"Competence with a conscience" - how well is Nick Clegg's narrative working?

“Competence with a conscience” sounds like a good, comfortable narrative for the Liberal Democrats.  But the voters don’t seem to be buying it.

 

Nick Clegg’s narrative to market the Liberal Democrats and our role in government was summed up in his speech at the National Liberal Club in May. The speech marked the first anniversary of the coalition’s formation.

 

At the next election, we will say that we are demonstrably more credible on the economy than Labour, and more committed at heart to fairness than the Conservatives. I am confident that by showing we can combine economic soundness with social justice – competence with a conscience – we will be an even more formidable political force in the future.

 

These themes are elucidated in Nick’s foreword to the Facing the Future paper, to be considered by the party conference this week.

 

For the conference season, Populus has produced its latest findings on how the parties are perceived by voters.  The results aren’t exactly encouraging for the Liberal Democrats. A useful summary comes from Anthony Wells of UK Polling Report:

 

Historically these Populus questions tended to show that the Lib Dems had the positive party image. That is no longer the case. They have the least positive score on every measure except being for ordinary people [with 45% agreeing it applies to the Lib Dems], where they at least beat the Tories [with 30% agreeing].

 

This is very important – and very worrying.  In the run-up to the last general election, the image of “being for ordinary people not the best off” was, with a reputation for being honest, one of the party’s most positive brand assets.

 

We have often heard the argument that being in coalition would make the party more credible to voters.  Once they saw us delivering in government and taking the hard decisions, voters would take the Liberal Democrats more seriously  – the “competence” part of Nick’s desired brand.  But Anthony Wells explains:

 

On having a good team of leaders [the [Lib Dems] are on 31% (down 13 since last year), on sharing peoples’ values they are on 36% (down 5), on being honest they are at 35% (down 6), on competence they are at 31% (down 10), on party united they are at 27% (down 13), on having clear ideas they are at 31% (down 11). In most cases the party’s ratings had already dropped sharply last year following their decision to enter the coalition – these falls are on top of that.

 

Then, Wells rams the point home:

 

In summary, go back a couple of years and people tended to give the Lib Dems the benefit of the doubt, there was a tendency for people to assume they were good, honest and caring people (even if other polls also suggested people rather doubted their policies would work or they had any chance of actually winning). That positive party image took a knock after the removal of Charles Kennedy, but was on its way to recovery by 2009. Since then it has fallen through the floor.

 

 

Posted via email from Neil Stockley's posterous

Pollwatch: global public less concerned with climate change than other environmental issues

The Guardian’s Damian Carrington has commented on a new Nielson survey, showing that across the world, more than two in three online consumers are concerned about climate change. That figure has hardly changed in the last four years. But people in the biggest polluting nations, the United States and China, are becoming less concerned.

The Nielson survey rams home a hard political truth: the extent to which concern about climate change is driven by consumers’ perceptions of their own interests, especially the “hip pocket nerve”. As Carrington says:

At the highly concerned end are Thailand, Mexico and Indonesia, all places with relatively limited capacity to cope with climate change and in regions expected to be hard hit [by extreme weather].

And:

At the opposite end, the least concerned, we have wealthy Norway, Australia and the UK, all places that are not yet really feeling the bite of climate change and anxious that their rich lifestyles might be affected by climate action.

Since the global economic crisis of 2008, the UK media and the public have lost interest in climate change, and focused on more immediate concerns like jobs, money and crime. The Nielsen report confirms that global “climate change” apathy has increased and goes on to provide this explanation:

The global economic recession (and its lingering effects on the job market and inflation) appears to have misplaced climate change as a big worry for many. But while half (48%) of unconcerned global online consumers cite “more urgent and serious matters in the world today” as the main reason for climate change apathy, 37 percent believe that climate change is not the result of human behavior and 23 percent believe future technologies will solve the problem.

The Nielsen survey also suggests that people are more likely to be concerned with environmental issues whose impacts they can more easily see, experience or hear about, a trend that the current climate trance has magnified.

Three out of four global consumers rated air pollution (77%) and water pollution (75%) as top concerns, both increasing six percentage points compared to 2009. The issues of pesticides, packaging waste and water shortages were all top concerns for 73 per cent of global consumers. As a result, climate change / global warming (69%) took what Nielsen calls a “back seat” to other environmental issues.

But we shouldn’t get drawn into an over-simplified politics of false environmental choices - “climate change vs. the rest”. Global consumer concern about climate change has increased, albeit marginally, since 2009. In Europe, consumer concern about climate change has jumped by 10 percentage points over that time. The interesting finding from the Nielson research is that concern with other environmental issues has grown dramatically since 2009 – pesticides (up 16 percentage points), preventing waste (up 14) and water shortages (up 13).

The contours of public opinion of environmental issues may be more subtle than they sometimes appear. The Nielsen report provides no detailed breakdown by region or country, though it notes that water pollution was the main concern for Europeans. In April-May this year, a Eurobarometer survey found that European citizens’ five top environmental concerns were, in order: man made disasters (oil spills etc); water pollution; air pollution; impact on health of chemicals -- and climate change.

