From the Independent

Lib Dem poll rating halves to 12 per cent

By Andrew Woodcock
Monday, 2 August 2010


Support for the Liberal Democrats has fallen to just 12 per cent, half the level the party secured in the general election, according to an opinion poll yesterday.

The YouGov survey for The Sunday Times also recorded a steep fall in the popularity of the party's leader, Nick Clegg, since he became Deputy Prime Minister in the coalition Government.

Mr Clegg's personal satisfaction rating was just eight points, compared with the 72 points he achieved after the first televised leaders' debate during the election campaign.

Yesterday's poll suggested that Tories have not suffered in the same way from going into coalition. David Cameron's party was on 42 per cent, up five points since the election, with Labour fast gaining ground, up eight points to 38 per cent. The Liberal Democrats' rating was the lowest since October 2007, when Sir Menzies Campbell was forced out as leader.

Chris Huhne, the Liberal Democrat Secretary of State for Energy, insisted that his party's fortunes would be restored by the time of the next election if voters could see that they had got to grips with the economic problems inherited from Labour.

"I can remember a time when we had opinion polls where we were just an asterisk. We were literally within the margin of error of zero. So, frankly, it doesn't worry me. I'm absolutely convinced...people will look back and say: 'They did the right thing: here we have a real recovery with lots more prosperity coming through.' People will turn round and say actually we deserve credit."

The problem with Chris Huhne is that 1- the future is unlikely to be so rosy and 2- I am not convinced at all that people are punishing LibDem for any particular issue or the present state of the economy but because they were a protest vote and decided to trade that in for a place within the establishment...

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Originally Posted by Gilles de Rais

The problem with Chris Huhne is that 1- the future is unlikely to be so rosy and 2- I am not convinced at all that people are punishing LibDem for any particular issue or the present state of the economy but because they were a protest vote and decided to trade that in for a place within the establishment...

Exactly! They only scored so high because Labour scored so badly. Now people realize that they have traded the devil for Beelzebub ... and thus, the disenchanted Labour voters return to their traditional Labour base, whereas the Liberal Democrats return back to being unimportant.

I don't know that this result could have been prevented. In a coalition with Labour, they probably wouldn't have fared any better, and if they manage to accomplish anything meaningful within the current coalition government, such an outcome would indeed likely be rewarded in the next elections.

I wonder where they are going. If it is back to Labour I can see no other solution but to go round to each individual's house and stick drawing pins in them until they apologise and promise never to be so unbelievably stupid again. I mean democracy's great and all that but there comes a point where someone has to take charge.

Quote:

Now people realize that they have traded the devil for Beelzebub ... and thus, the disenchanted Labour voters return to their traditional Labour base, whereas the Liberal Democrats return back to being unimportant.

And when the Lib Dems have taken away our civil liberties, raped the constitution and sent us to war on a whim, that'll be an accurate analogy.

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So wait...how many years did it take for people to finally kick labour in the bucket...and how many weeks for them to forgive and forget? It'd be funny if it wasn't so important =/

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