The real reason why Liberal Democrat support is low

We all know that support for the Liberal Democrats remains low. It fell from the giddy heights of Cleggmania to a poll average of about 10% by the autumn of 2010 and has been stuck there ever since.

The question is ‘why’ rather than ‘what’, and simply answering with “the coalition” isn’t good enough.

People’s attachment to parties is a reflection of their values, and one organisation has analysed this in depth: Cultural Dynamics.

The remainder of this post won’t make much sense if you are unfamiliar with Cultural Dynamics’s methodology and its world ‘Settlers’, ‘Prospectors’ or ‘Pioneers’. If so, before you go any further, read this short description of the value modes and this map of value-based politics, then take this online test to discover where you fit, and all will become clear.

Cultural Dynamics has just published a state of the parties analysis, and the problem faced by the Liberal Democrats is stark. As you would expect, of the three main value modes (Settlers, Pioneers and Prospectors), Liberal Democrat support tends to be concentrated among ‘Pioneers’, people driven by individually-based ethics, with some some support among ‘Prospectors’:

Whatever their protestations about being ‘hated less than they were’, our 2012 data shows that the LibDems are in deep trouble.

Mid-2012 data shows their support beginning to concentrate in a small Pioneer rump. Late-2012 data shows an even more dramatic fall in Prospector Now People support, and a further retreat among Pioneers towards Concerned Ethical territory.

Concentration in only one area of the values map indicates that as far as identification with their values is concerned, the LibDems are now a fringe party.

I have long argued (here and here) that the fundamental problem of Liberal Democrat strategy has been a failure to consolidate a core vote, so that the party has no foundation for building outwards. Indeed, the party is hostile to the very idea that not all people are equally predisposed to vote Liberal Democrat (as evidenced by the fatuous slogan ‘We can win everywhere!’). The problem faced by the Liberal Democrats is therefore paradoxical: despite their obduracy, they still have a core vote but, because they refuse to recognise it, they don’t appreciate that they have alienated it or understand why. The Cultural Dynamics analysis continues:

It is hard to see the Liberal Democrats continuing as a significant national force on the basis of our data as they have offended their mainly Pioneer natural constituency so deeply. There are significant tensions within the party that may surface in the run up to 2015. A change of leader and of emphasis may help, but as long as they are in coalition with a Conservative government that is perceived as both incompetent and moving further to the ‘right’ they will not attract a significant Pioneer vote. Prospectors do not vote for ‘losers’ and the LibDem’s Settler penetration is insignificant.

The only way the Liberal Democrats can rebuild support is to accept that they have a natural constituency, understand what makes these people tick, consolidate this core vote and build out from it. Doing so is not contingent on leaving the coalition but it does depend on the party conducting itself within the coalition in a manner that builds rather than loses support.

The strategic priority for the Liberal Democrats is to work out how to win back the ‘Pioneer’ vote but there is no sign of this happening. Instead, we get that wizened old chestnut, the ‘centre ground’, and a reliance on empty slogans about a fairer society and a stronger economy. This suggests that there is not exactly an abundance of master strategists at work.

Who the f*** is in charge of Lib Dem election campaigns?

Members of the Liberal Democrats today received an e-mail from Nick Clegg, informing them that party president Tim Farron MP has been put in charge of the party’s 2014 local and European election campaign.

His appointment has been added to that of Paddy Ashdown (in charge of the party’s 2015 general election campaign); Martin Horwood MP (in charge of the party’s 2013 local election campaign); James Gurling (chair of the party’s Campaign and Communications Committee, a sub-committee of the Federal Executive); and Hilary Stephenson (no.2 at party HQ and in charge of the HQ directorate for ‘Elections and Field’). Meanwhile, much of the party’s real election campaign organisation actually takes place at ALDC’s HQ in Hebden Bridge Manchester.

It is not clear whether this byzantine arrangement has any logic, how it works, or who is accountable to whom. One sign of the confusion is that Gurling was not consulted about Farron’s appointment, even though the former’s committee supposedly oversees election campaigns of all kinds.

This is no way to run a railway.

Taliban 0 – Infidels 1

Gratifying news from Pakistan. Despite threats from the Taliban, there was a large turnout in Saturday’s election. This will also be Pakistan’s first transition from one elected government to another.

The victor, Nawaz Sharif, is not exactly a paragon of virtue. But the bravery and determination of Pakistani voters is something to applaud. They defied Taliban threats and turned out at considerable risk to their own safety – in the run-up to the election, more than 100 people died in election-related violence.

What can the Taliban possibly find objectionable about democratic elections? Reuters reported:

Gunmen kidnapped the son of a former Pakistani prime minister on Thursday as a letter from the leader of the Pakistani Taliban revealed plans for suicide bomb attacks on election day.

Pakistani Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud, in a message to the group’s spokesman, outlined plans for the attacks, including suicide blasts, in all four of the country’s provinces on polling day on Saturday.

“We don’t accept the system of infidels which is called democracy,” Mehsud said in the letter, dated May 1, and obtained by Reuters on Thursday.

So that’s it. Democracy is a system of infidels. That probably explains why liberal politicians were most at risk. The BBC reported:

The Pakistani Taliban threatened to carry out suicide attacks ahead of the election. They have been blamed for numerous attacks throughout the campaign on Pakistan’s three most prominent liberal parties.

The PPP along with the Karachi-based Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM) and the Awami National Party (ANP) were singled out for threats, and were forced to curtail their campaigning as a result.

The Taliban is a source of much paranoia in the West, so an important fact is forgotten. The Taliban is deeply unpopular even in Islamic countries. The people of these countries are young, increasingly educated and urban, and have similar aspirations to young people elsewhere. The last thing they want is to be pushed back into the Middle Ages.