For UK citizens, the top environmental concerns were (in order): climate change (1^st=); growing waste (1^st=); man made disasters; water pollution; and depletion of natural resources.

And climate change is not easily separated out from the other environmental issues described above. For instance, climate change is set to put new pressures on water availability in England; reduced water supplies increase the risk of water pollution. Better waste management should help to reduce C02 emissions.

So, what we have now is a global public concern about “the environment”, that is made of a number of issues, elements and frames, of which climate change is one of the most significant, despite the media trance of recent years.

AV referendum: why the "antis" are winning

Today, the new YouGov poll on the AV referendum shows that the “no” camp has opened up a 16% lead amongst those most likely to vote.

Yesterday, the latest Guardian – ICM poll also gave the “antis” a 16% lead. In February, the supporters of change were narrowly (2%) ahead.

When you look at the detailed figures, the reasons aren’t difficult to discern. First, opposition to change from Conservative and Labour voters has hardened. Let’s start with ICM*. In February, Tory supporters wanted to keep first past the post by a 44% margin. That margin has now swelled, to 54%. Conservatives don’t love coalitions and want to reduce the risk of such a thing ever happening again.

Back in February, Labour voters said “yes”, by a 4% margin. But now they are saying “no”, by a 6% margin. It looks as if their temptation to give Nick Clegg a kicking is proving too great, even if Labour will have a steeper hill to climb when future first past the post elections are held under new electoral boundaries.

Lib Dem voters still overwhelmingly back change (71%-29%). But even amongst this group, net support for AV has dropped by 10%.

Second, the older voters become, the less likely they are to want a new voting system. ICM* says that 52% of 18-24 year olds support AV, compared to 45% of 35-64 year olds and 25% of those aged 65 or over. This trend has become more pronounced since February. Voters in the older age groups are twice as likely to vote as those in the 18-24 year old group – another tendency that has firmed up over the last two months.

YouGov asked different questions in February and April, and they have only just started weighting for turnout, which makes direct comparisons difficult. In February**, they showed Tory voters wanting to keep first past the post, by a 42% margin. In April, that figure had grown, to 62%. But unlike ICM, YouGov says that Labour supporters are now evenly divided whereas back in February, they preferred the status quo, by a 9% margin.

For months, YouGov have also found that older voters are more likely to prefer first past the post, and to vote in the referendum.

Perhaps it’s time for the “Yes” campaign to revive “Ralph’s story”, still the most compelling piece of storytelling they have come up with.

YouGov** have come up with another interesting finding: whereas men would vote no by an 8% margin, women would do so by a 19% margin. But 27% of women are undecided, compared to only 14% of men.

ICM’s figures*** also show a gender gap. They find that men would vote no, by a 13% margin but for women the margin is 18%. But women (28%) are more likely to be undecided than men (17%).

In February, ICM*** found that men would vote no, by a 3% margin, but that women would vote yes by a 3% margin. Women swung against AV as the number who are undecided fell by 6%.

As for YouGov, their figures** suggest that women were inclined to vote “no” than in February and that they are more likely to do so now.

To summarise: the “no” campaign is doing the best job of getting its messages across. They have been especially successful at consolidating their base amongst Conservative supporters and older voters. And they are doing a good job of deterring women voters from supporting AV.

*These ICM figures are based on all voters expressing a preference, turnout weighted.

**These YouGov figures are for all respondents, not adjusted for likelihood to vote.

***These ICM figures are for all respondents, not turnout weighted.

Liberal Democrats: a "no-issue party"?

The latest issue of The Economist features a brief article about the woes of Germany’s liberal Free Democrat Party (FDP). The FDP has fared disastrously in opinion polls and state elections since entering a coalition with Angela Merkel’s CDU in 2009.

There is an obvious comparison with the Liberal Democrats, who are also in coalition with the main centre-right party here. Our opinion poll ratings have halved since last year’s general election. But we should not read too much across from the FDP’s experience. German politics is very different. They use a form of proportional voting, for a start and the “market liberal” FDP are hardly soulmates to the various stripes of “social liberals” who dominate our party.

Yet I was struck by one observation in the Economist article:

When Mrs Merkel vetoed [their promise of unaffordable tax cuts], the FDP went from a one-issue party to a “no-issue party,” notes an academic.

The Liberal Democrats are also looking like a “no-issue-party”. MPs, activists and members are interested in a lot of issues, from jobs to Libya, from banks to pupil premiums. But the voters don’t seem to be able to find a quick and easy way to get a handle on us. Last week, YouGov asked voters which party would do the best job of handling a number of top problems facing the country. For each one, the Lib Dems were in single figures, well behind both Labour and the Conservatives. On the economy, which voters see as the top issue facing the country, just 4% saw us as the best party. The result is consistent with YouGov polls since the general election.

These poor issue ratings can’t be explained solely by the fact that the Lib Dems are part of the coalition. The British Election Study (BES) found that during the 2010 campaign, the party did not win any of the arguments on the issues that mattered most to voters.

The question is: how can the Liberal Democrats – in coalition – “get an issue” in time for the next general election?

