The Tories have approximately 250,000 members (most of which are over 65 years old), they managed to receive 8.8 million votes in the 2005 general election.
Labour have around 200,000 members and received 9.6 million votes.
The Lib Dems have 70,000 members and received 6.0 million votes.
In terms of votes per member that works out as follows;
Tories 35,000 votes per member
Labour 48,000 votes per member
Lb Dem 86,000 votes per member
The Lib Dems pride themsleves on their democratic image but that is an awfully low number of members per vote. This tells me that the Lib Dem vote is clearly the 'softest' vote. In terms of tax and spend the Lib Dems have similar policies to Labour. There are a lot of people voting Lib Dem that clearly should be voting Labour. Labour has to win back these voters.
The Lib Dems are the dustbin for disaffected Labour and Tory voters, but the majority of their voters and members are clearly social liberals, as the popularity of Simon Hughes demonstrates. Now your party is finally going to make its mind up to move to the right under Ming or Mark Oaten, now is the time to join Labour.
Labour is going to reinvent itself under a new leader and having the sort of people who are currently joining the Greens and Lib Dems in their ranks could make a massive difference in influencing what direction the party takes on electoral reform. Now is the time to reclaim the Labour party.
To stay in the Lib Dems is just supporting your party in its right wing future and possible coalition with the Tories who will never support electoral reform. It's make your mind up time, are you Labour or Tory?
You calling the Lib Dems a former Tory and Labour voter dustbin is an insult to them and their voters, This kind of talk will not convince many people to switch, There are alot of Lib Dems who should be Labour voters but slagging off their party isn't the way to win hearts and mind.
ReplyDeleteThe Lib Dems are clearly in a mess. By 'dustbin votes' (I borrowed the idea from Polly Toynbee) I meant that the Lib Dems rely on tactical and protest votes far more than any other party, something that becomes evident from psephological analysis.
ReplyDeleteI think a lot of the Lib Dems membership and voters are to the left of the party and the party is about to move to the right. It seems evident that these members and voters now have to decide whether they can remain supporting a party that will be aiming to prop up the Tories in a coalition government. I don't think this is what the social liberals want and why they should seriously consider joining the Labour party.
Some come on then, sinc eyou made your call how many have joined you? Figures pelase.
ReplyDeleteThis is laughable
Anon: Give it time. The Lib Dems are collapsing. You can't pretend you are the 'nice' party anymore.
ReplyDeleteWould you be happy propping up a Tory government?
So none have joined you, funny that. Be careful, David Cameron made the same call and virtually no Liberal Democrats have joined him. But why would any liberal want to join your right wing New Labour party? Illegal wars, ID cards, student fees, foundation hospitals, selection for schools, detention without trial. The New Labour list goes of corruption (with 2 r's) goes on and on.
ReplyDeleteWell I only mentioned it today, so give it time.
ReplyDeleteSo you would be perfectly happy if the Lib Dems join with the Tories?
I suggest that a lot of Lib Dems will not be happy with that.
The Iraq War was opposed by many in the Labour party, it was a mistake but it is in the past, once the war started you had the same policy as us. Maybe some good came out of it. Saddam has gone and who knows how much we moderated Bush's actions. Our troops have generally handled the situation better than the yanks. It looks like Al Jazeera would have gone up in smoke without Blair's influence.
ID cards will be as voluntary as bank accounts, mobile phones and internet connections and these things hold far more information about us than ID cards ever will.
As it happens I've been persuaded that the practicalities of ID cards means they probably won't happen anyway, at least there will have to be many alterations to the current bill. This happens to any bill so reliant on technology.
Student fees are accompanied with the reintroduction of a maintenance grant for the poorest students. Nobody pays back loans until after they graduate and are earning a reasonable income. Why should all the burden of this fall on ordinary taxpayers. In effect it is working class taxpayers that are funding largely middle class students. How is that fair?
There has been massive improvements in waiting times under this government. I have no ideological objection to using the private sector, as long as it delivers and individual wealth doesn't affect access to services.
I do believe 28 days detention without charge is a mistake. I will give you that point. A lot of people in the Labour party think the same as me and hopefully this will be reversed.
I don't think the Lib Dems are in a position to criticise anyone the way they have behaved in the last few days.
Well the Lib Dems locally will join with the Tories and the Greens to rid the city of Bodfish, so why not nationally?
ReplyDeleteI was watching a programme by Richard Dawkins tonight about how religion leads to irrational actions.
ReplyDeleteIt reminded me how tribal loyalty to a political party can be exactly the same. The tribal loyalty to the party has to be particularly strong in the Lib Dems. The Tories primarily look after the wealthy, the Labour party look towards helping the weakest in society. The Lib Dems cannot make their mind up what they are for.
As you have just indicated, if people want the Tory position strengthened on B&H council and in the country, then vote Lib Dem. If not vote Labour.
The point you are missing is that your beloved New Labour Party are so discredited in this town that the residents want anything but you. That explains the rise of the Greens in Pavilion.
ReplyDeleteYeah why are people turing to the Greens and not the Lib Dems?
ReplyDeleteBecause even with only 3 councillors and never having had the resposibilities of power and of having to make difficult decisions, they still know you are rubbish.
The Lib Dems are a nothing party. They just split the Left vote and allow the Tories in. They have no idea of what they stand for because they stand for totally opposing things depending on which way the wind blows and which part of the country they are in.
Your only ideology is duplicity. I say to anyone out there, if for whatever reason you think you won't vote Labour then vote Green. Whatever you do don't vote Lib Dem they are a total con. At least Labour and the Greens stand for something.
Ha HA Ha - this gets better
ReplyDeleteand exctly by how much did the Lib Dem vote rise in Hove at the election?
The Lib Dems are finished in Pavilion. It's between Labour and the Greens here, the Greens came from fourth place to get 6% more than you.
ReplyDeleteYou came a poor third in Hove (less than half of the vote of the second placed Tory.
Now your party is moving to the right and the Tories are moving to the left, all the social liberals are going to either go back to Labour or to the Greens. I'm sure the Greens will overtake you there as well.
The fact of an increase of 9%, and a doubling of the vote, seems to go against what you say. Even Charles Clark was writing personal letters to Lib Dem supporters pleading with them for support. Seems like Labour are running scared of them, espcially with the collapse of the Labour vote in Brighton and Hove in recent years. How many Council seats have you lost since 1997? The party losing ground is your very own New Labour party no-one else.
ReplyDeleteWell I suppose its more difficult for the Lib Dems to lose ground when they only have 3 councillors out of 54 and you never have the difficult compromises that come with power.
ReplyDeleteAny party that controls a council or is the largest party, has to make sure things work in practise and take the hits when some things inevitably go wrong. The Lib Dems have never had this responsibility in Brighton and Hove or the constraints on their idealist policies.
Where the Lib Dems have power they have proved disastrous. Constant griping and exagerating issues is the way the Lib Dems win votes.
This is what you get when you have a party that is just a duplicous dishonest franchise and has no principled objectives.
The Lib Dems contradict it's national policies with different areas having opposed policies depending on how the wind blows.
How can anybody trust such a party when the party doesn't even know itself what policies they want half the time.
So come on then..
ReplyDeleteHow many Labour seats have been lost in Brighton & Hove since 1999?
And, how many 'social' Liberals have left the Lib Dems and joined your New Labour party since you put your call out to 'come and join the labour party'?
Once again you are looking rather foolish with your claims.