safe Labour seats’.

  He has said that we will target extra resources at seats we can win from Labour.

  There are 41 Labour seats that could be won on a swing of less than 10%. (We won Withington on a 17% swing and hornsey on a 15% swing last time)

  Some of them now have a very solid local base. Take Warrington South for example:

  2007
  LD 14292 52.5 %
  Con 6229 22.9 %
  Lab 6035 22.2 %
  Oth 654 2.4 %

  Clearly it is going to be a challnege to win some of these seats this time round – but where we are clearly established as the local challengers and are building a strong local government base it is clearly possible to make good gains.

  That doesn’t mean we should be abandoning seats we hold against the Tories, but then nothing Clegg has said suggests we should!

• Spanny Thomas 2nd Aug '08 - 7:08pm

  I think Warrington South is a tough ask but Wavertree should be a win. I think Clegg has the right approach here. Just fighting the Tories is yesterdays news. We need to keep our gains from the Tories over the last few years and capitalise on Labours weakness by going hell for leather against them. That could give us fewer seats but the balance of power next time and then the fun starts.

• Anonymous 2nd Aug '08 - 7:41pm

  Liberal Neil

  Yes – there are 41 Labour seats which we could win on a swing of 10%. But in nearly a third of those (13) we were in third place last time, and in 3 more the Tories were within 5% of us. That leaves 25 in which we are the “clearly established” challengers – half Clegg’s total of 50 target seats, funnily enough.

  So we are going to be putting resources into seats where the swing required is well over 10% (and also, apparently, into seats where we were third at the last election). You may view it as unfair to describe those as safe Labour seats, but I don’t.

  As I’ve already pointed out, in 2005 we benefitted strongly in many Labour seats from the Iraq factor, which is unlikely to be a big issue in 2010.

  And if the party had unlimited resources, then this wouldn’t involve detracting from the seats we have to defend against the Tories. But seeing that our resources are painfully finite, every pound and very hour put into the likes of Warrington South and Hackney North by the national party will be pounds and hours that won’t be available to defend the seats we hold.

  The danger is that if Labour recovers even a little from its current poll position, and we don’t, then we may end up directing resources into these 50 Labour seats in return for minimal gains, and the diversion of those resources may leave us vulnerable to much larger losses to the Tories than need be the case.

• Hywel Morgan 2nd Aug '08 - 7:44pm

  “But in nearly a third of those (13) we were in third place last time, and in 3 more the Tories were within 5% of us.”

  At least one of our gains last time (Leeds NW) was from third so I don’t think it’s true to say 3rd place = not the challengers.

• Stuart 2nd Aug '08 - 7:55pm

  I like the background. Too many of these party videos just have a wall or something as a backdrop. Other parties have people on the street etc. Much better.

• jim 2nd Aug '08 - 8:01pm

  Right:

  Labour are probably going to lose the next election big-time. We are possibly going to lose around 10-15 seats to the Tories in the south. I don’t want that to happen, I’m not arguing for that, but simple that the electoral and opinion polling data means it’s very likely.

  Now, when Labour is suffering a big swing against it nationally, the public are more than likely going to vote for the nearest placed challengers to Labour in the seats they are in. So the idea that we are going to challenge Labour in 50-odd seats is not stupid, it’s very smart politics.

• Anonymous 2nd Aug '08 - 8:02pm

  Hywel Morgan:
  “At least one of our gains last time (Leeds NW) was from third so I don’t think it’s true to say 3rd place = not the challengers.”

  Not as an absolute rule, perhaps.

  But against the background of the Tories being more than 10% up in the polls compared to last time, and us being more than 5% down, it’s pretty clear that we won’t be seen as the natural challengers in Labour seats where we got less votes than the Tories in 2005.

• Anonymous 2nd Aug '08 - 8:26pm

  jim:
  “Now, when Labour is suffering a big swing against it nationally, the public are more than likely going to vote for the nearest placed challengers to Labour in the seats they are in. So the idea that we are going to challenge Labour in 50-odd seats is not stupid, it’s very smart politics.”

  OK. Let’s be wildly optimistic. We’ll include all the seats where we were the “nearest placed” challengers last time – even the ones where the Tories were only a few percent behind us. We’ll assume Labour’s poll rating in 2010 is every bit as bad as its rating now – down about 9 points. We’ll forget about the absence of the Iraq factor, which gave us such a boost in Labour seats last time. We’ll even forget about the fact that we’re down in the polls ourselves – so we’ll assume that the whole of that 9-point drop in Labour support comes straight across to us, producing a 9% swing.

