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Post by patman post on May 7, 2024 12:05:37 GMT
Does the 768 gain in council seats in the last five years**, and the party’s creep up the opinion polls, show that the LibDems are returning to the role of repository for protest votes for those who can’t vote for Labour or Tory? Perhaps Reform can attract more voters between now and the general election, but can it progress with just its leader and a ghost president who may or may not campaign and stand…?
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Post by dappy on May 7, 2024 12:18:30 GMT
Not sure where the 768 figure comes from but to the wider point, the LDs do seem , whether by accident or design, to be consolidating their vote far more effectively than previously so that in Local Elections and by-elections (and perhaps the GE to come) where they have a chance of winning, they poll strongly , where they don’t they don’t.
Labour under Starmer has moved much closer to the LD position. Post election, it looks like the Tory party will have a civil war to decide whether they want to be One Nation or Populist. Quite what the LDs role in the future will be may perhaps to some extent depend on the outcome of that fight and on whether that fight results in a push from the right for PR which with LD and Green support may then become unavoidable.
Interesting times ahead.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on May 7, 2024 16:54:58 GMT
Few people know what any Lib Dem policies are anymore.
Like all parties aside from the big two, they can be the recipients of protest votes. But primarily at the moment they are doing well off the backs of anti-Tory tactical voting. Wherever they are the main challengers to the Tories they poll very well. Wherever they are not they poll badly, with most of the anti-Tory vote going to whoever is the main challenger, which in most places will be Labour. But I don't think tactical voting is quite the same thing as protest voting. For example, where they have the best chance of defeating the Tories they are picking up votes from Labour supporters. These are often not protest votes against Labour at all, just a practical recognition that the Lib Dems are more likely to defeat the Tory than their own preferred party is. Conversely, many who might prefer the Lib Dems will be voting Labour where it has the better chance of beating the Tories. It is in the relatively small number of Labour/Lib Dem marginals where anti Tory voting will be a much less significant factor, and where the actual outcome will be more interesting in terms of what it tells us about which of the two the public might prefer.
There are of course those such as myself who might protest vote against both Labour and the Tories, but this will be in my case in part because Labour is not progressive enough. Others might vote Reform because the Tories are not right wing enough. But the Lib Dems are neither more left wing than Labour nor more right wing than the Tories, and so will garner very few of these left wing or right wing protest voters. Centrists are after all spoilt for choice at the moment. It is the right and the left who are politically homeless and most likely to protest vote.
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Steve
Hero Protagonist
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Post by Steve on May 7, 2024 21:56:18 GMT
I tend to vote for them not because I particularly like their policies much but I do like their attitude to politics and the local Lib Dem politicians I know personally are very much of that 'serve the public' ethos.
And I really don't want either a Labour or Tory majority government any time soon.
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Post by vinny on Jun 21, 2024 9:19:04 GMT
They're very popular with 2016's runners up.
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Post by patman post on Jun 21, 2024 20:28:24 GMT
I tend to vote for them not because I particularly like their policies much but I do like their attitude to politics and the local Lib Dem politicians I know personally are very much of that 'serve the public' ethos. And I really don't want either a Labour or Tory majority government any time soon. Looks like you’ll just have to suck it up. LibDems are good as a repository for protest votes, and voting for them may give you a warm feeling feeling for a brief moment — but so would peeing down the inside of your trouser leg… |
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Steve
Hero Protagonist
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Post by Steve on Jun 21, 2024 21:33:00 GMT
Having read all the election leaflets that have so far arrived through our letterbox the Lib Dems is the only one not seeking the NIMBY vote. Got to give them credit for that.
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Post by montegriffo on Jun 23, 2024 23:53:54 GMT
Are they still promising to legalise weed and re-join the EU?
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Steve
Hero Protagonist
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Post by Steve on Jun 24, 2024 8:15:32 GMT
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Post by patman post on Jun 24, 2024 12:51:24 GMT
Having read all the election leaflets that have so far arrived through our letterbox the Lib Dems is the only one not seeking the NIMBY vote. Got to give them credit for that. Everyone else but Labour must have conceded defeat in Hackney North & Stoke Newington — Diane Abbott's leaflet is the only bit of political election material delivered round here.
The only party material I've noticed were a few Reform posters up Holloway Road, Corbyn's constituency (likely to remain so after 4 July)...
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Post by wapentake on Jul 3, 2024 22:51:52 GMT
If you want to vote based on the activity of a clown then they’re your party,Divvy has spent most of his time playing with large plastic dominoes falling over and playing silly buggers.
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