I can tell you where you’re headed - the lunatic asylum.
Nick Clegg has had a “go back to your constituencies and prepare for government” moment in his Cameron-lite - no notes, wandering around the stage - conference speech today when he said:
I can tell you where we’re headed - government. (Full speech here)
Yeah. Right.
Somehow, I just can’t see the Lib Dems forming the next government. Or any government, come to that. At any point.
Especially considering the latest polls, which put the parties on the following figures:
- Conservatives: 52%
- Labour: 24%
- Lib Dems: 12%
Now that is a fantastic result for the Conservatives, and a devastating blow to the Lib Dems, especially just after their conference where one would normally expect a poll boost. However, one can’t help but almost feel sorry for the them as their entire conference has been almost entirely overshadowed by the City meltdown and the Labour MP revolution.
According to Electoral Calculus, a general election with this vote share would leave Parliament as follows:
- Conservative: 493 seats
- Labour: 121 seats
- Lib Dems: 8 seats
Of course, this isn’t likely to be the actual result of any election, as it ignores the impact of any SNP/Plaid Cymru vote in Scotland and Wales. And it relies on a uniform swing, without paying any attention to local issues.
However, what it does show is the Lib Dems are suffering. Seriously suffering. They simply cannot compete aginst Cameron at the moment, no matter what they say or do. Clegg is seen to be nothing more than Cameron-lite by the general public, and as they want to get rid of this failing Labour government, they are turning to the Opposition in their droves.
What it really comes down to is that as the Lib Dems are primarily a protest vote repository rather than a serious political party with a credible claim to being able to form a government. Which is why they are being shunned by the electorate at the moment.
When will the Lib Dems finally admit that they won’t ever form the government?
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The BBC are spinning what a great week Clegg’s had but frankly, given that he’s been sidelined by the financial news, been greeted with stony silence every time he’s mentioned the words “tax cut” and has demonstrated a complete ignorance on the level of pensions in this country, God knows what a bad week would have looked like.
It reminds me of the Spitting Image parody of David Steel back in 1981-
Go back to your constituencies and prepare…for a bit of a disappointment…
I agree with all of this, with the one caveat that this new Ipsos MORI poll was conducted over last weekend, when the LibDem conference was just starting.
Even so, with the Labour leadership “rebellion” taking off that weekend, one would have expected the impact to be on Labour’s figure, but that was hardly affected relative to recent polls including their own previous one. Instead it was the LibDems who have lost support quite significantly, and that I think is the real oddity of this poll’s outcomes.
Thus I come to the same “botom line” conclusion as you, in that they have no realistic prospect of forming even a coalition national government in the foreseeable future, but derived from a slightly different analysis.
Why are the BBC not reporting this poll?