Interesting that only 64% of Lab supporters think EdM is doing Very OR Fairly well, 23% of his party still on the fence as don’t knows. A long game indeed.

DC at 95% support from Tories – may be better than he feared?

NC’s 76% amongst LDs will be a very interesting one to watch in the months ahead. How low will it need to get before he is “in trouble”? Is the enthusiastic protrayal of a Blair-Bush level of rapport between himself and DC is his biggest (tactical) risk?

Who is Ed Miliband?

Of course, another reading of these figures might be that Ed is, by some margin, less popular than David Cameron… but never mind. Keep spinning!

Interesting to see the tories rate nick clegg’s leadership as highly as lib dems do.

But I don’t see how the first stats show polarisation – they show division. But there is nothing to show that those who approve approve strongly, and those who disagree disagree strongly. They might all be relatively marginal aproves or dissaproves – in which case there is little polarisation.

50% wanted a lower cap on tuition fees or to abolish them entirely, only 11% wanted no cap to tuition fees and 26% were satisfied with the cap at £9,000. Looks like an issue Labour could go big on.

…well, if you think haggling over how much to raise fees by is a vote-winning issue, then good luck: at the risk of repeating myself, it’s hard to see how Ed Miliband can ‘go big’ on this without disowning the original legislation passed by New Labour.

5

“at the risk of repeating myself, it’s hard to see how Ed Miliband can ‘go big’ on this without disowning the original legislation passed by New Labour.”

It’s harder to see why Newer Labour can’t see that the only way it can present itself as radical and progressive is to do just that. The fact that it would be both the right thing to do, and one aspect of a possible platform putting them in stark opposition to the regressive aspects of coalition policy is even better.

Somehow after the last 13 years, I’m not holding my breath though!

redpesto

The issue for Labour here isn’t what position it takes – it is how to discern those voters that bought into the anti-fees nonsense from the Lib Dems.

There would have been little vote winning done had the Lib Dems taken a “its a bit rubbish but the money has to come from somewhere” stance. Likewise a “Perhaps slightly smaller fees would be OK” stance.

Instead they went for “fees are bad m’kay” stance – and won lots of young voters around with that view.

Labour might go back on its old policy (though if that means a graduate tax then it is a meaningless gimmick position as the tax version is even less fair than fees)

More likely it will simply emphasise the lack of credibility of what Lib Dems say to those voters who might be won round with other policies anyway.

It isn’t that difficult for Ed to distance himself from previous stances… he’s already done so over the biggest – Iraq.

There’s a high percentage of don’t knows for Ed in the Labour camp because he’s not been in the media much. Give there’s no love for the Coalition among Labour voters – they’ll back him.

In other polling, the publicly overwhelmingly supported keeping Control Orders (73%-15%), using information obtained via torture (50%-31%) and denying prisoners the vote (76%-17%).

Thank fuck we don’t have direct democracy. I mean, actually, the people are awful bastards, aren’t they?

@John B

Kinder to say that they are easily frightened and easily manipulated.

But yeah.

They are, aren’t they:)

John

I think the public are more sophisticated than you give them credit for.

Indeed with polls like those I think the public tend to avoid what sounds most like an absoluteist position.

So on control orders – they tend to feel there might be conditions they would make sense perhaps – as opposed to feeling comfortable saying “no, never ever under any circumstances at all ever” – the public are aware of complexity. Often more so than those of us with a zeal about our politics.

And imagine a situation where a government gave us a choice between retaining control orders in some form – or legitimising the use of intercept evidence as evidence in our criminal courts – The libertarian shudders at the realisation that even I would back control orders in such an awful choice. There can be little worse than the utter corruption of our entire judicial system as an alternative to house arrest for those suspected heavilly of terrorism. (Obviously I don’t really want either)

One thing I’d be curious about is whether the answers would be the same if you based the question on what people defined themselves as *before* the election – I think one of the reasons why there’s a fairly good level of support for the government, Cameron and Clegg is that a lot of the people who actively detest what they’ve been doing have been going “I am a Lib Dem no more!”

Of course, that’s a personal feeling/assessment not anything based on data rather than anecdote.

Draxar: “…whether the answers would be the same if you based the question on what people defined themselves as *before* the election”

That’s a very interesting point.

other pete

There will still likely be more people later on that decide the coalition was a bad plan and eject themselves, and there will be a portion who decry the coalition but still define themselves as Lib Dems.

But I think the stuff that the coalition has done so far, and the Lib Dem MPs visible involvement in/acceptance of that, has caused those that are more absolutist to leave.

Whereas those that are more accepting of compromise, who have more of a view of “We don’t have to like it, but we’ll get what policy changes in our direction we can take and stomach the stuff we consider bad as a a price worth paying for the good.”

Looking into my crystal ball I see:
There’s an unforseen series of scandals. Growing weariness with the consequences of the cuts. Fear of mass unemployment and rising crime. An economy unable to recover. The Lib Dem’s taking the blame and facing meltdown in the polls. Nick Clegg entering the Conservative party proper. Some Lib Dem M.P.s remaining in coalition. Those who didn’t get cabinet jobs drifting across the benches to join the opposition.The party’s virtual extinction at the next general election.

@15
where did you get your crystal ball? I very much like one to predict the winner of the Grand National.