The answer depends on whether the party’s ministers in government will have some defining achievements, on an issue of some importance to the public, for which they can claim credit and become popular. The key is to tell people compelling stories. One sort of story would have the Lib Dems as the heroes, winning the policy. The other would show how their policy wins worked for ordinary people.

The signs have not been encouraging, until very recently. But Lib Dem ministers have started to assert themselves over the NHS changes and they are bringing forward new proposals for taxes on expensive homes.

They are in the correct political space. In recent years, the Liberal Democrats have scored the highest of all the parties for being “on the side of ordinary people, not the best off”. Last month, Populus found this was still the attribute that voters (34%) were mostly likely to say was true of the Liberal Democrats. (Note, however, that 52% thought that the statement described Labour accurately.)

But there is still a long way to go.

Lib Dem voters now come from the "centre", not the "centre-left": a quick update

There’s new evidence that Liberal Democrat voters are more likely to have “centrist” political views than was the case before the coalition was formed.

It comes from Times Populus poll for February, details of which are now available. Voters were asked to judge how well or badly they thought the coalition government is doing on “cutting back on public spending in the right way”. Liberal Democrat voters were more prepared than others to give the coalition government the benefit of the doubt.

· 14% of all voters gave positive responses, and 16% of Liberal Democrat voters did so.

· 42% gave neutral responses and 55% of Liberal Democrat voters did so.

· 42% gave negative responses but only 29% of Liberal Democrat voters did so.

As for “sorting out the economy”:

· 21% of all voters were positive, as were 21% of Liberal Democrat voters.

· 46% gave neutral responses and 54% of Liberal Democrat voters did so.

· 32% gave negative responses but only 26% of Liberal Democrat voters did so.

YouGov polling data suggests that those who voted Liberal Democrat in 2010 but have since bolted are more likely to come from the left hand of the political spectrum than those who have stuck with the party. The new Populus data gives this theory some backing, but we shouldn’t get too carried away. For instance, 48% of all previous Lib Dem backers gave negative ratings to the coalition’s record on public spending but only 11% were positive.

All this comes with a health warning: the subsamples of Liberal Democrat voters, whether now or in 2010, were very small.

UK Polling Report - YouGov shows AV and FPTP neck and neck

via ukpollingreport.co.uk

In this post, Anthony Wells of YouGov shows that support for the alternative vote (AV) is now running neck and neck with the current, first past the post (FPTP) system in YouGov polling. This follows a period of four months in which FPTP was in the lead. Wells shows how Lib Dem voters have firmed up in their support for AV and Conservative voters' opposition has softened.

One group he doesn't comment on is Labour supporters whom, I believe, will be critical in determining the result of the AV referendum. They still prefer FPTP, by a 44% to 37% margin, down slightly from the 12% margin last October.

Posted via email from Neil Stockley's posterous

The Liberal Democrats and their "centrist rump" of voters

The latest issue of Progress – the journal of the “New Labour pressure group which aims to promote a radical and progressive politics for the 21st century” – features an article by Professor Paul Whiteley of Essex University, in which he summarises the key findings from a large-scale survey of party members.

Professor Whiteley and his colleagues found four dimensions or clusters of grassroots attitudes in the data. These are: “lifestyle liberalism”; “equality and redistribution”; “free-market liberalism”; and a strongly pro-EU stance. But he shows that when there’s a tension, the egalitarian impulse will win out. We are, at heart, a social liberal party.

Whiteley concludes that the party’s dismal poll ratings will tie the Liberal Democrats to the coalition, but that over time, both coalition parties will veto policies from the other side that their supporters oppose, most notably on reducing public spending and taxes.

This situation is a recipe for policy gridlock as the next election approaches.

Professor Whiteley may be correct. But then he may not. The coalition government has proved several times already that making political prophecies is a hazardous business, especially when the leaderships of both the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats are prepared to act in ways that are so detached from the expectations of their grassroots.

What I found more interesting are the signs of a disconnect since the party went into coalition between core views and instincts of Liberal Democrat members (as set out in Professor Whiteley’s article) and those of Liberal Democrat voters.

Here’s a signpost. On Monday, UK Polling Report commented on a new YouGov poll asking voters where they placed the parties on the ‘left-right’ spectrum.

Until the general election the Liberal Democrats had consistently been perceived as a left-of-centre party, scoring between -9 and -17 on the left-right scale. They are now viewed as being almost exactly in the centre, with a score of +1. Nick Clegg himself is now seen as firmly right-of-centre with a score of +10.

As is well known, the pool of Liberal Democrat voters is smaller than it was at the 2010 general election. Current Lib Dem voters are more likely now to see themselves as being “in the middle” of the political spectrum.

The data also gives us firm evidence of what most people assumed anyway – that the votes the Liberal Democrats have lost since the election have been their more left wing voters, leaving them with a somewhat more centrist rump. “Lost Liberal Democrats” (those who voted Lib Dem in 2010 but wouldn’t tomorrow) place themselves on average at -20 on the left-right scale. Those who have remained loyal place themselves on average at -6.

We now have some clues as to what this “centrist rump” of Liberal Democrat voters think and expect of the government.

