Where the polls went wrong

[jamie]

Jan 17, 2016 15:46:31 GMT @benjamin said:

Jan 17, 2016 14:49:30 GMT johnsmith said:

Down here the Lib Dem presence was strong, their voter base consisting mainly of a coalition between genuine lefties voting tactically, and genuine centrists more akin perhaps to many of the Lib Dem supporters on this forum.

Plus many who have switched to UKIP for any number of reasons.

Are we sure that many went directly from the Liberal Democrats to UKIP? It would make more sense if the Lib Dems collapse went to Labour and the Conservatives who then lost voters to UKIP. I know there was a protest vote for the Lib Dems, but I don't think it was that large and it split to many other parties like the Greens, SNP etc as well, so I don't think that many moved directly from Lib Dem to UKIP. 

[A Brown]

Jan 17, 2016 18:00:52 GMT jamie said:

Jan 17, 2016 15:46:31 GMT @benjamin said:

Plus many who have switched to UKIP for any number of reasons.

Are we sure that many went directly from the Liberal Democrats to UKIP? It would make more sense if the Lib Dems collapse went to Labour and the Conservatives who then lost voters to UKIP. I know there was a protest vote for the Lib Dems, but I don't think it was that large and it split to many other parties like the Greens, SNP etc as well, so I don't think that many moved directly from Lib Dem to UKIP. 

The Tories lost the most votes to UKIP as shown on electoral calculus but obviously offset that with gains from 2010 Lab and LD voters. I not sure Labour lost a lot of 2010 voters to UKIP but a lot of UKIP voters who may have votes for them in 2005.

I think it is clear that a large amount of LD vote collapsed to UKIP in places like the South West e.g. Yeovil and in a lot of marginals particularly in the Midlands was nothing more than a dustbin protest vote.

[greenchristian]

Jan 17, 2016 18:00:52 GMT jamie said:

Jan 17, 2016 15:46:31 GMT @benjamin said:

Plus many who have switched to UKIP for any number of reasons.

Are we sure that many went directly from the Liberal Democrats to UKIP? It would make more sense if the Lib Dems collapse went to Labour and the Conservatives who then lost voters to UKIP. I know there was a protest vote for the Lib Dems, but I don't think it was that large and it split to many other parties like the Greens, SNP etc as well, so I don't think that many moved directly from Lib Dem to UKIP. 

Lib Dem to UKIP switchers would have been "they're all as bad as each other" protest voters, which probably made up a larger proportion of the pre-coalition Lib Dem vote than most people thought. Having said that, those voters probably didn't settle on UKIP as the new default anti-establishment party until at least 2013.

[Sibboleth]

Jan 17, 2016 18:00:52 GMT jamie said:

Are we sure that many went directly from the Liberal Democrats to UKIP?

Yes. Very heavily in certain types of constituency. You're making the classic error of assuming that all pre-Coalition LibDem voters had a similar political outlook to their more stereotypical members.

[Richard Allen]

Jan 17, 2016 19:05:22 GMT Sibboleth said:

Jan 17, 2016 18:00:52 GMT jamie said:

Are we sure that many went directly from the Liberal Democrats to UKIP?

Yes. Very heavily in certain types of constituency. You're making the classic error of assuming that all pre-Coalition LibDem voters had a similar political outlook to their more stereotypical members.

I think most of us made a mistake in underestimating just how big a chunk of the Lib Dem vote was an "anti-politics" vote.

[johnsmith]

Jan 19, 2016 2:35:24 GMT Richard Allen said:

Jan 17, 2016 19:05:22 GMT Sibboleth said:

Yes. Very heavily in certain types of constituency. You're making the classic error of assuming that all pre-Coalition LibDem voters had a similar political outlook to their more stereotypical members.

I think most of us made a mistake in underestimating just how big a chunk of the Lib Dem vote was an "anti-politics" vote.

A lot of truth in that.

Prior to 2010, the Lib Dems made great play of offering a different kind of politics, honest, being straight with people, offering something very different from the "spin" of the other two main parties. The "anti-politics vote" - as evidenced by the fact that it was actually voting - was not so much a vote against any form of political participation, nor was it an expression of apathy. It was a desire for honesty and straight-talking in politics, for politicians who gave straight answers to straight questions, whose pledges actually meant something, who spoke honestly to people, and who were not already in the pockets either of this or that media baron, this or that bunch of wealthy oligarchs, or this or that trade union. They wanted a very different, more open and honest politics that was somehow much better than the way things were being done in Westminster. The Lib Dems were able - with some good measure of credibility - to get away with the promise of all this.

Until they got into power, that is, and revealed themselves to be no different from the others.

