UK General Election - May 7th 2015

[tpfkaw]

Nick Clegg surged after the debates because he was the 'trendy' option. UKIP is surging now because they're the 'trendy' option.

With completely different demographics, however.

[Joe Republic]

All this time I thought UKIP was born out of the Referendum Party.  I didn't know it was more of a JPF/PFJ rivalry instead.

[Vosem]

All this time I thought UKIP was born out of the Referendum Party.  I didn't know it was more of a JPF/PFJ rivalry instead.

Apparently, in 1997 after being way out-classed by the Referendum Party, UKIP was on the brink of collapse, until the Referendum Party leader Goldsmith died and that party was torn apart, resulting in an influx of support for UKIP and their first real success at the EP elections of 1999 when they won 3 seats. From there, it's been straight up.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I will remind everyone again that the people who vote - or at least voted - LibDem are not necessarily the people that you all seem to be assuming do/did. Surveys used to show that the most popular newspaper amongst regular LibDem voters was the Daily Mail...

[DC Al Fine]

I will remind everyone again that the people who vote - or at least voted - LibDem are not necessarily the people that you all seem to be assuming do/did. Surveys used to show that the most popular newspaper amongst regular LibDem voters was the Daily Mail...

Do you have a link one of those surveys. Seems like it'd be a pretty interesting read.

[EPG]

I will remind everyone again that the people who vote - or at least voted - LibDem are not necessarily the people that you all seem to be assuming do/did. Surveys used to show that the most popular newspaper amongst regular LibDem voters was the Daily Mail...

Well, that's because the Daily Mail is the overwhelmingly most popular middle-class newspaper, with left-wing newspapers barely featuring in circulation figures. It doesn't mean that Lib Dem voters weren't more liberal and left-wing than the country as a whole.

I don't see evidence that everyone/all people on this thread are less informed about the party's current or former support base.

[tpfkaw]

I will remind everyone again that the people who vote - or at least voted - LibDem are not necessarily the people that you all seem to be assuming do/did. Surveys used to show that the most popular newspaper amongst regular LibDem voters was the Daily Mail...

Well, that's because the Daily Mail is the overwhelmingly most popular middle-class newspaper, with left-wing newspapers barely featuring in circulation figures. It doesn't mean that Lib Dem voters weren't more liberal and left-wing than the country as a whole.

I don't see evidence that everyone/all people on this thread are less informed about the party's current or former support base.

Yeah, the Mail currently has 9 times the circulation of the Guardian, so that factoid is pretty meaningless. What matters is the ratio.

[DL]

What is the stereotype of the types of people who vote LibDem in the UK. I tend to see them as having a voter base kind of like the FDP in Germany (also known as "the party of doctors and dentists") meaning that they get support from people who see themselves as being "too rich to vote Labour and too smart to vote Tory".

Am i getting close?

[bore]

There's a big difference in lib dem voters between regions. Lib Dem voters in, say, cornwall are very different socially and politically from Lib Dem voters in, say, Sheffield Hallam.

[politicus]

There's a big difference in lib dem voters between regions. Lib Dem voters in, say, cornwall are very different socially and politically from Lib Dem voters in, say, Sheffield Hallam.

It would be very interesting if one of you Brits could make a short description of the (stereo)typical LibDem voter in each of their strongest areas.
(or give us a link if someone has already done it)

[ChrisDR68]

I will remind everyone again that the people who vote - or at least voted - LibDem are not necessarily the people that you all seem to be assuming do/did. Surveys used to show that the most popular newspaper amongst regular LibDem voters was the Daily Mail...

Would I be correct in thinking millions of Labour voters buy The Sun despite the fact it's a Tory supporting newspaper?

The correlation between party affiliation and which party people's newspapers support isn't always obvious or straight forward.

[freefair]

I will remind everyone again that the people who vote - or at least voted - LibDem are not necessarily the people that you all seem to be assuming do/did. Surveys used to show that the most popular newspaper amongst regular LibDem voters was the Daily Mail...

Would I be correct in thinking millions of Labour voters buy The Sun despite the fact it's a Tory supporting newspaper?

The correlation between party affiliation and which party people's newspapers support isn't always obvious or straight forward.