First, Liberal Democrat voters appear to be not much more likely than most to be concerned about the cuts to benefits, or changes to social housing. In November, Ipsos MORI asked voters what they thought of the coalition government’s spending cuts.

Over half of the public (54%) were concerned about cuts to benefits but a significant minority (44%) were not concerned. 52% of Liberal Democrat voters were concerned and 47% - about the same ratio - were not concerned.

On changes to social housing, it was a similar story: 52% of voters were concerned, but 42% were not concerned. By comparison, 51% of Liberal Democrat voters were concerned and 47% were not concerned. (Note that the sub sample was very small.)

On university fees, however, 81% of Lib Dem voters were concerned about what the government had announced, and only 19% were not concerned. Amongst all voters the breakdown was 67% to 32%. But whether this issue is really about using tax revenues to reduce poverty (as per the question on the egalitarian dimension in Professor Whiteley’s survey), is open to argument.

Second, when it comes to the spending cuts, Liberal Democrat voters have been more prepared than average voters to give the government the benefit of the doubt. In October, just after the Spending Review was delivered, Populus found that Liberal Democrat voters were more likely than other voters to see the cuts as “fair” and to agree that the government was “getting the right balance between tax rises and spending cuts”. (Still, it must be said that Lib Dem voters were evenly spread on these questions). And Lib Dem voters were much more likely than voters to agree that the government’s decisions were putting the economy on a stronger footing for the long term.

Last month, after the VAT rise took effect, YouGov asked if the government’s cuts will be good or bad for the economy. Only 38% of voters thought they would be good, compared to 47% who thought they will be bad. Liberal Democrat voters thought they would be good, by a margin of 46% to 35%.

But Liberal Democrat supporters are swinging against the cuts, albeit more slowly than the electorate as a whole. Between October and December last year, it was roughly even between voters thinking the cuts would be good and those thinking they would be bad. At that time, Liberal Democrat voters backed the cuts, by a two-to-one margin.

In January, 57% of voters said the cuts are being done unfairly, the highest figure that YouGov have shown so far. But Liberal Democrat voters divided evenly on that question. By comparison, in the closing months of 2010, voters tended to say that the cuts were unfair, with a plurality of Liberal Democrat supporters saying the opposite.

Third, YouGov’s surveys have shown for some months that Liberal Democrat voters are more likely than others to see the economy, education and pensions, rather than, say, health, taxes or Afghanistan, as top issues facing the country.

In the past, Liberal Democrat members’ political views have been broadly in tune with those of people who vote for the party. This was especially the case on key issues around taxing and spending. (See, for example, the work of Russell and Fieldhouse). But members and voters now have different narratives about the party.

Some Liberal Democrats will find this shift discomforting and demand a drive to regain support on the “left”. Others will see it as the opportunity to build some kind of tough, new liberal party for the next general election, and beyond. Harder heads will recognise that you can never wind back the clock, especially where voters and their perceptions are concerned. And the agendas of the ‘left of centre’ voters who backed the Lib Dems in 2010 were vague, if not nebulous. [Click here] Yet the party needs to build a bigger, broader electoral coalition than a “centrist rump” if it is to avoid an electoral wipeout. What we’ll surely need is a long, determined push to gain the support of liberal-minded voters of all varieties.

Nick Clegg's rating for "competence" may vindicate his coalition strategy

Could Nick Clegg’s strategy of taking “full ownership” of the coalition's decisions – even unpopular ones – may be paying off, after all?

Earlier this month, The Independent’s Andrew Grice summed up the accepted version of Nick Clegg’s approach to the coalition thus far:

The Deputy Prime Minister is convinced that his party would reap no dividend at all if it tried to let the Conservatives take the blame for the nasty medicine needed to cure the country's economic ills.

He hopes the Liberal Democrats will eventually get a reward for facing up to hard decisions, by showing they can be trusted in Government and are no longer a wasted vote.

This strategy, which now seems to be in the process of being modified, addresses the weakest points of the Liberal Democrats’ brand. So far, however, “owning the coalition” doesn’t appear to have done the party much good. According to YouGov, in mid-December 2010, our poll ratings for being “led by people of real ability” and having “leaders [who] are prepared to take tough and unpopular decisions” were still stuck in single figures, just as they were before the general election.

It may not be as simple as that. We also need to look at public perceptions of Nick Clegg who is the most accessible symbol of the party, the embodiment of our narrative. That is especially true in this era of quasi-presidential politics.

In The House magazine (17 January 2011, p.9), Professor Paul Whiteley of the British Election Study relates how, in their monthly surveys, the BES asks people to rank each party leader on a scale that runs from 0 (very incompetent) to 10 (very competent). I can’t find an electronic version of his article or the graph, so here are his main conclusions:

Surprisingly, Nick Clegg has been in the lead on this measure for almost the whole of the period [November 2009 to November 2010]. He overtook David Cameron in the competency stakes in December 2009 and has been ahead of him ever since.

Clegg’s rating was boosted by the general election campaign and, in particular, the first of the televised debates.

But the post-election unpopularity of the Liberal Democrats, which has seen their voting support plunge to half that of their general election vote share, has not affected his competency ratings very much.