Just as unwilling to answer straight questions. Just as unwilling to say what they really though or talk straight, their promises and pledges revealed to be just as unreliable and even dishonest as everyone else's, their love of soundbites no different. The anti-politics voter support for them was never going to survive that.

The same would no doubt happen to UKIP if ever they got enough MPs to be a participant in a governing coalition.

[Deleted]

They could have survived a lot of the problems of government had it not been for the tuition fees vote. There was no recovering from that.

[J.G.Harston]

Jan 19, 2016 8:47:56 GMT johnsmith said:

Jan 19, 2016 2:35:24 GMT Richard Allen said:

I think most of us made a mistake in underestimating just how big a chunk of the Lib Dem vote was an "anti-politics" vote.

A lot of truth in that.

Prior to 2010, the Lib Dems made great play of offering a different kind of politics, honest, being straight with people, offering something very different from the "spin" of the other two main parties.
...
Until they got into power, that is, and revealed themselves to be no different from the others.

A lot of those LibDem voters were reassured by LibDems in control at local government showing they could do the sort of government those voters approved of, so they trusted them to put them into national government. LibDem MPs had never been tested in government, whereas a lot of LibDem councillors had and in the main shown they could do a good job of it. Then had five years of realising the national party is very different to the local parties, and that at national level the party has had no government experience in 50+ years.

The pollsters seem to have presumed that voters deserting the LibDems for Labour would result in Labour gaining seats instead of, as what actually happened, the Conservatives gaining seats. The pollsters still don't seem to understand that we don't have a single national totting up of the vote, but 650 individual contests.

[Deleted]

Jan 19, 2016 10:53:33 GMT J.G.Harston said:

The pollsters seem to have presumed that voters deserting the LibDems for Labour would result in Labour gaining seats instead of, as what actually happened, the Conservatives gaining seats. The pollsters still don't seem to understand that we don't have a single national totting up of the vote, but 650 individual contests.

No they didn't assume that, they just assumed that their wrong polls were right. Their subsamples (and the Ashcroft polls) showed a significant break of ex-LD voters to Labour which should have been enough for Labour to gain most of the Lab-Con marginals. In the event, ex-LD voters went all over the shop including straight to the Tories.

[johnsmith]

Jan 19, 2016 10:53:33 GMT J.G.Harston said:

Jan 19, 2016 8:47:56 GMT johnsmith said:

A lot of truth in that.

Prior to 2010, the Lib Dems made great play of offering a different kind of politics, honest, being straight with people, offering something very different from the "spin" of the other two main parties.
...
Until they got into power, that is, and revealed themselves to be no different from the others.

A lot of those LibDem voters were reassured by LibDems in control at local government showing they could do the sort of government those voters approved of, so they trusted them to put them into national government. LibDem MPs had never been tested in government, whereas a lot of LibDem councillors had and in the main shown they could do a good job of it. Then had five years of realising the national party is very different to the local parties, and that at national level the party has had no government experience in 50+ years.

The pollsters seem to have presumed that voters deserting the LibDems for Labour would result in Labour gaining seats instead of, as what actually happened, the Conservatives gaining seats. The pollsters still don't seem to understand that we don't have a single national totting up of the vote, but 650 individual contests.

Very good points, and thanks for raising them.

Never had a strong Lib Dem presence in my local council so I cannot make any informed comment about the effectiveness of Lid Dem-run councils from personal experience. But the fact that they were a very strong presence at a local level in many areas for many years does perhaps speak for itself.

And any notion that voters deserting the Lib Dems would automatically lead to Labour gains was always a rather dubious assumption in many areas. In most of the seats that the Lib Dems held in the southwest, for example, Labour wasn't really even in the race. Even if all those who deserted the Lib Dems here had switched to Labour - and many did not - it would only ever have gifted all their seats to the Tories.

There also appears to have been a substantial "anti-Westminster-politics-as-usual" vote for the Lib Dems previously - which I personally under-estimated, I must admit - which switched to UKIP and - to a lesser extent - the Greens.

[Deleted]

The Liberal Democrats were also quite good at emphasising local issues, and localism generally, which doubtless had appeal amongst people who felt alienated from Westminster.

[Deleted]

Jan 19, 2016 2:35:24 GMT Richard Allen said:

Jan 17, 2016 19:05:22 GMT Sibboleth said:

Yes. Very heavily in certain types of constituency. You're making the classic error of assuming that all pre-Coalition LibDem voters had a similar political outlook to their more stereotypical members.

I think most of us made a mistake in underestimating just how big a chunk of the Lib Dem vote was an "anti-politics" vote.