  How many seats would we gain, under those wildly optimistic assumptions? I make it 28 seats. Little more than half the number we’re going to direct resources into.

  What will happen in reality? I think in fact (1) the Tories will overtake us in quite a few of the seats where we were previously second to Labour, (2) Labour’s poll rating is going to be higher than 26% two years from now, (3) other things being equal, many of those who voted Lib Dem to protest against the Iraq war in 2005 will return to Labour, and (4) some of those who desert Labour will go straight across to the Tories, because the national picture will be one of a “two-horse race”.

  I said before that I thought 20 gains from Labour would be an outstandingly good result for us. I see no reason to alter that view.

• Dan 2nd Aug '08 - 9:34pm

  I’m incredibly reluctant to argue with one or more Anonymous posters, particularly as what he/she/they are saying is straight from the Tory central office book on how to annoy the Lib Dems.

  But I’ll say two things:

  1. There is little evidence that even with big rises in Tory poll ratings they are making much (or any) headway on the ground in Lib Dem held seats.

  2. Being the party that can take the fight to Labour in areas that the offical opposition can’t helps to define the Lib Dems as an anti-Labour party, which in turn helps to stop the Tories winning seats from us on an anti-Labour tide.

• Anonymous 2nd Aug '08 - 10:17pm

  Dan:
  “I’m incredibly reluctant to argue with one or more Anonymous posters, particularly as what he/she/they are saying is straight from the Tory central office book on how to annoy the Lib Dems.”

  Oh, not again!

  I’ve been a member of the party for 20 years. It’s only a week since I was last faced with this “Tory in disguise” nonsense. Mark Pack offered to verify my membership details (which I duly supplied) then. But I asked at the time “Do we have to go through this every time someone disagrees with something I say?” Apparently the answer is “Yes”.

  Do you really not understand that at least some people in the party think that this policy of diverting resources into 50 Labour “targets” could be a disastrous mistake?

  So, please, argue the facts if you disagree. Don’t call me a Tory, just because you disagree with what I’m saying – as someone who’s given up a hell of a lot of his time over the last two decades to fight the Tories, that is _incredibly_ insulting!

  Or if it’s really no longer acceptable for party members to disagree with the line coming from the leadership – if that really merits personal vilification of this kind – just say the word. For all my faults, I’m not a man to outstay my welcome.

• A passing Lib Dem 2nd Aug '08 - 10:39pm

  As several people suggested to you last time, perhaps you could just choose a moniker which would at least allow people to recognise that you were the same “Anon”.

  @ Anon –

  “What will happen in reality? I think in fact (1) the Tories will overtake us in quite a few of the seats where we were previously second to Labour,”

  [Well yes, the Tory vote will increase, and I’m sure that in some places it will displace us from second to third. But surely 1997 is the nearest parallel, and that actually saw our seats almost double – even though our national share of the vote dropped from 1992, down to around circa 16%.

  “(2) Labour’s poll rating is going to be higher than 26% two years from now,”

  [Again, undoubtably. But this is also going to mean that the Tory poll ratings aren’t going to look quite so rosy.]

  “(3) other things being equal, many of those who voted Lib Dem to protest against the Iraq war in 2005 will return to Labour,”

  [Indeed, some will but Labour are also a fair amount less popular than they were in 2005. Many of those protest votes from 2005 still won’t be cast for Labour in 2010. Whether they are cast for us, is another thing.]

  “and (4) some of those who desert Labour will go straight across to the Tories, because the national picture will be one of a “two-horse race”.”

  [The national picture is always of a “two-horse race”. Let’s not pretend otherwise. Some Lab will go straight to Con. It was always going to, just like some Con went straight to Lab pre-1997. What we as a party have to do, is to defend the defensible against a stronger Conservative party than we’re used to in recent years, hoping that our MPs have managed to dig in, to make up for our lack of resources in comparison. But we also have to accept that we will lose some seats to the Conservatives. As a party we have to decide where we can make up that difference, which is probably against the nearest Labour targets – so that we end up with at least a comparable number of MPs (hopefully more).

  You seem to be arguing that we should just aim to defend our held seats. As a strategy, I do actually think the leadership’s position is more realistic. We will lose some seats to the Conservatives no matter how well we defend. But to stem that, we need to take some seats from the Party that’s currently weak.]