Professor Whiteley goes on to add a cautionary note, that competency is but one dimension of leadership evaluations. He says that a leader should also be seen as likeable, trustworthy and in touch with ordinary people.

On these scores, the news for Clegg is mixed. The Ipsos MORI political monitor for December 2010 found that 27% of voters thought that he was “more honest than most politicians” compared to 33% for David Cameron and 24% for Ed Miliband.

Ipsos MORI also found that 43% of voters thought that Clegg was “out of touch with ordinary people”, compared to 51% for David Cameron and 34% for Ed Miliband.

Like all polling figures, these findings need to be seen in context. First, at the time of the election, Clegg was seen as the most honest and down to earth of the three leaders, according to Ipsos MORI. So, Cameron has now overtaken him in these areas.

Second, YouGov have tracked a downward trend since the election debates in Clegg’s ratings for being “in touch with the concerns of ordinary people”, “honest” and “sticking to what he believes in”. His best score, especially with Lib Dem and Conservative voters, is for being “charismatic”. [Anthony Wells provides some useful background, including on pre- and post-debate comparisons, here.]

Third, the BES figures cited above do not show the full impact of the tuition fees debacle. Ipsos MORI have traced the plunge in perceptions of Nick Clegg’s trustworthiness in the wake of the tuition fees vote.

Professor Whiteley finishes with the following suggestion.

[To] be seen as competent gives a leader a real advantage since it wins him an audience – voters will listen to a leader who they think is competent, whereas they are likely to dismiss a leader they think is incompetent.

I agree with Professor Whiteley, but I would add that being seen as “strong” is even more important. Last month, YouGov reported that just 5% of voters thought that Clegg was “strong” and 8% saw him as “decisive”. These were amongst his weakest areas just before election day [YouGov], when his popularity was at its peak so perhaps all is not lost. But voters might expect to see evidence of “strength”, which may go some way towards explaining the Lib Dems’ disappointing performance at the election.

Over the next couple of years, Nick Clegg will provide a test case for these theories. His future, and that of the Liberal Democrats, could well hinge on the way public perceptions of his competence, strength, likeability and trustworthiness pan out.

Ed Miliband and the perils of spinning polls

Here is one of my golden rules of politics:

Never brief or make a public comment on public opinion polls because anything you say will come back and bite you on the bum.

To expand: no matter how clever your analysis, it will be proven wrong by other figures or, quite simply, be overtaken by events.

The rule seems to have vindicated again today.

Check out this tweet by The Guardian’s Jonathan Freedland:

Ed M's team chuffed by Comres poll http://bit.ly/eoYtxJ, briefing that the 36% approval for Ed is ahead of Cam's 32% rating at equiv stage.

A few moments later, Freedland retweeted this:

RT @CitrusSpring: He shouldn't be that chuffed - 42% disapproval not so great.With Govt cuts, he's practically got an open goal>>also true

Other recent findings show the hazards of spinning poor polls. At the end of last month, Ipsos MORI published an assessment of Ed Miliband’s first 100 days as Labour leader. It showed that opinion on Ed Miliband is now split. But after quite a promising start, his net “satisfaction” rating has dropped from +19% to +1%. Of past Labour and Tory party leaders for whom data is available, only Michael Foot had a higher negative rating after three months in the job. Ed Miliband is also the least recognised of the party leaders.

In December, YouGov showed his approval rating at minus 14%.

Still, I hope that my Liberal Democrat colleagues don’t become too complacent about the trap Ed Miliband’s team are falling into. Some reactions to last week’s Independent poll of polls relied on similar logic. The Independent claimed that the Lib Dems’ current weighted average rating of 11% was the party’s lowest on record. No, it was even lower after the merger fiasco of 1988, some Lib Dems (and at least one commentator) said. They were correct. But the point is, surely, that if the party’s total vote fell that far, more than half the Liberal Democrats in the Commons would be swept away.

Footnote: The rule above also applies to bad by-election results. (Click here).

Explaining the Liberal Democrats' disappointing performance in 2010: an update

I have just come across the “emerging evidence” from British Election Study (BES) for the 2010 general election.

The findings confirm two of my earlier conclusions, based on the Ipsos MORI election data: that Liberal Democrat support grew during the campaign but remained soft; and whilst Nick Clegg’s personal support shot up after the first debate, support for the Lib Dems did not firm up as a result.

As the BES summary and conclusions slide puts it:

With weak fundamentals, ineffective campaigns and widespread voter disaffection with politics as usual, the two major parties were susceptible to a move by the Liberal Democrats. The leader debates provided the Liberal Democrats with the exactly the opportunity they needed.

Despite their surge after the first debate, the Liberal Democrats had to rely heavily on Nick Clegg’s popularity. Their partisan base remained small, and they had little pulling power on the economy, the issue that dominated the campaign.

On the last point, the BES data seems to back up another of my previous conclusions: the Lib Dems did not win any of the arguments on the issues that mattered most to voters. Only 9% of the CIPS post-election respondents chose the Lib Dems as the best party on the issue they saw as most important. (Yes, nearly half of those who saw the environment as the top issue opted for the Lib Dems. But “green issue” voters accounted for only 3% of the electorate.)