The mistake politically-minded people often make is in assuming that the voters' minds work in the same way as theirs, and that the choices made in the voting booth are somehow explicable in ideological terms. 

The Liberals, and then Liberal Democrats, spent two generations patiently stitching together an electoral patchwork quilt comprising a minority of true believers in their idiosyncratic political vision, plus ethical Leftists who saw them as an acceptable alternative to Labour (or a more electable alternative to the Greens), tactical voters of both Left and Right, and people who wanted to "punish" Labour, the Conservatives, or both.

The objective was to put the party in a position where it could exercise power, either alone or in coalition with others. At local government level this approach was quite successful, as in the real world hardly anybody knows anything about local government, or cares. However, at national level, maintenance of the Lib Dem coalition was completely dependent on their remaining in opposition, where they could continue to be a blank canvas onto which the public could project whatever they wanted to see.

Actually sharing in power at Westminster, being subject to scrutiny and held accountable for real decisions, proved fatal. This is the Lib Dem tragedy - like Midas, or Semele or Tithonus in Greek myth, the granting of their hearts' desire has destroyed them. The ethical leftists and Left-leaning tactical voters went back to Labour. The anti-politics voters went to UKIP (which was a more logical home for most of them in any case). The Right-leaning tactical voters began to drift back to the Conservatives, as years of dismal opinion poll ratings began to suggest that voting tactically for the Lib Dems was a gamble, while the choice between Cameron and Miliband (plus the SNP) was all too real. Despite Labour's current travails, the opinion polls suggest no meaningful recovery. None of the lost voters are coming back.

I predicted in 2012 that the Lib Dem's position was terminal, but that annihilation would take two full election cycles. In the first they lose the majority of their parliamentary seats. However, hope of a comeback, plus their focused organisation, keeps them alive at local level. In the second cycle, they continue to get some good results at local elections, but nationally no bounceback materialises, and they gradually realise that new constituency boundaries will do for most - or even all - of their remaining MPs. How long do the activists keep up the fight after that? And where do they go when they give up?

[J.G.Harston]

Jan 19, 2016 11:05:53 GMT @strinity said:

Jan 19, 2016 10:53:33 GMT J.G.Harston said:

The pollsters seem to have presumed that voters deserting the LibDems for Labour would result in Labour gaining seats instead of, as what actually happened, the Conservatives gaining seats. The pollsters still don't seem to understand that we don't have a single national totting up of the vote, but 650 individual contests.

No they didn't assume that, they just assumed that their wrong polls were right. Their subsamples (and the Ashcroft polls) showed a significant break of ex-LD voters to Labour which should have been enough for Labour to gain most of the Lab-Con marginals. In the event, ex-LD voters went all over the shop including straight to the Tories.

Sorry, I meant in LibDem seats. Yes, in Lab-Con seats the LibDems unexpectedly scattered all over the place. An inevitable result of building your support base broadly across the whole political spectrum, then disillusioning that support base - they go back to where they came from, all over the place. I perceive that there still seems to be a blind adherence to extrapolating to a national swing instead of a national result. ("Voters are deserting the LibDems for Labour, therefore Labour will win" instead of "X is happening in seat A, plus Y is happening in seat B, etc. which will result in N nationally".)

[J.G.Harston]

Jan 19, 2016 11:08:41 GMT johnsmith said:

Jan 19, 2016 10:53:33 GMT J.G.Harston said:

...Then had five years of realising the national party is very different to the local parties,...

Very good points, and thanks for raising them.
Never had a strong Lib Dem presence in my local council so I cannot make any informed comment about the effectiveness of Lid Dem-run councils from personal experience. But the fact that they were a very strong presence at a local level in many areas for many years does perhaps speak for itself.

My perception, backed up by talking to various locals, is that the national party is/was much more to the right than local parties. (Based on talking to people in Sheffield, Hull-ish, Eastbourne, Whitby/Scarborough, Alnwick, Rotherham)

[carlton43]

True of all parties. Look at Labour now where the PLP is at a disjunct from the Membership. The Conservatives members are socially way to the right of the party leadership and far more Eurosceptic.

[J.G.Harston]

Jan 19, 2016 11:35:40 GMT @goodoldcause said:

How long do the activists keep up the fight after that? And where do they go when they give up?

Something I've wondered. I'm a centre-left libertarian non-socialist (so that rules out Labour) who understands science (so that rules out the Greens), believes in a free market (also rules out Labour) and approves of regulating business and that free market to protect the consumer (so that rules out the left wing of the Conseratives) and believes in a pre-assumption of human equality (so that rules out UKIP on their left-leaning days).