• Clegg's Candid Friend 2nd Aug '08 - 11:16pm

  “As several people suggested to you last time, perhaps you could just choose a moniker which would at least allow people to recognise that you were the same “Anon”.”

  And as I asked Mark Pack, how would that help, as anyone can post anything under any name on this site? Naturally, he never replied. (I’ve noticed he doesn’t tend to reply to awkward questions.)

  But from now on, I’ll post as “Clegg’s Candid Friend”. I don’t pretend there’s no irony about that “moniker”, but at any rate we’ll see if it stops the incessant “You’re a secret Tory” nonsense. My firm prediction is that it won’t.

  As you’re broadly agreeing with much of what I said – though trying to put the most favourable possible spin on it – I won’t comment on that part of your message.

  But as far as this goes:
  “You seem to be arguing that we should just aim to defend our held seats.”

  No, that is not what I am arguing. I have said that it is sensible to target Labour seats that are vulnerable to us (and vice versa). Though, in the current climate, defending the seats we hold should obviously be the top priority.

  What I am arguing is that it is nonsensical to pluck a figure of _50_ target seats out of the air, and to divert resources towards that many seats. That is far more seats than we can realistically hope to win on the current evidence we have.

  If we are really diverting significant resources to Labour target seats 26-50 (for example), then we are going to end up losing more seats to the Tories than necessary.

• A passing Lib Dem 2nd Aug '08 - 11:54pm

  Well at least people will have some idea of which posts are actually from you.

  One man’s “most favourable possible spin” is another’s reality, and so I could say the same about your somewhat less favourable slant. Indeed, there are others who’ve pointed out your somewhat pessimistic view of much of what the Party does (which I think lends itself to the “Tory” allegations, and probably will do so in the future).

  I’m struggling to understand here – you’re saying that we should target Labour seats, but fewer than 26? What’s really less random about that figure than 50?! (yes, I see that you want to make defending held seats a priority, but do you really think the party doesn’t?)

  That would have made a fantastic headline wouldn’t it. “Clegg admits Lib Dems can only hope to gain handful of Labour seats”, “Lib Dems running scared of Tory resurgence” etc etc – as you (I think) point out from the Western Morning News story, we’re already getting that kind of nonsense. We’d have had it just the same if the message had been “let’s concentrate all our resources on saving held seats from the Tories”.

  What would your advice have been in 1997?

• Clegg's Candid Friend 3rd Aug '08 - 12:36am

  “I’m struggling to understand here”

  Yes, that’s obvious.

  I am certainly saying that we should target no more than 26 seats, beacuse that is the most seats that we would gain from Labour under the most favourable circumstances I can imagine. Doesn’t that make sense?

  You ask what is less random about my figure than about Clegg’s. I had hoped that would be obvious. My figure is based on actually looking at the data, as detailed in the post you have just read.

  On the basis of the current polls, our gains from Labour would be more like 6 than 26.

  One point you are missing is that no one is standing with a gun to Nick Clegg’s head forcing him to predict the number of gains we will make from Labour. I thought it was now a truism in British politics that politicians avoided this kind of prediction – or (if they did name a figure) always gave an underestimate. Clegg seems to be going to the opposite extreme.

  So there is obviously no need whatsoever to tear up our targetting plan and divert resources to dozens of unwinnable Labour seats, purely to save Nick Clegg the embarrassment of coming out with a less than inspiring headline. One might hope that that at least is the kind of problem the “great communicator” might be able to handle for himself!

  My advice in 1997? Well, naturally, I would have looked at the state of the polls – I would have seen that the Tory vote was expected to fall drastically, and that we were in a close second place in a number of Tory seats, and I would have advised the party to target gains from the Tories.

  Just as, right now, I would advise the party to target some gains from Labour, but not to pour money away targetting a wildly unreasonable number of them.

  Oh – and I see you can’t resist another “secret Tory” gibe. I’ve done what you asked for – I’m posting under a pseudonym (which anyone else can copy, don’t forget). Do I really have to email Lib Dem Voice with my membership details again?

• Mark Pack 3rd Aug '08 - 10:48am

  Clegg’s Candid Friend: the reason picking a name to use can be useful is that it makes it clear which comments are from yourself rather than from someone else also using ‘anonymous’. If someone is reading several comments, they may well like to know whether they are from the same person or from different people.

  There are ways of spotting if someone tries to take someone else’s name, such as the (computer) IP address used. (It’s a bit like if you are not sure whether a phone call is genuine and you check what phone number it came from).

