Lord Ashcroft has spent some the money he acquired through not paying his taxes on a fascinating poll of former Labour voters.
The poll looks at 2091 people who voted Labour in 2005 but for other parties in 2010, 47% of them voted Lib Dem. It provides a wealth of information on the attitude of these voters who it is crucial we retain in 2015, and how they differ from ex Labour voters who choose to vote for other parties.
The first issue looked at is why did they leave Labour. They are asked to rate a number of reasons why Labour did not win from 1-10 and the poll gives the % with each rating and an average. As might be expected the strongest reason was Gordon Brown with the next most important reason for those who switched to us being that Labour spent too much time trying to appeal to middle class voters and losing the support of traditional voters.
It is interesting that those who switched to us were less ‘anti Labour’ than those who switched to the Tories. For example the average score on ‘Many voters did not appreciate what Labour had achieved in office’ was 6.29 for Lib Dem voters but only 4.97 for those who switched to the Tories. Intriguingly only 67% of LD voters though Labour deserved to lose the election as against 91% of those who switched to the Tories.
On their vote at the next election 44% of LDs said they might vote Labour at the next election because they don’t like the Coalition (against only 12% of Tories) and 37% of LD voters said that they would be more likely to vote labour again if it moved to the left ( although 29% said it would make them less likely to vote Labour). An intriguing 21% of Tory voters said a leftward move would increase their likelihood of their voting Labour.
On the key issue of the deficit 78% of those who switched to the LDs strongly or somewhat agree that ‘the deficit is the most serious problem facing the economy and needs to be dealt with urgently’ with 63% agreeing that the cuts are unavoidable.
On the other hand 63% also agree that the ‘Government is cutting spending because it is instinctively hostile to public services and the public sector and is just using the deficit as an excuse. ‘
42% think that the Coalition with the Tories was the right outcome but 58% would have preferred a deal with Labour.
When it comes to policy these voters are very much in favour of higher taxes (on other people) including the mansion tax, on not replacing Trident and on renationalising the railways. Intriguingly the only tax rise which doesn’t get a lot of support is a 10% inheritance tax to pay for long term care – only 37% agree with this whereas 63% are opposed.
On immigration, 44% agreed that it had brought more benefits than costs and 65% agreed that private companies should have no part to play in delivering health and education (better not tell them GPs are self employed).
It should not be supposed though that all of their views were on the left; 73% were in favour of tax relief on private medical insurance and 72% believe that ’if you work hard it is possible to be successful no matter what your background’. Making people who live off state benefits work in the community was supported by 85% and while 40% agreed with legalising cannabis 59% opposed this.
There is much of interest in the poll and it may go some way to explain why the Tories have done so much better in the post election polls than the Liberal Democrats. Those who switched Lab –Con are significantly more anti Labour than those who switched Lab-LD, are much keener on the Coalition and more likely to think that Labour deserved to lose.
The full poll together with another which has a detailed analysis of the views of those who stuck with Labour in 2010 can be found on Ashcroft’s website.
Follow @libdemvoice.org on Bluesky
Like us on Facebook
Subscribe to our feed
Sign-up for our daily email digest
Six council by-elections, spread over two days
Carers remain forgotten in government's welfare overhaul
Steffan Aquarone's Commons debate on coastal communities
Getting things done - Saggar Street - an update #dundeewestend
Loving our neighbours
Getting the basics right
Roland
Joseph Bourke
Stephen Nash
Margot Wilson
15 Comments
“44% of LDs said they might vote Labour at the next election because they don’t like the Coalition (against only 12% of Tories)”
Rather stunning that 12% of Tory voters, having gotten a less right wing government than what they voted for, would vote for Labour instead!
@LibDemKitty
“Rather stunning that 12% of Tory voters, having gotten a less right wing government than what they voted for, would vote for Labour instead”
But there again, perhaps they were just so desperate to get rid of that particular government that they decided to vote Conservative, in the hope that Labour would sort itself out in opposition?