[carlton43]

Where the anoraks went wrong was in treating polls as forecasting tools instead of historic snapshots of a position as seen by a certain sort of analyst after he has applied weighting that people like me were sure was deeply flawed. All along I assumed that Labour and LD were over-represented and Conservatives and UKIP under-represented. The industry have now expensively and laboriously come to the same rather obvious conclusion. Polls are too clever for their own good and were always liable to bias because of who is asked and how they are asked. The sample is and always will be the problem. Probably best to conduct all polls in the early evening face-to-face on the doorstep and keep going until the model is satisfied by people actually 'in'.

[justin124]

Jan 19, 2016 11:35:40 GMT @goodoldcause said:

Jan 19, 2016 2:35:24 GMT Richard Allen said:

I think most of us made a mistake in underestimating just how big a chunk of the Lib Dem vote was an "anti-politics" vote.

The mistake politically-minded people often make is in assuming that the voters' minds work in the same way as theirs, and that the choices made in the voting booth are somehow explicable in ideological terms. 

The Liberals, and then Liberal Democrats, spent two generations patiently stitching together an electoral patchwork quilt comprising a minority of true believers in their ideosyncratic political vision, ethical Leftists who saw them as an acceptable alternative to Labour (or a more electable alternative to the Greens), tactical voters of both Left and Right, and people who wanted to "punish" Labour, the Conservatives, or both.

The objective was to put the party in a position where it could exercise power, either alone or in coalition with others. At local government level this approach was quite successful, as in the real world hardly anybody knows anything about local government, or cares. However, at national level, maintenance of the Lib Dem coalition was completely dependent on their remaining in opposition, where they could continue to be a blank canvas onto which the public could project whatever they wanted to see.

Actually sharing in power at Westminster, being subject to scrutiny and held accountable for real decisions, proved fatal. This is the Lib Dem tragedy - like Midas, or Semele or Tithonus in Greek myth, the granting of their hearts' desire has destroyed them. The ethical leftists and Left-leaning tactical voters went back to Labour. The anti-politics voters went to UKIP (which was a more logical home for most of them in any case). The Right-leaning tactical voters began to drift back to the Conservatives, as years of dismal opinion poll ratings began to suggest that voting tactically for the Lib Dems was a gamble, while the choice between Cameron and Miliband (plus the SNP) was all too real. Despite Labour's current travails, the opinion polls suggest no meaningful recovery. None of the lost voters are coming back.

I predicted in 2012 that the Lib Dem's position was terminal, but that annihilation would take two full election cycles. In the first they lose the majority of their parliamentary seats. However, hope of a comeback, plus their focused organisation, keeps them alive at local level. In the second cycle, they continue to get some good results at local elections, but nationally no bounceback materialises, and they gradually realise that new constituency boundries will do for most - or even all - of their remaining MPs. How long do the activists keep up the fight after that? And where do they go when they give up?

I believe there is a lot of force in what you say and certainly Farron has not made much impact to date.He is going to continue to face the problem that there is now so much competition around for the 'pissed off' vote.
In the SouthWest I wonder whether Labour might seek to capitalise on LibDem weakness in a number of seats where former Labour voters have for a generation been content to vote LibDem on a tactical basis. Bath comes to mind - a constituency which Labour in 1966 only failed to win by a few hundred votes and where they remained competitive in both 1974 elections. The Labour vote did recover there a fair bit in 2015 but I am sure the LibDem vote remains artificially high as a result of tactical voting - albeit on a reduced scale. The potential for further Labour recovery is surely there - particularly as the LibDems lost there decisively - and might also be found in places such as Taunton and the former Truro seat where it has performed quite well in the more distant past.

[Deleted]

Jan 19, 2016 13:07:31 GMT carlton43 said:

True of all parties. Look at Labour now where the PLP is at a disjunct from the Membership. The Conservatives members are socially way to the right of the party leadership and far more Eurosceptic.

The Conservatives have the advantage that there is no doubt, in their party, where authority ultimately lies. As a member or supporter, you either take what you are offered, or leave it.

The consequence of Labour's latest round of constitutional reforms, by contrast, has been the creation of an insoluble vacuum of authority. It's curiously reminiscent of the situation of dual power (the Duma versus the Soviets) in the Russian Empire following the February Revolution. Of course, that situation was ultimately resolved by the "great simplification" of the Bolshevik coup, but there is no equivalent way out for Labour. This particular tragi-comedy will run and run.

[Deleted]

The Lib Dems most fundamental problem is that they simply don't have a core vote.

Even in Twickenham, I found plenty of people who could vote Lib or Con, quite a few Lab or Lib, plenty of core Tory voters, a few core Labour, but almost nobody told me clearly and confidently "Lib Dem". Same in Sutton.