Time to say, “Oh sod it” to the usual rule on The Voice of not reporting individual polls on headline voting intentions:
Conservative: 33%
Liberal Democrat: 30%
Labour: 28%
Others: 9%
Fieldwork: 15-16 April.
The last time the party was this high in the polls was after Sarah Teather’s victory in the Brent East by-election, when YouGov made it C32, L31, LD30 and ICM had all three parties tied on 31%.
The next round of phone calls between party press officers and the media could be quite fun. What was that about giving the third-placed party less media coverage?
Of course, in the past poll surges have come and gone – but that’s been when they’ve been triggered by a one-off event, such as a by-election victory, with the political agenda then moving on. After the Brent surge the news quickly moved on to the Labour and Conservative Party conferences. This time though the next ‘big event’ is another debate – with again equal prominence and equal air time.
A curious detail from the poll:
How much difference did the leaders’ debate make to how you will cast your vote at the general election?
A lot – I have changed how I would vote in the light of the leader’s debate: 5%
I wonder if the full details will reveal that there has been a big impact on the likelihood to vote scores for Lib Dem supporters.
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On a uniform national swing, according to UK Polling Report, this would give the Lib Dems 99 seats, and leave Labour 50 seats and the Tories 80 seats short of a majority.
At Sheffield campaign office, much laughter and hugging!
Two more debates, what do we say?
Bring. It. On!
We need to put the message out there: with 7 percentage points more we can be the largest party and Nick CAN be Prime Minister.
Time to start heavy leafleting in all second place constituencies.
37% Lib Dem, 29% Conservative, 24% Labour equals 193, 210, 214 seats.
This is according to UK Polling Report’s swingometer.
Seven more points!
Oops, seats go Lib Dem 214, Labour 210, Tories 193. (It’s late and I’m tired).
Robert C: This sounds like a recipe for rampant candidatitis. Any change to our strategy at this stage to try and target some possibly less likely seats would almost inevitably mean we miss out on real targets. Let’s just all calm down and remember this is only one poll and there’s a good chance that it’s a rogue. Until it’s backed up by at least three others giving similar results, I refuse to get carried away.
How much of this new support comes from genuine switchers, and how much is sucked up from the hidden pool of disengaged non-voters? My hunch, for what it is worth, is that Nick is appealling to people who don’t have strong political allegiances and don’t normally bother to vote. The big challenge is maintaining this level of support until May 6th.
It’s time all front line spokesmen adopted the mantra that “we are in lst or 2nd place in 250 seats, of course we can win” as Ed Davey needed a bullet point like this when being interviewed by John Sopel for BBC News 24 tonight…stop fluffing the lines, Ed. And if you know a poll putting us in second is coming out, why didnt you come out with this upfront instead of having to be prompted?
Sky News website is reporting the Sun poll well. (for once).
There’s an obvious danger. Labservatives congratulate us on getting 30%. Labservatives then throw lots of mud at us. Meanwhile, memories of that debate start to fade a little, and we slip back to (say) 27%. Labservatives then claim, quite falsely, that this proves that their mud has stuck, and that we are just a nine-day-wonder who are now on the slide.
Then again, if we win the next debate as well, or we play some strong cards outside of the debate, we can avoid that danger and just keep on climbing.
Clegg is bound to be euphoric. Hide away for a couple of days Nick, until that subsides a bit. Don’t spoil things with a silly grin (however much that would only be human!)
Time to bring forward the rest of the team, show that we’ve got strength in depth, and, yes we can. We can govern!
Mark,
If you want to seal any deal you seem to have got going, when will NC and your party recognise and publically acknowledge that the sovereingty of our Head of State should symbolise the peoples’ sovereignty over all but legislative authorities, and publically commit to the earliest provision of the ways and means so that we can exercise that responsibility of ours fully? You know, stuff like a statutory suite of measures such as Citizens’ Petitions, Initiatives & Bills, Deliberative Conventions, Preferenda (non-binding) and Referenda (binding),
so that we can raise any matter of concern at any time with any public, private or voluntary body and so instigate statutory, graduated responses giving voice to and votes on our ideas, proposals and preferences to do as we would be done by?
Coupled with wholesale decentralisation (the proper version of the ersatz power devolved being power retained model), this would lighten the heavy burden of responsibity he and his ilk bore to scrutinise legislation en-route from HMG and Brussels. Moreover, it might even enable fewer of our representatives to hold executives to our rather than their parties account, as they also would be spared much work then taken up by local councillors and much less time watching balls in the air and moving goalposts and so be better placed to spot looming wrecking balls.
So come on Mark, encourage NC to put his and the party’s trust in us by joining us. We-democracy is a win-win for electors and elected alike.
David Allen – its time to bring out the Lawsmeister.
As has been pointed out elsewhere, YouGov _generally_ produces some of the lower ratings for the Lib Dems.
Unless this poll is a statistical freak, there must be a reasonable probability that at least one poll this weekend will show the Lib Dems ahead of both Labour and the Tories.
Typical of the kind of material that is coming our way
is a piece by Edward Heathcoat Amory asking “So what are his policies?” in the Mail.
The only thing missing from Heathcoat Amory’s list is the suggestion that Nick eats babies.
Edward Heathcoat-Amory: “Lib Dems would tax MANURE – when of course my uncle says it ought to be subsidised by the taxpayer.”
To lose one national telivised debate, Mr Conseravtive, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness. to lose the next two as well ….
Daily Mail’s Harris poll today has Lib Dems level with the Tories: The fitures are: Con, 32; Lib Dem, 32; Labour….26, so, the second opinion poll to put Labour trailing badly. Never before in the history of opinion polls in Britain has a General Election opinion poll put Labour last, and now two have done just that. And 26 for them is meltdown territory.
“Daily Mail’s Harris poll today has Lib Dems level with the Tories: The fitures are: Con, 32; Lib Dem, 32; Labour….26, so, the second opinion poll to put Labour trailing badly. Never before in the history of opinion polls in Britain has a General Election opinion poll put Labour last, and now two have done just that.”
Careful! Like the ComRes figures released yesterday, this is a poll of people who watched the debate, not of the whole electorate:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1266661/ELECTION-2010-Nick-Clegg-boosted-Daily-Mail-poll.html
“Let’s just all calm down and remember this is only one poll and there’s a good chance that it’s a rogue. Until it’s backed up by at least three others giving similar results, I refuse to get carried away.”
Here here! Anyone excited by these snap-shot polls should really take a long cold shower. The Labour, the Tories and right-wing newspapers are going to thrown all kinds of crap at us in the next few weeks. If we manage get to the beginning of May and the polls still show the same situation, that’s the time to get excited!
Need to calm down a bit and just get on with campaigning. Serious danger of getting too excited about this and creating a new David Steel moment….