Prime Minister Clegg?
Short answer: unlikely.
I’ve been contemplating an approach to the sudden rise of the Liberal Democrats while busy trying to consider helping finish this paper I’m scheduled to present in Chicago Saturday morning. I also picked the precise wrong month to leave the new constituency handbook published by our very own Elections Centre at the University of Plymouth behind a cloud of volcanic ash in Plymouth while I’m spending the month in the USA. Of course, while the ‘uniform national swing’ matrix for translating votes into Parliamentary seats has been a help in working out the implications of various electoral scenarios in the UK, I doubt that the matrix includes data for the YouGov poll released on April 18: Tories 32%, Labour 26%, Lib Dems 33%.
It’s still unclear whether or not the surge in Lib Dem support generated by the first ever televised party leader debate last week will hold. My guess is that while it may attenuate a bit, it is real. Key here are the two remaining debates: 22 April on international affairs, and 29 April on economic policy. I anticipate that the changed electoral picture will increase interest and attention in the next debate, and am keen to see how Brown and Cameron change their tactics vis-a-vis Clegg.
Historically, the recent Lib Dem surge in support stands out. They have never done this well during the actual campaign period in the run-in to the election, save for perhaps the days of the SDP-Liberal Alliance during the 1983 election where it appeared that they may drop Labour into third place (they didn’t). The Guardian – ICM poll, which goes back to 1984 (and supplying some data I’m using for my forthcoming MPSA paper) tells us the last time the Lib Dems did this well, they weren’t even the Lib Dems. They had a run between May 1985 and April 1986 where they varied between 30% and 35%, leading the poll twice (May ‘85 and again in September). Several British commentators have pointed to this run as a warning to reserve excitement over their current level of support, but I’m skeptical of such skepticism. The 1985 surge was nearly equidistant between two elections (1983, 1987), whereas the current surge is in the midst of a campaign where people are not only paying attention (close or otherwise), but are also in some cases actually voting with the spread of postal voting in the UK.
Another myth I’d like to address is the received wisdom that the Lib Dems always do better in the polls than actually at the polls. There is some political science literature to suggest this: it’s easy to tell a pollster that you support the third party with no chance in hell, but difficult to actually waste that precious vote when confronted with making the final decision. There is no doubt that the relative strength of the Lib Dems as a third party in a Plurality / SMD electoral system leads to a large degree of tactical voting, and that individuals responding to surveys often supply a “socially desirable” response which is different to their sincere attitudes and ultimate actions (indeed, this is largely what caused the 1992 British polling failure), but neither appears to be the case here. Going back to 1987, the final Guardian/ICM poll prior to the election has been remarkably consistent in predicting the Liberal Democrat vote:
| Year | Final Poll | Result | Deviation |
| 1987 | 21% | 23% | -2% |
| 1992 | 20% | 18% | +2% |
| 1997 | 18% | 17.2% | +0.8% |
| 2001 | 19% | 18.8% | +0.2% |
| 2005 | 22% | 22.6% | -0.6% |
The overall deviation between the final poll and the actual result is 0.4% over those five elections. While this is but one poll out of several polling houses working the UK election, and it may not be representative, my hunch is it is, and what this means is that the closer we get to the actual election (17 days off now), the more “hard” these numbers become. Furthermore, at least with this poll, there hasn’t been a lot of volatility in the Lib Dem numbers during the campaigns. But due to the nature of 2010, this year could very well be different.
Accepting these numbers for the time being, what does this mean for the next Parliament? This is anybody’s guess. I’m seeing numbers all over the place, assuming a uniform national swing, based on the various projection models different people use. This predicts Con 319, Lab 226, LD 72; UK Polling Report’s aggregate gives us a Labour plurality in Commons, but 55 seats short of a majority, while A Very British Dude simply holds up his hands and sighs, conceding that there is “no doubt” in his mind that the polls are all likely to be “wrong”, while maintaining ultimate hope and belief in a Tory victory. This is a time where I regret my usual strategy of packing light and wish I had this one particular reference to hand. The Lib Dem surge has been asymmetrically distributed; it’s taken a considerably larger bite out of Tory support than Labour (suggesting that a not insubstantial segment of Tory support has been all along their genius in simply not being Gordon Brown.) If the Tories do win the election by 6% or less, and the swing is uniform(ish), it would leave us with a Labour plurality in the Commons requiring a hell of a lot of Lib Dem support to govern.
This is where it gets interesting. Formal coalition? Very weak minority government? My preference is for the former for a variety of reasons. My instinct is that it would result in the latter.
The problem with claiming that people won’t vote LD for tactical reasons is that if they’re polling in the lead, the calculus reverses. Now it’s Labour that does worse b/c people want to support the party for a shot at a majority: LD.
But the problem, as I understand it, is that the LDs don’t really have a shot at a majority because they lack the regional power bases of the other two parties (oh for the old Liberal celtic fringe!).
But a related point might hold more truth: increased LD support ups the odds of a hung parliament, in which the LDs hold the balance of power. Presumably the price of even their assent to a minority government would be real electoral reform (and they might get a constitutional crisis to help make the case for them).
One other factor that I’ve read about elsewhere: the LD lacks the resources of either of the other two parties for GOTV efforts. Any swing will put new constituencies into play for the LibDems. It’s an interesting question how well they are prepared to take advantage of such a turn of events.