Yep, although the Suns politics are pretty weird, it's broadly centre-right ,culturally nationalistic, Neoconservative on foreign policies yet with a weird libertarian streak on sexual matters. It endorsed New Labour in 1997,2001 & 2005, because of Blair's once rosy friendship with Rupert Murdoch

[EPG]

What is the stereotype of the types of people who vote LibDem in the UK. I tend to see them as having a voter base kind of like the FDP in Germany (also known as "the party of doctors and dentists") meaning that they get support from people who see themselves as being "too rich to vote Labour and too smart to vote Tory".

Am i getting close?

I am not a Britisher, but I think that type of person typically voted Conservative.

The stereotype is that Lib Dems are centre-left but not very socialist, middle-class people, often academics or students, government workers, or more rarely what the French call "liberal professionals" like lawyers or architects. The younger ones have a more post-modern profile than Labour, more sympathetic to vegetarianism, local food, real ale and other bo-bo obsessions. The older voters really really like localism, including everything from fiercely-independent urban councils on the peripheries of metropolises to Celtic nationalists. The men had beards even when they weren't cool. They were more idealistic and unrealistic than Labour. They like education spending, electoral reform and anti-war politics. Just to reiterate, the stereotype was that Lib Dem voters were centre-left and that it was a centre-left-to-centrist party which could be best stereotyped in terms of its contrasts with Labour.

The truth is that this is partly correct, but only describes a small high-profile fraction of Liberal Democrat support, and is mostly incomplete. There are simply too few of those soc-lib middle-class people, and too many of them vote Labour. Under the electoral system, small demographic shards like professionals can't elect anyone on their own. It is a little more accurate in describing their activists and active membership, but even then, it is fairer to describe most Lib Dem voters and activists in successful areas as:

Broad coalitions to win seats under first-past-the-post, typically in formerly safe seats for Conservatives, winning the tactical votes of sympathisers of Labour, or vice-versa. Often living in very pretty towns in nice parts of England like Bath/Kendal/Lewes. Less commonly, exploiting discontent with long-term Labour dynasties in more morose areas like Chesterfield/Redcar/Burnley.

[You kip if you want to...]

Again, 'a stereotypical LibDem voter' is very different today to what it was pre-Coalition.

They've lost a lot of their 'stereotypes' to Labour, the Greens, the SNP and Plaid it seems.

[politicus]

Again, 'a stereotypical LibDem voter' is very different today to what it was pre-Coalition.

They've lost a lot of their 'stereotypes' to Labour, the Greens, the SNP and Plaid it seems.

Its the regional breakdown thats interestig. Who typically votes LibDem in Sheffield, Cornwall, Highlands etc.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Well, that's because the Daily Mail is the overwhelmingly most popular middle-class newspaper,

That is precisely my point. LibDem support comes (came?) mostly from perfectly ordinary people, including large numbers who are neither particularly political nor particularly 'liberal' (in the usual sense of the word). Their main electoral selling point between the early 70s and entering government in 2010 was that they were 'different' (and that they were 'different' in a basically non-alienating way), which is why it was really quite difficult to generalise about their electorate...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

yet with a weird libertarian streak on sexual matters.

Translation: it prints pictures of tits on page three. Libertarian streak my foot; virulently homophobic rag back in the day.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Its the regional breakdown thats interestig. Who typically votes LibDem in Sheffield, Cornwall, Highlands etc.

The Liberal vote in the West Country has traditionally been a hick vote, for want of a better way of putting it. There used to be a big confessional element to this (i.e. the West Country is a deeply conservative region with no socialist tradition outside the cities and a couple of random other places, but is also an area with a strong Nonconformist heritage, particularly in remote areas. Nonconformists everywhere were usually pretty uncomfortable with the idea of voting Tory, which left the Liberals as the default option), though that's declined as a factor in recent decades.

[Phony Moderate]

Anywhere where TUSC or the Communists can win a seat?

[EPG]

Its the regional breakdown thats interestig. Who typically votes LibDem in Sheffield, Cornwall, Highlands etc.

The Liberal vote in the West Country has traditionally been a hick vote, for want of a better way of putting it. There used to be a big confessional element to this (i.e. the West Country is a deeply conservative region with no socialist tradition outside the cities and a couple of random other places, but is also an area with a strong Nonconformist heritage, particularly in remote areas. Nonconformists everywhere were usually pretty uncomfortable with the idea of voting Tory, which left the Liberals as the default option), though that's declined as a factor in recent decades.

Yeah, it was an ingroup-outgroup split that mattered less with time.

As Sibboleth will know (but for the benefit of others), one example is Margaret Thatcher, who began life as a middle-class Midlands Methodist in a political but non-Conservative family. As she entered the south-eastern, upper-middle class, she attended Church of England services instead.