  As to not answering your question previously: your initial response to my offer to help if you wanted to demonstrate that you are a party member but to keep your anonymity was a rather negative one 🙂 As you subsequently did get in touch to take up the suggestion (and before I’d had time to look at replying to your comment), I assumed that you’d either realised the answer or someone else had told you. My assumption, my mistake, though I think it is a shame that both in response to an offer of help and then this misunderstanding you have taken the approach you have.

• Clegg's Candid Friend 3rd Aug '08 - 11:53am

  Mark

  I don’t think my response was particularly negative (especially considering you had just said you weren’t surprised people were wondering whether I was a Tory in disguise!).

  I said that if it would solve the problem I’d be happy to supply my membership details (which I did). But I asked how that would help, because there would be nothing to stop the whole thing happening again when someone else didn’t like what I was saying.

  Obviously that was a reasonable thing to ask – because it has happened again, just over a week later!

  But apparently my “approach” was – and still is – a problem. However, perhaps there are two sides to that problem, as so often …

• A passing Lib Dem 3rd Aug '08 - 12:00pm

  There was no secret Tory gibe. I think you’re being somewhat paranoid.

• Clegg's Candid Friend 3rd Aug '08 - 12:14pm

  A passing Lib Dem

  I was referring to the part where you said my “pessimistic” view “lends itself to the “Tory” allegations, and probably will do so in the future”.

  But how is it a “pessimistic” view? What I did was to outline the most _optimistic_ scenario I could think of, and to calculate the number of Labour gains (28). And then I pointed out that in reality the scenario was likely to be less favourable – which on the whole you appeared to agree with.

  It’s somewhat depressing to hear endless accusations of “negativity” and “pessimism”, when what is actually being expressed is disagreement with the line being taken by the party leader.

• A passing Lib Dem 3rd Aug '08 - 12:33pm

  Gosh, we are prickly aren’t we. I was trying to help explain what are, as it turns out, unfounded allegations that you are a political opponent.

  If your disagreement over the line taken by the leader is because you think the position is much less positive than being made out, then it’s “pessimistic” if the other posters disagree with you.

  From what I gather, people seem to have the impression that you think every decision made by the party leadership is wrong; and that’s probably what’s behind the impression that you are overly “negative” as opposed to just disagreeing. It may be wrong, but that’s the way people work.

• Clegg's Candid Friend 3rd Aug '08 - 1:14pm

  A passing Lib Dem

  Well, we seem to be going round in circles.

  All I can say is that I’ve set out in detail (8.26pm yesterday) why I think targetting 50 Labour seats is wildly over-optimistic.

  It’s not really much of a response to say that it’s pessimistic because “the other posters disagree”, particularly as only two posters have commented on what I posted, and it’s not clear _whether_ either disagreed, still less why!

• David Heigham 3rd Aug '08 - 3:07pm

  I agree with Clegg’s Candid Friend that 50 is optmistic. However I have no idea this far from the general election as to whether it is wildly or mildly optimistic. What money and resources we put into these each seats will depend upon what we can find from the special fund-raising drive that is promised; and on detailed assessment of where the money can do most good.

  That said, it seems to be common ground amongst all the sceptics of one tint or other here that we can expect to take significant numbers of Labour seats. Some parts of the Labour party are going to find that worrying. Good.

• Hywel Morgan 3rd Aug '08 - 4:35pm

  “However I have no idea this far from the general election as to whether it is wildly or mildly optimistic.”

  This is highly relevant – at least one of the seats we won in 1997 was only accorded “full target” status when the election was called.

• Clegg's Candid Friend 20th Aug '08 - 3:56pm

  Interesting to see another article citing the concerns of Lib Dems in the west country about the strategy of shifting resources to Labour-held seats, and the possibility of a “wipe-out”.

  This one, in the FT, does have a quote from an MP:
  http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7a84b1be-6d85-11dd-857b-0000779fd18c.html

  However activists fear the strategy will damage their chances of repelling a resurgent Conservative party in Lib Dem heartlands in the south and south-west.

  Some west country Liberal Democrats warned of a potential “wipe-out” at the hands of Mr Cameron.

  Matthew Taylor, the long-serving MP for Truro and St Austell, said: “It’s really important for the Liberal Democrats as an independent party that we are taking on both Conservative and Labour seats.

  “Where we have made real gains against the Conservative party in the last 15 years we need to build and hold on.”