Friday, May 17, 2019
Lib Dems leapfrog Labour into second place
The astonishing volatility of the opinion polls was demonstrated again this morning after the Times published the results of a survey showing the Liberal Democrats in second place for Thursday's European poll, behind the Brexit Party and ahead of Labour.
The Tories were trailing in fifth place with the support of just 9% of those asked. In Wales the Conservatives are in even more dire straits. A Welsh poll published yesterday put them in sixth position on 7%, with only Change UK trailing in their wake.
The paper says that the Liberal Democrats appear to be picking up support from Labour and Green voters after Sir Vince Cable argued that opponents of Brexit should vote for his party.
But it is the decline of the Conservatives into single figures that is likely to increase the panic in the party’s high command, with 62 per cent of Tory voters in the 2017 general election now saying that they will vote for the Brexit Party in the European elections. Only one in five who backed the party at the last general election is sticking with the Tories in the European elections.
Labour are facing one of the most disastrous elections in their existence as a party. They are the official opposition, with guaranteed coverage in all media, lined up against a divided, shambolic, incompetent government and yet they have failed to define a clear, understandable position on the main issue of the day (and these elections) and as a result are hemorrhaging support.
The Times says that 21 per cent of people who voted Labour in the 2017 general election now prefer the Lib Dems, in a switch likely to be blamed on Jeremy Corbyn’s fudged position on Brexit.
The Liberal Democrats must now use the last seven days of this campaign to turn their fire on Nigel Farage and his limited company/political party, so as to cement their position as the main recipient for Remainer-votes.
As such, it is quite right that Vince Cable has now taken a more prominent role in criticising Farage. In a campaign visit to Scotland yesterday, he said that the Brexit Party was telling voters “dangerous fallacies” and accused it of spreading a “very dangerous, simplistic doctrine”. Can we have more of that please?
The Tories were trailing in fifth place with the support of just 9% of those asked. In Wales the Conservatives are in even more dire straits. A Welsh poll published yesterday put them in sixth position on 7%, with only Change UK trailing in their wake.
The paper says that the Liberal Democrats appear to be picking up support from Labour and Green voters after Sir Vince Cable argued that opponents of Brexit should vote for his party.
But it is the decline of the Conservatives into single figures that is likely to increase the panic in the party’s high command, with 62 per cent of Tory voters in the 2017 general election now saying that they will vote for the Brexit Party in the European elections. Only one in five who backed the party at the last general election is sticking with the Tories in the European elections.
Labour are facing one of the most disastrous elections in their existence as a party. They are the official opposition, with guaranteed coverage in all media, lined up against a divided, shambolic, incompetent government and yet they have failed to define a clear, understandable position on the main issue of the day (and these elections) and as a result are hemorrhaging support.
The Times says that 21 per cent of people who voted Labour in the 2017 general election now prefer the Lib Dems, in a switch likely to be blamed on Jeremy Corbyn’s fudged position on Brexit.
The Liberal Democrats must now use the last seven days of this campaign to turn their fire on Nigel Farage and his limited company/political party, so as to cement their position as the main recipient for Remainer-votes.
As such, it is quite right that Vince Cable has now taken a more prominent role in criticising Farage. In a campaign visit to Scotland yesterday, he said that the Brexit Party was telling voters “dangerous fallacies” and accused it of spreading a “very dangerous, simplistic doctrine”. Can we have more of that please?
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Would you also accept that not every Conservative is a little-Englander? Liberal Democrats would be the most attractive non-socialist option for Remainer Conservatives, dismayed not only by the rightward trend in their party but also by the calamitous fall in the Conservative vote.
I think we are in danger of over-complicating our message as we define new target audiences. Keeping it simple is best
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