It looks to me like a class issue as much as anything else. Perhaps people tended to profess the Sovereign's faith as they rose up in society, unless they were as bulletproof as the Duke of Norfolk or Mr Cadbury. I don't pretend to be an expert on the distinctions of Reformed theology, so I will leave my speculations at that.

No, the fringe leftists aren't going to win a seat. Don't fret about them.

[YL]

Again, 'a stereotypical LibDem voter' is very different today to what it was pre-Coalition.

They've lost a lot of their 'stereotypes' to Labour, the Greens, the SNP and Plaid it seems.

Its the regional breakdown thats interestig. Who typically votes LibDem in Sheffield, Cornwall, Highlands etc.

I think that even in Sheffield the Lib Dem vote has been quite heterogeneous.  Especially in council elections, they have sometimes been getting the votes of people who dislike Sheffield Labour for all sorts of reasons which might not even be very compatible with each other.  (UKIP are now filling this role more than the Lib Dems.)  In general elections, I think the Lib Dem vote contains/contained substantial amounts of following types of voter:
(a) the left-liberal middle class voters much as described by EPG;
(b) a sizable, mostly middle class, vote which doesn't like the "nastiness" associated with the Tories but thinks of Labour as not very good at running the economy/not very good at running the City Council/too dominated by the unions (delete as appropriate).  Think of Moderate Heroes, or the sort of people who were attracted by the SDP in the 1980s.  (On the other hand, a lot of the (a) and (c) voters who were old enough may have voted Labour in 1983; there are people I know who voted Labour in 1983 but Lib Dem in 2010, and I doubt they think their views changed that much.)  Nationally, this sort of voter mostly voted for Blair, but in west Sheffield they may not have done because of the Lib Dems' local strength and their dislike of the council.
(c) Tactical voters.  In the areas which have always been in Hallam this would mean people who were basically Labour supporters who voted Lib Dem because they thought Labour had no chance.  There were big campaigns to get Labour supporters to do this at least from 1992 onwards.  There's something of an overlap with (a): a lot of Hallam Labour supporters would be quite small-l liberal (in the British sense, not the Venstre sense) anyway.  (These days, the Lib Dems and their bar charts have switched to trying to get Tories and Kippers to vote for them to stop Labour.  In Sheffield Central, where it was Labour they were fighting, I think they did that already in 2010.)

NB Hallam and the stronger Lib Dem parts of both Central and Heeley constituencies are very much the middle class side of Sheffield: the Lib Dems have never done well in general elections in the strongly working class parts of the city, though they have sometimes won council seats there.

Addendum: I probably should have mentioned voters (probably mostly ex-Tories, looking at the figures) who voted Lib Dem in 2010 out of enthusiasm for Clegg...

[Beezer]

Poor old Ed.



http://news.sky.com/story/1361710/ukip-hits-new-poll-high-after-1-7bn-eu-bill

[You kip if you want to...]

Poor old Ed.



http://news.sky.com/story/1361710/ukip-hits-new-poll-high-after-1-7bn-eu-bill

Plot twist: election 2015 results in both major parties hitting record lows.

[ChrisDR68]

Even with those unlikely percentages the two major parties will still win between 85-90% of the seats with the first passed the post voting system though.

Amazing huh?

It's no wonder they want to cling to that system like grim death...

[EPG]

I wonder. On the one hand, the Lib Dems are generally forecast to lose 25-35 seats (I lean toward a larger figure). This will by and large help the two main parties in England and Wales.

On the other hand, a good chunk of the recent Labour decline is speculated to be due to a SNP surge into first place in Scotland after the referendum. Either that reverses and the two-party share of the vote increases, or the SNP will pick up many Scottish seats, enough to jeopardise Labour plurality control of Scotland, if not overturn it completely.

Furthermore, if Ukip scores high-teens on average in GB, they will be in the high-20s in their strongest regions (i.e. excluding London, Scotland, Wales, much of the North) and in the 30s in their strongest seats. That would be enough to win some former two-party contests, especially those in which Labour was second at the last election; Labour MPs might put more effort into the Ukip fight in their own seats. But 33-30-27 splits will happen; the top dog can't be predicted in such contests.

In short, the seeds for a bad defeat for the two-party system are there. The European debate which helps Ukip and a likely return to opposition for the Lib Dems should allow these small parties to consolidate and remain part of the scene until the next election.