The Lib Dems can draw a small amount of comfort from this BES finding:

. . . no party had the overall pulling power on major issues that Labour enjoyed in 1997, 2001 and 2005. In the CIPS post-election survey only 25% chose Labour as best on most important issue and only 30% chose the Conservatives.

And one of the above BES conclusions should be tempered, just a little. Voters were more likely to see the economy as the number one issue. Amongst those most concerned with the economy, the Lib Dems drew even with Labour and the Conservatives as the best party. I am sure that has not happened before.

But there’s no getting away from the twin realities. The Lib Dems will make little further progress unless we are more credible across the range of key issues that matter most to voters. And we need to go into election campaigns with a stronger base of core supporters. Just 11 per cent of voters, the same proportion as in 2005, identified with the Liberal Democrats in the run-up to the campaign. Neither Labour nor the Conservatives made any progress on that front either, but both started from much higher bases.

The big question for the next five years is: how will being in the coalition help or hinder the Liberal Democrats’ efforts to build more credibility on the issues -- and a stronger partisan base?

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Pollwatch: Ipsos MORI helps to explain disappointing Lib Dem performance in 2010

Ipsos MORI has just published a digest of polls conducted during, and just prior to, the 2010 election. Their findings are interesting and offer some explanations for the Liberal Democrats’ disappointing performance.

Here are the main points that I have taken from the Ipsos MORI material.

· The Liberal Democrats won the “young women’s” vote. The Lib Dems were the preferred party of women voters aged 18-24, where we had a 4% lead over the Tories. This is the only demographic group in which we clearly prevailed; our support from younger women was 8% up from 2005. Conversely, older men were least likely to vote for us: just 16% of men aged 55 or older voted Lib Dem. Overall, Lib Dem voters were more likely to be female than male – but then so were Labour’s. [click here]

· The Liberal Democrats performed best amongst younger voters and worst amongst older people. 30% of 18-24 year olds voted Lib Dem, putting us level-pegging with the other parties in this cohort The Lib Dems did well amongst 25-34 year olds too. But voters were inclined to vote for us in inverse proportion to their age: just 16% of those aged 65 or older voted Lib Dem. The support patterns amongst age groups were even more pronounced than in 2005. [click here]

· The Liberal Democrats performed best amongst higher income voters and worst amongst lower income voters. Voters voted Lib Dem in inverse proportion to their social class. We had 29% support amongst “ABs” but only 17% from “DEs”. [click here] Now, put some of these trends together: just 13% of “DE” men voted Lib Dem.

· Liberal Democrat support grew during the campaign but was still soft. Just before polling day, 43% of Lib Dem voters though it was “very important” who won the election, compared to 53% of Labour voters and 59% of Conservatives. This might explain why the Lib Dems were vulnerable to “late squeeze” messages from the other parties. But we shouldn’t get too carried away with Ipsos MORI’s data on this point. 34% of Lib Dem voters thought they might change their mind before they voted, lower than the 20% of Conservatives who thought they might switch but about the same figure as for Labour voters (32%).

· Nick Clegg’s personal support shot up after the first two debates – but that did not strengthen his party’s vote. Just before polling day, voters still saw David Cameron as the most capable prime minister and the Conservatives as having the strongest team of leaders -- with the Lib Dems a poor third. This mattered: for the first time ever, leaders were as important as policies in driving the way people voted. Yet the reasons for the lack of a “Clegg effect” may be more deep-seated than anything that happened during the campaign. The chart on page 15 of the overview (pdf) document shows that Nick Clegg’s positive ratings prior to the campaign did not pull up the Lib Dem share of the vote. In other words, whatever people thought of Nick’s performance in the debates, they may not have been disposed to take the party all that seriously.

· Once again, the Lib Dems did not win any of the key policy arguments. Policies are another basic test of credibility. In February, voters perceived the Conservatives (by a 2% margin) as having the best policies overall, with the Lib Dems in third place. In March – just before the official campaign started – the Conservatives were the preferred party on two battleground issues, asylum / immigration and crime, with Labour leading on health and unemployment. The only issue on which the Lib Dems led was climate change. But the party had a margin of just 2% (over Labour) here. And climate change was the area in which voters were most likely to rate no party as having the best policies. There’s more: only one voter in 20 saw climate change as “very important”. Crucially, on the issue of most concern to voters – the economy – no party established a clear ascendancy.

Posted via email from Neil Stockley

What voters think of Nick Clegg - an update

This week’s Times-Populus poll of Labour – Conservative marginal seats tells us a bit more about voters’ views of the three main party leaders, including Nick Clegg.

Nick is perceived as the most authentic of the party leaders. Asked whether each leader “generally says what he really thinks, not just what spin doctors tell him to say”, they gave Nick a spread of plus 25 per cent. For David Cameron the figure was plus 18 per cent. Both opposition party leaders were well ahead of Gordon Brown (plus 6 per cent).

The Populus result ties in with previous polls that gave Nick high marks for being honest and not just saying what people want to hear. Last week’s YouGov poll for The Sun found that he came top for being “honest” with a 23 per cent score, compared to 21 per cent for Brown and 20 per cent for Cameron.

