Pollwatch: Lib Dems ranked third on the environment, gaining little traction in economic debate -- ICM

Yesterday’s Guardian summarised the main findings of the ICM political poll for August. ICM have now published the full results on their website, so we can see in a bit more detail what they mean for the Liberal Democrats.

The question that I always find most interesting is:

“Irrespective of how you yourself will vote at the next election, which political party do you think is putting forward the best policies on . . .”.

As usual, the Liberal Democrats’ best rating – 16 per cent – was on the environment. But we came third, behind the Conservatives and Labour. Allowing for margins of error, the three parties were level pegging, which is not much cause for comfort.

That’s not all: 18% said that “another party” (meaning the Greens, presumably) had the best environmental policies. That figure has doubled since February, the last time ICM asked who has the best policies on a range of areas. And more voters picked “another party” on the environment than on any of the issues surveyed.

This is not the first time the Lib Dems have failed to top the ICM poll on the “best for the environment” question. Yet we should be doing better than this on what is supposed to be our strongest issue with voters and where we have long claimed the moral and intellectual high ground. I will post about this more over the coming weeks, but the Lib Dems may well have become too complacent over the last few years about our leadership on green issues.

On "the economy generally", just 9 per cent said that the Lib Dems had the best economic policies, compared to 33 per cent for the Conservatives and 22 per cent for Labour.

As for which party had the best policies for “sorting out the economic crisis”, the Conservatives held a 9 point lead over Labour, up from 2 points in February. Just 9 per cent picked the Lib Dems.

On these scores, the Lib Dems fared little better or worse than we did six months ago.

The ICM figures show, once again, that Vince Cable’s well deserved reputation with the political literati has not sprinkled any star dust on the Liberal Democrats or our economic credibility. Maybe the public has cast us as the “caring party” that stands up for ordinary people and does not really see Lib Dems as hard-headed economic managers. But there’s no escaping the fact that, as the general election draws closer, the party needs to put across a clearer story on the issue that is uppermost in voters’ minds.

Nick Clegg makes progress on Lib Dem narrative

The Liberal Democrats may, at last, be “getting” this narrative thing.

Well, Nick Clegg is starting to tell people stories.

The Lib Dems’ first election broadcasts missed a number of opportunities in this regard. The latest broadcast, Change Politics for Good, sees Nick following Stephen Denning’s three essential steps for leaders who are persuading people to embrace change. The first is to get peoples' attention. Nick uses two of Denning’s methods. He emphases the magnitude of what is recognised as a major problem -- expensesgate (“there have been times when you have been so angry . . .” ) -- and asking viewers a question (“how we stop this from ever happening again?”).

Denning's Step number 2 is to generate desire for something different. Here, Nick identifies an external barrier (“this rotten old system” . . . “self-serving politics”) and frames a new version of the future that is different from the status quo (“we need a bigger change, not just tinkering at the edges”).

The final step is to reinforce the reasons for change. (“Unless we do things very differently, in a few years from now, we’ll just have more scandals, all over again.”) Nick explains how voters can progress from the current situation to the new tomorrow (“. . . the power to do things differently is in your hands . . .it is possible to change this rotten old system and you can decide to do it . . . so I am asking you to join a Liberal Democrat campaign to change politics from top to bottom, so something good can come of all this.”). This will also be familiar to readers of Denning’s book The Secret Language of Leadership.

In this morning’s Today interview, Nick explained how Lib Dem MPs have attempted to reform MPs’ expenses, against resistance from Labour and the Tories. Challenged about where the Lib Dems stand on Europe, he used what he called a “concrete example” – a story - to explain how we are “stronger together, poorer apart” in the EU. Lib Dem MPs voted for European arrest warrants that were used to break up a paedophile ring and for anti-terrorist measures. But Conservative and UKIP MEPs voted against.

And here’s a more interesting signpost. In Monday’s Guardian G2 interview, Nick picked up on the “real change” narrative from his spring conference speech and started to frame the choice facing voters.

“I think if a general election was held now, it would become an all-out national debate about how we rebuild British politics. The next general election will be dominated by: Who's going to rebuild the British economy? And who's going to rebuild British politics?”

We may be seeing the core of a Lib Dem narrative for the general election. Labour have wrecked our economy and ruined peoples’ faith in politics. But the Conservatives would be no better. So we need the Liberal Democrats to do the job of recovery and reconstruction.