Today, the Pakistani Taliban must be feeling even more devastated than Manchester City supporters. At least City supporters can drown their sorrows with a few pints.

“It’s a two cardinal race!”

Voting starts today in the Vatican City to elect a new pope. It is an unusual election. The electorate is all-male. The voters are locked in a room and not allowed out until they have made a choice. And all of them are potentially also the candidates.

It set me wondering what the election would be like if the Liberal Democrats had anything to do with it.

It helps that the Latin word for Focus is ‘Focus’, so the party is already off to a good start. The Vatican Focus would probably be headlined something like “Lib Dem Cardinals – Praying Round Here”.

And there’s plenty to talk about in these leaflets. Never mind the profound theological questions. The big campaign issues will be the potholes in St Peter’s Square, the chewing gum left by tourists on the floor of the basilica, and the shortage of LGBT Swiss Guards.

There is no need for any ‘Sorry you were out’ leaflets because everybody’s been locked in.

Cardinals would be greeted first thing in the morning with ‘Bonus Mane’ leaflets, featuring some dubious bar charts.

The only problem would be the declaration. Burning the ballot papers to generate black or white smoke is not an environmentally sustainable practice, is it? For a new, ecologically-sound signal, a green wheelie bin will be left outside the door of the Sistine Chapel.

“Rodrigo Borgia: a worker, a winner” – yes, I can see it now.

How ‘sticky’ are Liberal Democrat MPs?

Liberal Democrat MPs are ‘sticky’ – and that’s official.

It has long been known that, once they are dug in, Liberal Democrat MPs are more difficult to dislodge. Newly-published academic research of general elections between 1983 and 2010 has now quantified this phenomenon.

The research, reported by PoliticalBetting.com, shows that Liberal Democrat MPs enjoy a large incumbency factor worth between 5% and 15% of the vote. Labour and Conservative MPs, by contrast, have incumbency advantages of only about 2% and 1% respectively. This Liberal Democrat ‘stickiness’ has changed the outcome in up to 25 seats at each general election, and probably prevented the Conservatives winning an overall majority in 2010.

Now that the Liberal Democrats are in a coalition government, we don’t know how strong the incumbency factor will be at the next general election. But the party’s performance since 2010 in local elections in Liberal Democrat-held constituencies suggests that our MPs have not lost their stickiness entirely.

Even the Tories think the Tories can’t win

Paul Goodman, executive editor of ConservativeHome and a former Tory MP, has written an article in the Telegraph explaining why the Tories cannot win the 2015 general election.

The abandonment of the proposed boundary changes is only one of four reasons Goodman cites for the impossibility of a Tory victory. The others are that the Tories are doing badly among ethnic minority voters, that UKIP is splitting the right by capturing the older male Poujadist vote and, conversely, that the Labour Party is little troubled by splinter movements on the left.

Meanwhile, Political Betting has just published an analysis showing that Labour can win an overall majority with less than 35% of the vote. Again, the lack of boundary changes is only part of the story; Labour benefits from its vote being concentrated in seats with a low turnout.

Then there is the pattern seen in general elections across Europe since the financial crisis began. Governing parties that implement austerity policies are habitually thrown out of office irrespective of whether they are right, left or centre.

A lot can happen in the next two years and it would be foolish to predict the outcome of the 2015 election. Whether the Liberal Democrats should maintain a coalition with the Conservatives after that election is a question that divides Liberal Democrats (to put it mildly). However, it is looking increasingly like an academic question.

Lord Bonkers explains why you should always vote for yourself

I am often asked to teach Liberal Democrat candidates the theory and practice of polling day organisation.

After I have taught them the rudiments of knocking up and how to prime the Bonkers Patent Exploding Focus (for use in marginal wards), I give a little homily. (Or was she a Dickensian heroine?)

Anyway, what I say to them is this: “Always remember to vote for yourself.”

The truth of this was borne in upon me with renewed force today. Because, thanks to my decision to follow my own advice, I am the new Police and Crime Commissioner for Rutland.

I won yesterday’s election with a majority of one – and that because I rushed down to the village school to vote just before the polls closed.

So you can see that my vote was quite decisive. It was not just that I had a majority of one: mine was the only vote cast in the whole of Rutland.

But a victory is a victory, whatever the turnout or majority.

Tomorrow I shall begin work on my plans to ensure that all police constables are fat and jolly and spend their time alternately helping old ladies across the road (preferably when they want to cross) and clipping apple-scrumpers around the ear.

Where were the pro-crime candidates?

As the Today programme pointed out this morning, nobody is publicly in favour of crime, so one explanation for the pathetic turnout at the police and crime commissioner elections was that voters were not being offered a choice over anything.

While no-one would seriously run as ‘pro crime’, the ‘anti crime’ candidates I looked at pretty much without exception, regardless of place, and of any party or none, ran on the same platitudes about ‘more police on the beat’, ‘police to pay attention to the whole area’, ‘less anti social behaviour’, ‘less bureaucracy’.

If every candidate is offering the same thing, why vote?

This is the problem with elections for particular services. One of Nick Clegg’s first acts as leader was to call for directly-elected health bodies. This absurd idea would no doubt have seen equally dire turnouts had they ever happened, since few candidates would have used the slogan “Vote Scroggins for More Illnesses”.

We already have elected bodies capable of oversight of the police, health and indeed transport and other services. They are called local authorities, and yesterday’s failed attempt to interest voters in their further fragmentation should be the last.

Take 38 pounds of flour and 3 dozen eggs...

As this Thursday is election day for Police and Crime Commissioners, and also several by-elections, you might consider baking an Election Cake.