Nick’s Bite the Ballot Leaders Live Q & A this evening went pretty well. Those watching were asked to tweet #yesNick or #noNick to indicate what they thought on four different subjects, jobs, education, health and immigration.
All I can say is that I hope all these young people have votes. Here are the scores on the doors:
The results are in, this is how @nick_clegg did with health #LeadersLivepic.twitter.com/EG6amSmHgX
— BITE (@BiteChannel) December 16, 2014
The results are in, this is how @nick_clegg did with immigration #LeadersLive pic.twitter.com/qNnfUZ0HUN
— BITE (@BiteChannel) December 16, 2014
Jobs was 58-42, but I can’t find a tweet for that.
And here’s the really surprising one:
The results are in, this is how @nick_clegg did with education #LeadersLive pic.twitter.com/g8qoNCaQ7a
— BITE (@BiteChannel) December 16, 2014
From all the rage of four years ago, you would expect him to have lost that issue, which obviously includes tuition fees, by a massive amount. He had a pretty robust and honest discussion about that issue. He didn’t seek to minimise it but explained very calmly that there was no way he could get no change around either Labour or the Tories.
He also spoke with massive amounts of passion about the importance of education in giving people opportunity in life, starting as early as possible. He talked about what he’d been able to do in providing nursery education for poor 2 year olds, in giving extra money to disadvantaged kids in schools (with the consequent rise in attainment), in providing a hot school meal for all younger schoolchildren.
Virtually everything he said was stuff that party activists have heard many times. I have just one note for him, though. When he’s talking about people’s fears regarding immigration, it’s ok to say that we shouldn’t sneer at people’s fears, because you won’t be able to put them into perspective if you do. However, he could have added that there are people like UKIP and the Fail deliberately whipping up those fears in the face of all the evidence.
We’ll no doubt see many more of these sessions in the months to come. He knows his stuff and he puts it across very well, particularly on young people and mental health. He says he’s busted the taboo on politicians talking openly about mental health.
Another couple of points worth mentioning: he said that the coalition had ended Labour’s preferential treatment of the private sector in the NHS and that the NHS was certainly safe under TTIP and there’s no way he’d be supporting it if he thought the NHS or any other public service would be undermined in any way.
He looked very relaxed, too. His Call Clegg experience really shows.
All in all, a pretty good session. No wonder he was pleased with the results.
* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings. You can find her on Bluesky at caronmlindsay.bsky.social
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7 Comments
But this is not an opinion poll , is it?
It is a record of people tweeting Yes or No to something he has said.
If the only person you can vote Yes to is Nick Clegg, then even he has a chance of winning.
More serious polling evidence published at the weekend still shows him to be extraordinarily unpopular with all sections of the voting public, young and old.
If I understand Caron’s article correctly the numbers tweeting are tiny. I may be misunderstanding.
Was the audience restricted to a finite number of young people tweeting? Or was it a free for all open to anyone who tuned in?
Do we have any background information on how many people were actually involved in this?
“He didn’t seek to minimise it but explained very calmly that there was no way he could get no change around either Labour or the Tories.”
But Caron, do you actually believe that? As I’ve said many times before, we know for certain that it was possible for Lib Dem MPs to stick to their tuition fees pledge, because some decent ones actually did so. Claiming (as he’s been doing lately) that it simply wasn’t possible, when it clearly was, is hardly the “honest” approach you say it is.
John Tilley
i agree the %ages are pointless since they have no meaning. Go to Twitter & put #yesNick into the search then marvel at the number of self-professed Lib Dem activists agree with Nick.
Not everybody that reads & posts on here is as gullible as some ATL think we are.
The mere fact Nick describes it as an opinion poll and it is repeated dutifully as such in the headline shows how willingly blind so many in our party are to the damage they have done to Liberal Democracy.
That there’s a new line on tuition fees (that I couldn’t get what we wanted past either Labour or the Tories) is welcome – it shows a recognition that there has to be further movement on the issue.
Unfortunately it’s nonsense – had the Lib Dems voted against (or as I recall all votes in favour switched to abstentions as allowed in the coalition agreement) then the vote would have fallen.
But it does sound like Nick did well last night, and I hope he’ll do many similar sessions in target seats – this is playing to his strengths.
As I understood it, tuition fees were already decided by Labour Party and left as a trap? Need clarification.
@Clive “tuition fees were already decided by Labour Party and left as a trap?”
Labour commissioned the Browne report but it did not report until after the election.
Lib Dems warned voters before the 2010 election that Labour and Conservatives would increase fees on the back of the Browne report, and offered an alternative, e.g. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/election-2010/7641956/Lib-Dems-target-student-vote-with-tuition-fees-warning.html