After the excitement of Cleggmania and the eventual disappointment of the election result, polling evidence suggests the Lib Dem vote was a good deal softer than the Conservative and Labour votes.
Overall turnout for the election, although higher than in 2005, was a few percent lower than predicted, and it seems likely that a big chunk of that were people who said they’d vote Lib Dem and then didn’t make it down to the polling station.
Though disappointing, it’s hardly surprising. The 29% that Labour got can reasonably be described as their core vote – barely higher than they achieved in 1983. Those Labour voters will have, for the most part, a long history of voting Labour. In many cases their families have for generations – as one person commented “voting Labour is in my DNA”.
The same applies to the Conservatives, to a lesser extent. The Tories lost elections in the 1960s on substantially higher percentages of the vote than they got this time round.
The Lib Dem vote was very different. Of the 30% or more of voters who said they’d vote Lib Dem in some polls, barely a third had supported the party for the whole of the last parliament. Many were only vaguely aware of the Lib Dem’s existence before the campaign started, and had no idea who Nick Clegg was.
Is it any surprise the Lib Dem vote proved to be softer than that of our opponents? That a lifetime of support for a party through thick and thin, good and bad, proved to be more resilient than a month’s exposure and a few leaders’ debates?
We have a real opportunity to improve on that.
Between now and the next General Election, the Lib Dems are going to be in the news daily. Even the Sun and the Daily Mail will remember we exist. As I wrote on Friday, that brings challenges, as a lot of that coverage will be attacks and we’ll have to live with that, just as the Conservatives and Labour have always had to. It also brings benefits.
When we get to the next election, many more Lib Dem voters will be placing their cross on the ballot paper (or, hopefully, ranking the candidates in order of preference) on the basis not of a brief flirtation with the party, but of seeing what we do in government over several years.
We won’t be the new boys, untainted by the realities of governing. But we will be known and familiar.
The likely result is a hardening of the Lib Dem vote. It should shift less during the election campaign, and the voters who say they’ll support the party in polls should do so more reliably.
The promised land? Hardly. That hardened vote could still turn out to be 15% or even less, and the challenge to build support for the party is as great as ever.
But if we can show what we’re about and persuade more people over a period of years that the Lib Dems are the right choice, that vote’s likely to become a lot more resilient than it’s been up to now.
Follow @libdemvoice.org on Bluesky
Like us on Facebook
Subscribe to our feed
Sign-up for our daily email digest
We do have a two-tier policing system but it is not what our homegrown racists think it is.
Lib Dems are reviewing policy and strategy says PoliticsHome
From Norman settlement to a civic square
Church Green video
Iain Donaldson
Simon Robinson
Chloe
expats
11 Comments
Of course, any kind of preferential voting will eliminate most of the problem here.
nothing is guaranteed, everything is to play for. But for definite our party, policies and people will be in the news everyday and, who knows, we might even hear about this special conference today!
Our building of support has always been stymied by lack of continuous coverage. It can work two ways but then the success of this coalition and how it deals with the issues, especially the economic, over the next 5 years can go two ways too!
It very revealing that all you are talking about here is positioning and marketing the LibDems for the future – rather than achieving results in government that support LibDem values (whatever they may be.
Perhaps one reason why voting Labour is in some people’s DNA is that a lot of people get their values from their parents and families – this of course will be an anathema to those who see no role for values in politics.
Rather like the supporters of Terry Wogan hijacked a column in the 2001 census by putting ‘TOG’ in the space for religion, I think that with some well organised and targetted campaigning the AV vote could bring us our first Monster Raving Looney MP.
The difference between Labour & LIberal-Democrat values is that one defines people by where they came from & the other by where they want to go.
Fantastic comment Paul Barker. I wish I lived in your world where structures like access to education do not exist (just one example being squire Cameron and his fag clegg), amongst a plethora of others I could mention.
As Lib -Dems define people by “where they want to go”, I note there is no mention of those left behind. Maybe they don’t exist in your non-sociological fluffy utopia?
@toryboysnevergrowup may I apologize for not covering every single aspect of the Lib Dems in a single article. Must try harder.
Heard more than once on polling day: “But Nick Clegg wasn’t on the ballot paper”.
Whilst the Leaders Debates were hugely successful for us, they also created much confusion amongst the new, infrequent and/or politically naive voters, who were, in fact, the people who decided this election. It was too short a time to do the corrective political education, and was further complicated in areas like mine where we had locals as well.
So, yes, Iain, we’ll be in a different position next time.
The work for the next General Election should start NOW. We may be in coalition but in most LibDem constituencies the opposition are the Tories and will continue to be so. If we sit on our hands watching in fascination as the story of the work of this new parliament unfolds we are in great danger of disappearing as a party without trace, with the electorate not bothering to vote for us again.
Paul Barker
Perhaps my parents and ancestors had values like fairness, equality justice and democracy which still haven’t yet been achieved. I do know some of them were Chartists – and their only unfulfilled demand was for annual parliaments – but your lot now appear to have gone for 5 year parliaments, despite no party having had such a policy at the last election. Perhaps you should also look up the meaning of conservative as well.
Mary, living in a large University city (indeed, the largest), I’m already looking at ways to help enfranchise student voters through political education. The University of Manchester did a very good job of encouraging students to vote and explaining party policies, but less well in illuminating the mechanics of democracy.