Nick Clegg could embody the story of rebuilding “politics”. Vince Cable could do the same on rebuilding the economy.

Will we, can we, get that right?

Back to the future politics: the opportunities and challenges for the Lib Dems

At the end of the worst Budget week in decades, two especially grim images remain stuck in my mind. The first is the newspaper charts, courtesy of the indispensable IFS, showing that the public finances will be in a deep hole for the best part of a decade and that we face “two parliaments of pain” before public debt is brought back under control. The politics of the next decade will be defined by very tough choices on spending and taxes. 

The other is the tv clips of Britain in the 1970s, the last time an embattled Labour government faced an economic crisis and was forced to put the brakes on government spending. The country’s economic situation is not exactly the same now as it was then and neither are Alistair Darling’s remedies. The ’seventies can be too easily caricatured as one long bad hair day. Yet those grainy images of trade union demonstrations and mounting economic woes are as potent a symbol as any that this country has. The British habit of explaining politics through the use of historical myths and symbols has struck again. The “crisis” frame is set up and the political narrative of a new national decline is set to roll. You’ve had the pleasure, now pay the bills. You’ve had the party, now for the hangover. The morality tale is clear.

Barring a miracle, Labour is on course for a huge defeat at the next general election. Looking at those IFS charts, it looks as if the more valid historical parallel for Britain in the 2010s will be with the early/mid-1990s: a Conservative government presiding over cash-starved schools and health services, along with under-investment in essential infrastructure. I can't see what other conclusion that we can draw from George Osborne’s public statements so far. [click here and here]

Despite the growing expectations that the Conservatives will win the next general election and have to make the tough choices, they still have offered very few specifics about how they would make them. But they are still not being placed under any real pressure. (See this FT article though)  Martin Kettle made this point very well in Friday’s Guardian and other commentators are picking up on it too. 

The Liberal Democrats have a new opportunity: to make sure that the Tories are placed under as much scrutiny on public spending as Labour. There are some signs that party leaders are playing this version of the traditional Lib Dem tune - “a plague on both your houses”. Writing in Friday’s Independent, Vince Cable had this to say:

“Mr Cameron has had a few hours fun enjoying his party's revenge for the humiliation of Black Wednesday. But he will now have his feet held to the fire for the next year as we compete with him to replace a failed government on economic credibility and hard policy choices. Unless he tells us what the Tories would cut he is no more credible than the government front bench. Labour seem to have given up – so now it's up to the Liberal Democrats to take on the Tories and expose their subterfuge.”

With this opportunity comes a new challenge for the Liberal Democrats. One is obvious: to be more credible and robust than the Conservatives on matters of public spending. As Vince argued:

“The only way forward is to identify, explicitly, areas of government activity which will have to be cut right back.”

He offered several specific suggestions, all which I agree with, and posed some valid questions for future debate. Still, there is a bigger context, a tougher question: how the Liberal Democrats believe that a reformed (that is, decentralised) state should deliver its social policy objectives and principally, a more equal spread of opportunities. The issues involved, which have never been straightforward, will be more difficult in the new age of austerity. 

 In his Commons reply to the Budget, Nick Clegg called for:

“a national debate about what the state can and cannot afford in the future, not Whitehall salami slicing today. That is the responsible way—the honest way—to reduce spending in the years ahead and avoid painful higher taxes.”

I can't see how anyone can disagree, but then George Osborne also says he wants this sort of discussion. Nick Clegg and the Lib Dems need to say what they will bring to a national debate on the role of the state. Better still, we should lead it, otherwise a big opportunity will be lost. 

So, where does Nick want to take the great debate on the role of the state? And will the party follow?

Where is the Liberal Democrat economic narrative?

Tonight’s Evening Standard carries a report that Gordon Brown may go the country on June 4, 2009.

The issue would be, of course, which party is best placed to see the economy through troubled times. Brown has developed something close to a narrative: that he is the steady, experienced, internationally economic manager and this is no time to take a risk.

David Cameron and the Conservatives are nowhere close to having an economic narrative – even though they remain in front.

But the UK Polling Report polling average puts the Liberal Democrats on between 12 and 14 per cent. Electoral Calculus says that (assuming uniform national swings), the UKPR current polling average would leave the Conservatives with a small working majority – and the Lib Dems with just 19 seats.

So here’s the question of the day: where is the Liberal Democrat economic narrative?

[For a description of what an economic narrative should contain, and a few more details about my earlier challenge, please see here.]