I haven’t looked at the full methodology – but some of these poll results look quite anomalous, and I wonder how far some of these decisions were due to the local situation of the voters in question and of course the FPP system, where people may simply have voted ‘not Labour’ ahead of positively deciding for the party they finally ended up voting for….
“There were some people, particularly around the height of the Iraq war, who gave up on the Labour Party and turned to the Liberal Democrats as a sort of left-wing conscience of the Labour Party.
“I totally understand that some of these people are not happy with what the Lib Dems are doing in coalition with the Conservatives. The Lib Dems never were and aren’t a receptacle for left-wing dissatisfaction with the Labour Party. There is no future for that; there never was.”
My mum and my nan were two of those who left Labour due to the Iraq war and rightward drift to grudgingly vote Lib Dem. My mum’s come back to the Labour and my nan has decided you’re all the same but feels betrayed far worse by the Lib Dems- “sick to [her] stomach”. I don’t think there’s much you can do to get these voters back after reaching out before the election only to ditch them straight away after.
Mike –
“I don’t think there’s much you can do to get these voters back ……..”
Yes, I appreciate the point you’re making but perhaps, sometimes, a political party should be prepared to do what is right before what may be electorally expedient.
Or should we resort to the c.1997 Blair Model of government by focus group/ Mail approval?
“Lord Ashcroft has spent some (sic) the money he acquired through not paying his taxes” – eh?
He acquired the money by profiting from some enterprise. Very different.
Guido Fawkes
That’s not a counter-argument. You’ve simply provided supplementary information.
Is any of this news to anyone? I really do not think that the Liberal Democrats have a hope of retaining most labour switchers following Nick Clegg’s clear message to them that they should get lost.
@LibdemKitty indeed it is odd, although not as odd as the 21% of Tories who said that they would be more likely to vote Labour if they moved to the left. The British voter is indeed a curious beast.
@Mike did your ancestors miss the bit where Clegg said we would talk to either party?
@Crewegwyn Its an interesting point – how far should we tailor our polices to what the electorate want to hear. A test case may be our fabulously unpopular immigration policy and whether that is in our next manifesto.
@Guido, very true but ‘ Lord Ashcroft has spent some of the money he made through hard work and business acumen’ really wouldn’t have sounded as good!
@Simon McGrath: It’s not who you’ve done it with, it’s what you’ve done and what you support.
@mike very true. We certainly would never have had getting rid of ID cards, increasing tax thresholds etc with labour. We would have had a VAT rise and £40bn of cuts though.
Tories wont vote Lib dem- because they dont need to. They can vote Tory. The idea that Labour voters are going to return to vote Lib Dem at the next election is downright ludicrous. DIdn’t need Ashcrofts money to tell me that.
At the end of the day Nick Clegg said he was after pluralist politics- and it turns out he really wasnt. Its a shame for Lib Dem members who have devoted a long long time to the party- but is inevitable. He sealed the deal when he refused to work with Labour unless they got rid of Gordon Brown and turned into a Tory tribalist as soon as he was established in government. When the most senior advocate of pluralist politics screams ‘Labour did it’ every time he farts- any chance of a meaningful place as a third party is done.
He now have a cultural polarisation going on- people are shifting to the right or the left. And Nick sold his chance at pluralist politics when he changed his mind about his economic policy without telling anyone.
If the Lib Dems had actually held on to their principles they might have fared better.
I empathise- it was crap when Tony Blair took the Labour party into some horrible horrible things. But the Labour party was big enough, adn the biggest opposition to actions of ‘New Labour’ came from within the party itself.
Although is going to be hilarious watching Clegg walk round telling everyone the nasty tories did it all, and he never wanted to honest guv….. when the Tories have done with him.
I’m sorry, what? He’s the leader of a party in coalition. How on earth do you get from that to “not pluralist”?
You are seriously proposing that a Tory-only government would have delivered more Lib Dem policies?
Yeah… The coalition is pluralist politics. You keep tellung yourself that.lol