Finally, a question for Dave: does the rise of the Lib Dems in the polls have a significant impact outside England, i.e. in Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland, where these other nations’ different party systems (the addition of the SNP in Scotland and Plaid Cymru in Wales, and the various Northern Ireland parties) make matters even more complicated?
The Lib Dems are relatively strong in both Wales and Scotland. There’s really no such thing as a Tory in Scotland, and while the Tories have made strong gains in local elections in Wales in the past two cycles, they’re not in a position to seriously challenge in the Welsh Assembly. The Lib Dems have served in coalition with Labour in both the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly in the past (though right now in Wales they are 4th in seats, while the Tories are only one seat behind Plaid in third).
Where it could matter is in tactical voting: the Tories hold two seats in Wales, but both are by the slimmest of “majorities”: in Clwyd West they had a plurality of only 51 votes in 2005, and a bit over 1% in the other Welsh constituency they hold. The Tories only hold one seat in Scotland, but have a relatively healthy “majority” in it.
As for Northern Ireland, the party system there is completely different: no Labour, no Lib Dems, and the Tories only have an “alliance” of sorts with the UUP, but this is controversial as the UUP have strong working class roots, which it’s safe to say the Conservatives do not. NI is usually ’set aside’ when discussing national swings and the composition of Parliament, but some scenarios require support from one or two of the NI parties in Westminster for the sustainability of a minority government.
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The British election and the sudden rise of the Lib Dems is a fascinating story and among the best reasons for an Anglophile American to be happy about the internet.
That said, you really should be talking about the important story for a resident of Devon: Argyle relegation.
To a bunch of guys in Northern Rock sponsored banana shirts no less.
You read my mind. That’s underway.
Fantastic. If I don’t get some good football talk I may actually have to work on my thesis.
[...] Prime Minister Clegg? : Lawyers, Guns & Money [...]
Dave – As always the Internetss have provided. Politicshome.com did a regional poll break down here.
Long story short seems to be that LD support is nationally broadbased with no particular standout regions – as it has been in the past – but is rising everywhere, while the Tories are losing ground.
As an Irishman living in the UK (hence able to vote) my view on the situation is pretty simple. The whole narrative of Cameron never ’sealing the deal’ has been proven substantially correct. The Tories seem to have, without knowing it, sleptwalk into an election where their entire lead was based on non ‘tribal’ voters deciding they were sick of Labour and the Tories were the only game in town. The debate more or less put paid to that, and they’re now totally screwed.
Moreover the usual arguments that a) they can’t win and b) the horrors of a hung parliament (!!!) aren’t working. Precisely because a hung parliament is a possibility the LDs can come out of the election with a majority of the votes and a minority of seats and still claim a moral right to govern – at the very least in coalition. And its not like Milliband et al. will have any scruples about knifing Brown in the back and giving Clegg and Cable the keys to No. 10 and 11 for a chance to remain somewhat in office.
Now, that is still of course unlikely. But the voters are smart enough to realise that Brown is toast unless he gets a majority, which isn’t gonna happen. And they’re perfectly happy to see a hung parliament and all it entails, including the possibility of Chancellor Vince Cable. And in the other corner, David Cameron is left holding a bannana, with a manifesto and election strategy based on an entirely different set of political circumstances than these.
As an Irishman living in the UK (hence able to vote) my view on the situation is pretty simple.
Not to threadjack, but when I lived in England in 1987 and ‘88 I was amazed that certain non-UK subjects living there could vote in elections (is it everyone who comes from a Commonwealth country or Ireland?).
What is the history and scope of this right? And it is at all controversial? If the US gave non-citizen Filipinos (to take the largest population of residents of a former US possession) the right to vote in national elections if they happened to be living in the US at the time, there’d be violent protests.
Yes indeed – all Commonwealth citizens, provided they’re resident in England (not just there for a holiday) and registered. After all, they accept the Queen as their sovereign, so it shouldn’t be a problem to vote for their representatives in any of her dominions (even if in practice, this is somewhat ridiculous.)
Now of course Ireland is problematic given that we left the Commonwealth in the 1930s, but I think the idea is that so many of us emigrated, or were on the border etc. that Britain decided the old right should stand. Again – must be resident and registered, so no fly-by-nights.
Realistically, there’s not enough of us to swing an election either way, and certainly no-one is actively wooing the ‘Commonwealth vote’ so no-one is really fussed. And in fact, most of the Canuck’s I’m friends with here had no idea they were able to vote, so I’d say actual exercise of the right is quite modest.
Sorry, that should of course read ‘UK’ in place of England. Old habits die hard…
Does the same apply in reverse? Could a Brit living in Ireland vote in Irish elections?
http://www.immigrantvoting.org/material/TIMELINE.html
As you can see, it’s not at all uncommon to allow some categories of non-citizen residents to vote in local and municipal elections, and in Europe, supranational elections. (missing from the list are municipalities of various sorts that provide for the right, including quite a few in the US). But occasionally national voting rights are granted as well. Somewhat intriguingly, Latin American countries are on the forefront when it comes to voting rights in national elections.
A fascinating subject. Apparently non-citizen voting rights used to be more common in the US and Canada, were largely stripped in a flurry of anti-immigration politics following WWI, and are slowly coming back.
For quality scholarly analysis, I recommend Ron Heyduk’s piece in New Political Science and David Earnest’s piece in World Politics. They’re both around 5 years old, I think.
This was obviously meant to be a reply to IB’s question above
Charles III? William V?
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