The YouGov poll gave Nick the highest rating (21 per cent) for “being in touch with the concerns of ordinary people”. This is also consistent with previous surveys.

Voters may see Nick as the most sincere and empathetic leader, but they may not know what he stands for. When Populus put the proposition “I have a clear sense of what he really believes”, respondents gave him a spread of plus 14 per cent. That compared to plus 27 per cent for David Cameron and plus 15 per cent for Gordon Brown. And 26 per cent, more than three times the figures for the Labour and Tory leaders, replied “don’t know” when asked this question about Nick.

Now, here’s the real rub. Voters like Nick but they are still unsure about his leadership qualities. According to Populus, he had a spread of plus 49 per cent for being “nice, likeable”, the same figure as for David Cameron and much better than for Gordon Brown (plus 8 per cent). They see Nick as “strong and determined” (plus 40 per cent) but not as much as Cameron (plus 62 per cent) and Brown (plus 52 per cent). And people in the Populus survey were evenly split on whether “he has what it takes to be a leader”.

The YouGov survey told a similar story. Just 7 per cent of respondents saw Nick as “strong”. Brown came top on this one (!) with 26 per cent. And just 6 per cent saw Nick as “a natural leader”, compared to 22 per cent for Cameron.

Nick’s real challenge is a familiar one: a large chunk of voters still don’t know him. In the Populus poll, at least a quarter of those voting replied “don’t know” to the questions about him. (And 40 per cent did not know if he was a “family man”!) In the YouGov survey, 38 per cent did not know which of the listed qualities to associate with him. The general election campaign should resolve that, one way or the other.

Posted via web from Neil Stockley's posterous

Nick Clegg's second anniversary as Lib Dem leader

I have done a guest post for Liberal Democrat Voice on Nick Clegg's second anniversary as leader. You can read it here. 

Climate change not our problem, say UK voters

Today’s Times leads with a new Populus poll that shows a high level of public scepticism about human-made climate change. Only 41 per cent of respondents believe that climate change is happening and that human causation is an established fact. A third of the public believes in the fact of climate change but remains unpersuaded that it is caused by humans. Nearly one in ten people believes that climate change is a purely natural phenomenon and blaming humans is propaganda put about by environmentalists. Fifteen per cent of the country simply do not accept that climate change is happening at all.

The figures underline the difficulties this government (and its successors) will have in persuading the public to accept tough policy measures – especially higher green taxes - to help in meeting Britain’s legally binding emissions targets.

OK, what’s new? Public opinion polls over the last three years have shown that a growing number of people in the UK are becoming increasingly sceptical of the impact of human activities on climate change or that they question the impacts of global warming on the climate. [Click here, here and here]. The British public’s suspicion of green taxes is also well documented [click here]. Yet today’s poll shows an increase in support compared with three years ago for new taxes on air travel intended to reduce the number of flights people take, and for raising the cost of motoring to encourage people to drive less.

Perhaps I protest too much. Politicos and ideologues of all stripes have become very tetchy over the past 25-plus years when I have tried to point out that opinion surveys show that most people don’t agree with them (or, to be more precise, that their pet issue won’t necessarily deliver scores of seats to the NZ Labour Party / Liberal Democrats). So I should tread carefully today and take the stark new evidence of public scepticism at face value. Today’s poll figures should concern all climate realists, especially after as the science has become steadily more pessimistic over recent years and received considerable media coverage.

Actually, I believe the gloomy science and media shock explain much of the public pushback. In today’s Times, Vicky Pope, head of climate change advice at the Met Office, is quoted as saying that growing awareness of the scale of the problem appeared to be resulting in people taking refuge in denial.

“Being confronted with the possibility of higher energy bills, wind farms down the road and new nuclear power stations encourages people to question everything about climate change,” she said. “There is a resistance to change and some people see the problem being used as an excuse to charge them more taxes.”

I agree with Vicky Pope but the denial syndrome goes even deeper than she suggests. This is a question of basic values and psychology as much as power bills and green taxes. The rhetoric used to discuss climate change usually revolves around threats and dangers, with “looming environmental disaster” the dominant frame. But we live in an aspirational, consumerist society and it’s hardly surprising that so many people feel defensive when they hear talk of apocalypse and demands on them to make personal sacrifices. Some of their core values, their ways of looking at themselves and their lives are being directly challenged. People are being asked to take personal responsibility for something that is not yet evident in their daily lives. Talk of climate catastrophe does not always fit with their worldview - their personal narratives - and so it’s easier to play for time, expect others to take the blame, or block it out altogether.

Either way, it surely doesn’t help that politicians, scientists (intellectuals) and green groups – hardly the most liked or trusted groups - are doing a lot of the ‘challenging’. [click here]

I take three lessons for climate realists from The Times poll. First, we should start to use more frames, storylines and rhetoric that resonate with the way most people see the world. No, not dodging the truth about the science but talking more about about green growth, green jobs and the need to preserve our national and economic security. [click here]

Second, we need a wider range of advocates –for instance, more young women and more people from community groups – explaining the issues and making the case for change.

