LibDem leadership election

[Democratic Hawk]

Cambell has confirmed that he'll be standing

He's probably the "safe pair of hands" candidate

Dave

[afleitch]

Campbell will probably walk it. He was wise enough not to put his name on the list and can therefore proclaim himself as the 'if I must i must' candidate.

[Ben.]

The return to two party politics continues apace

This implosion on the part of the LibDems is more a symptom of a wider readjustment in UK politics the Tories solidifying and reoccupying lost ground and Labour returning to solidify its core support while retaining some of the ground gained from the Tories post 92 fairly resiliently. 

Campbell, should he be elected, is able and credible, but I don’t see him providing the LibDems with anything special, he stops the bleeding that could have occupied had a more divisive figures such as Hughes or Oaten got the leadership but I don’t see him as capable of seeing off a large section of the voters tempted to go back to Cameron’s conservative party nor do I see him consolidating the party’s gains against Labour since the Iraq War… then again I don’t think that the Kennedy policy of going after both the Tories and Labour was doomed to collapse and I don’t see any potential leader who could have pulled it off.     

[afleitch]

At this precise moment, the only 'liberal' leader, to use such a sweeping term is David Cameron.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

File this under "funny"... John Hemming (yes, that one) is likely to stand!

[afleitch]

File this under "funny"... John Hemming (yes, that one) is likely to stand!

I for one hope he wins

Three party politics my....

[Peter]

File this under "funny"... John Hemming (yes, that one) is likely to stand!

http://johnhemming.blogspot.com/

You've got to read his blog, its just pure entertainment.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Oh, I do. Regulary. One of the funniest sites on the net

[Ben.]

File this under "funny"... John Hemming (yes, that one) is likely to stand!

LOL!

An egotistical, dishonest, ugly, womanizer sounds like the perfect party leader to me! 

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Great news!

He's running!

O/c he probably doesn't have a hope in hell of getting enough M.P's to support him to get him onto the ballot but still

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Oaten's in. Amusingly (given his general views) he's probably going to wind up being the candidate of choice for LibDems who see what happend to Kennedy as an ideological coup by the Right and who aren't pinko-hacktivist types.

[bullmoose88]

Al,

For the generally ignorant (ahem cough me, look over here)...could you describe the various wings/factions of the liberal democrats?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Al,

For the generally ignorant (ahem cough me, look over here)...could you describe the various wings/factions of the liberal democrats?

Too many to describe without going insane... in very crude terms you have a certain sort of trendy liberal activist group, a broadly centrist group (usually rural Liberals or ex-SDP) and a socially permissive/fiscally conservative group.
But that's ideology... in terms of factions... well... there's a hell of a lot of them... Oaten (as an example) is seen as being one of the fiscally conservative/socially liberal types, but certainly wasn't in on the coup against Kennedy (which was o/c lead by others from that group).

---
While I don't see the point in reporting polls much at the moment, I will make an exception for this one... +/- are from the election...

Populus/Times

Lab 39% (+3), Con 36% (+3), LD 16% (-6)

Feeding this into electoralcalculus and... the LibDems are reduced to just 11 seats. Prominant LibDem casualties would include David Laws, Mark Oaten, Vince Cable and Simon Hughes.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Read the full thing here: http://www.populuslimited.com/poll_summaries/2006_01_10_times.htm

Some questions on Kennedy as well

[afleitch]

16% is as low as they can go really. I think the Lib Dems have a bedrock support of about 12-15% who will vote for them thick and thin and we are seeing a significant 'peeling back' of their support. There has been very little Lab to Con switching- I think it's been estimated at 1 in 13 or 1 in 16 Labour voters in a poll a few weeks back.

I have no idea of Populus' methodology and whether it was adjusted to reflect the 2005 election result, but these figures seen about right to me.

[minionofmidas]

Feeding this into electoralcalculus and... the LibDems are reduced to just 11 seats. Prominant LibDem casualties would include David Laws, Mark Oaten, Vince Cable and Simon Hughes.

Of course that's a dumb thing to do; any collapse is going to be worst in seats where they don't win but nonetheless have a sizable following.