Third, it’s time to engage more with strategies for social change, learning more about the psychology of climate change and finding out how and why people change their minds and act on issues. Some progress has been made on the research side [click here and here] but we quickly need to turn this an action plan. Time is running out.

Nick Clegg and the Lib Dem brand - how voters see the Liberal Democrats (Part 2)

It looks as if the debate over the Liberal Democrats’ need for a narrative – a story – might be kicking off again.  [click here and here]  One element we talk about too little is the leader’s need to embody the party’s narrative, in order to make it more real, more authentic to voters.

 

In today’s quasi-presidential politics, voters use the leaders as quick ways to assess the parties, for good or ill.  If you don’t believe me, look at the Newsnight pre-party conference focus groups. Media coverage of Newsnight's focus groups and quantitative research and the Populus and Ipsos Mori pre-conference work has been dominated by voters’ views of the party leaders.

 

So, here’s a quick round up of what the above research tells us about voters see Nick Clegg.  [For more on the points made below about the Lib Dem brand narrative, click here.]

 

In some very positive ways, Nick embodies the party’s narrative.  One of the Lib Dems’ biggest advantages is that voters see us as the most “honest and principled” party.  According to Ipsos MORI, Nick (narrowly) came first out of the three main party leaders for being “more honest than most politicians”.  Likewise, in the Populus survey, he edged out David Cameron for  “meaning what he says” as opposed to “saying what he thinks people want to hear”.   

 

The strongest feature of the Lib Dem brand is that we are the party seen as most “for ordinary people, not the best off”.  But Populus don’t ask exactly the same questions about the leaders as they do about the parties. When they asked whether each leader was “good” or “bad for you and your family”, Nick had a net “good” score of plus 7 per cent, very close to Cameron (plus 10 per cent) and much better than Gordon Brown (minus 25 per cent).

 

Another big positive for the Lib Dems has been the way voters perceive us as the most empathetic party, understanding “the problems that ordinary people face” and “the way that people live their lives”.  Populus did not ask this question about the parties, as they have before.  But Nick scored quite well for being “in touch” as opposed to “out of touch”. His net score was plus 14 per cent, versus Cameron’s plus 28 per cent and Brown’s minus 39 per cent. And in the Ipsos MORI survey he was less likely than Brown or Cameron to be seen as “most out of touch with ordinary people”.

 

Now for the ways in which Nick may embody weaker aspects of the Lib Dem narrative.  There were some indications in the pre-conference research that the party is still not seen as quite “serious” or “substantial” enough.  This may be due to the old “wasted vote” counter-story and the perennial problems the party faces in getting media coverage.  Many voters feel they don’t know the Lib Dems well enough.

 

In the Populus leaders poll, Nick came last for being “up to the job of being prime minister”, “likely to get things done” and “substantial”.   Yet he was seen as “stronger” and more “decisive” than Brown.

 

The “invisibility” factor was very important here.  When they were asked specific questions about each leader, voters were much more likely to say “don’t know” about Nick.  And the Newsnight poll found that while thirty six percent had a favourable view of Nick, an equal number said they had never heard of him. 

 

Voters in the Newsnight focus groups found it hard to get a handle on the Lib Dems.  They also showed how much the profile and image of the party are bound up with those of the leader.   In many parts of the discussion the voters seemed to treat Nick / the leader and the party as the same thing.  “I didn’t know who he was” . . . “I never see him”  . . . “he’s never on telly” . . . “they’ve had so many changes of leader you feel like its not really investing the time in them because the next leader could be around the corner.”

 

This may, eventually, provide the solution to the Lib Dems’ low image problem.  When people in the focus groups were shown a clip of Nick speaking, they liked him.    Some made positive comments about him.  The Populus work showed that some of his key ratings, for instance “in touch / out of touch” and “good / bad for you and your family” have improved markedly since July 2008.  A drop in numbers saying “don’t know” provides part of the explanation.  And I have argued a few times that as the public gets to know Nick, they like him more.  This augurs well for the general election campaign, when the Lib Dems can expect to gain much more media coverage.

 

Some of the risks are obvious.  A lot is riding on one person and the party’s ability to mount (and fund) an effective campaign.  Other risks may have not have been thought through.  For instance, Nick could follow through on the findings above by being brutally “honest” about the need for fiscal rectitude.  But recent talk of “savage cuts” and “progressive austerity” may jar with people who expect Nick and the Lib Dems to be “good for themselves and their families”.  We’ll need to start telling a story about how the party’s solutions for public debt will be better for ordinary people over the long term.

 

Sounds too hard? Well, OK, we could have a bit less of the hairshirt and try bundling up a few popular-looking if expensive policies as “fair” and “for people”.  But what if most voters simply didn’t believe us and took all this as further proof that the Lib Dems are decent people whose policies don’t really add up? Or worse still, they got the idea from somewhere that after all his talk about the need for economic responsibility, Nick was not really being straight with them – not “honest” or “sincere”?  To coin the jargon, Nick and the party would no longer embody their narrative.  I wonder how many seats the Lib Dems would win then.