[afleitch]

Feeding this into electoralcalculus and... the LibDems are reduced to just 11 seats. Prominant LibDem casualties would include David Laws, Mark Oaten, Vince Cable and Simon Hughes.

Of course that's a dumb thing to do; any collapse is going to be worst in seats where they don't win but nonetheless have a sizable following.

True, the Lib Dems are ruthless campaigners on a local level and will put their all into holding seats should their votes heamorrage. However it is likely they will suffer in the South in particular, if there are even small swings to the Tories. There were already reversals in 2005 including Newbury and Weston Super Mare for example and they are in danger of loosing the cluster of South West London seats they gained in 1997.

[minionofmidas]

Reversals, but no meltdown to 11 seats. It's not just about campaigning either - although this plays a role too, obviously - it's about incumbency.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Feeding this into electoralcalculus and... the LibDems are reduced to just 11 seats. Prominant LibDem casualties would include David Laws, Mark Oaten, Vince Cable and Simon Hughes.

Of course that's a dumb thing to do; any collapse is going to be worst in seats where they don't win but nonetheless have a sizable following.

True (I was bored basically) up to a point anyway. Of the four mentioned, the only one in any real danger next election is Hughes (and that's more to longterm reasons; his base in NSB is eroding ala Wainwright ('tho' Wainwright had the sense to not seek re-election in '87) or Freud (who didn't) although he's certainly no pushover. One problem he has is oddly paradoxical; the better known he becomes nationally, the more *potentially* endangered he is in his constituency. The current media portrayal of him as a "left-winger" is especially damaging). 11 seats on 16% of the PV is also very unlikely; it'd be more like 20 methinks.

[Democratic Hawk]

Is Hemming's definately running? He's an ugly git. How he's managed to have 26 affairs beggers belief.

Yes, it would be nice to see the Liberal Democrats reduced to 11 seats. When I fed the Mail On Sunday data Lab 38%, Con 38% and LD 16% into the electoral calculus they were reduced to 6

Dave

[afleitch]

It will be interesting to see how the Lib Dems perform in the 2007 Scottish Parliamentary elections. Despite being a fully fledged coalition partner, the public seem unwilling to pin any Executive mistakes onto them. In 2005 they became Scotlands second most popular party in terms of share of the vote (yet in 2003 they were 4th) Yet a glance at their constituency seats gives the impression that they are in a stronger position that they would seem, despite coming 4th.

If they hold firm or even advance in 2007 it will of course be to Labour's advantage- if Labour voters switch to the Lib Dems and not to the SNP, Labour will hold on in the central belt 'marginals' even though they may have to pay the price come the coalition deal. With Salmond back on his stomping ground in 2007 the SNP should in theory outperform 2003 where they did worse than expected. Yet the Tories really need the SNP to underperform in the North East in order to take a few constituency seats.

Luckily Scotland is developing diverging regional voting patterns making it fat less easy to predict.

EDIT- The probably collapse of the shambolic SSP could offset SNP advances in the Central Belt to the benefit of Labour.

[minionofmidas]

...if these voters go back to Labour, that is. Others might just vote some other protest option - might vote SNP, even - , or not go to the polls at all.

[afleitch]

...if these voters go back to Labour, that is. Others might just vote some other protest option - might vote SNP, even - , or not go to the polls at all.

Thats true. It is expected amongst political circles that the Greens are likely to advance electorally (all depends on second preference. The Greens won most second preference votes in one constituency last time round - Edinburgh Central) to such an extent that the SNP have been courting them with the posibility of a so called 'green tartan' or 'sunflower thistle' coalition that while would be unlikely to have a majority should be able to hold power if the SNP win the most seats.

[minionofmidas]

(likes thought.)

[Democratic Hawk]

In The Mirror - my family's favoured tabloid - it reports that yesterday on Radio 4's Today programme that the Lib Dems main donor businessman Michael Brown, who funded them to the tune of £2.4 million last year, is so appalled at the treatment of Kennedy, he's 99.99% certain he won't be donating again

A principled man

Dave