Lord Ashcroft Polls

By Lord Ashcroft

The mood at the Liberal Democrat Spring Conference this weekend will perhaps be more cheerful than at any such gathering since the start of the coalition. The Eastleigh by-election apparently vindicates Nick Clegg’s approach to government, and his party’s approach to campaigning.

His activists will be relieved to think that pavement politics is back; that despite the polls, strong local government and an invincible leaflet-dropping network will see many or even most of their incumbent MPs safely back to Westminster in two years’ time. Certainly the Eastleigh victory was a considerable achievement for the Liberal Democrats, and there is no doubt, as my research has suggested for some time, that the party remains stronger as a local force that the national numbers suggest.

But that is not the whole story.

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By Lord Ashcroft

The Liberal Democrats used much of their week in Brighton to discuss, as one Twitter wag put it, all the policies they would pursue if only they didn’t have power. For some, notably Vince Cable, differentiation from the Tories was the name of the game. Nick Clegg was steadfast in his commitment to the coalition, with a firm message on the deficit. But he too was keen to draw dividing lines with the Conservatives where he could: “Do you really think the Tories will make Britain fairer?” he encouraged his campaigners to ask on the doorstep.

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By Lord Ashcroft

Are MPs conspiring to smuggle an alternative leader into parliament? Who are the shadowy figures who tried to inveigle a respectable Colonel into their treacherous plot? Did the Prime Minister drink wine while sacking his Ministers? Did he offer them a glass? Did he make them cry?

Westminster politics is becoming more and more like a soap opera. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately – whatever would people think of it if they were paying attention?) it is a soap opera that nobody wants to watch. For voters, the reshuffle – which has dominated political coverage since before it was announced – is part of soap opera politics.

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By Lord Ashcroft

In August 2011 I conducted a poll of 41 marginal Conservative-held seats to find out whether the static national polls were hiding a more nuanced picture on this crucial battleground. The results constitute mixed news for the Conservative Party – the findings are more encouraging for Tories where the Liberal Democrats are in second place than in constituencies where Labour are the main opponents.

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By Lord Ashcroft

In The Leadership Factor I have looked in depth at how voters see each of the three party leaders, and the extent to which each leader is an asset or a liability for their party – a draw or a drag.

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By Lord Ashcroft

Two principal questions are preoccupying Conservative commentators about the result from Oldham East & Saddleworth by-election. First, was the Liberal Democrat vote share largely due to tactical voting by previous Conservative supporters? Second, would a bigger Conservative presence on the campaign trail have made any significant difference to the result? I decided to find out over the weekend by re-polling 500 of the voters who took part in my pre-election survey (which turned out to be very accurate). The answers to the questions are: yes, and almost certainly not.

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By Lord Ashcroft

Labour look set to hold the Oldham East & Saddleworth seat rather more comfortably than they did at the general election. For all the speculation, this by-election was always Labour’s to lose.

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By Lord Ashcroft

The Liberal Democrats have suffered a slump in the polls since their decision to enter a coalition government with the Conservatives. Some have argued that the Lib Dems are finished as an independent party capable of winning significant support at elections, but I suspected things might not be as straightforward as that. I have conducted research among those who voted Lib Dem in 2010, and those who thought about doing so but decided not to, to find some clues about the party’s future.

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By Lord Ashcroft

Though the Liberal Democrats achieved 24% of the vote in Great Britain at the general election, no poll since late June has put Nick Clegg’s party above 18%. Some have put them at less than half of their 6 May vote share. In July I published research conducted in marginal constituencies showing that 30 of the Lib Dems’ 57 seats were vulnerable to the Conservatives. More recently I have looked into whether the apparent meltdown would have the same effect on senior Liberal Democrats in the coalition. The answer is that their prominence has not made them immune from the decline in support for their party.

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By Lord Ashcroft

A referendum on the Alternative Vote is currently planned for 5 May 2011. The pollsters have turned their attention to the likely ramifications should the public decide to adopt such a system for general elections. There has been a widespread assumption that the Conservatives have nothing to gain from electoral reform, and the work that has been done so far – such as the YouGov poll for the Spectator earlier this month – has indeed suggested that the Tories would be the biggest net losers when comparing A.V. with First Past The Post (FPTP). As ever, though, national polls can only tell us so much – it would be in the marginal seats that A.V. would make a decisive difference.  Would voters in these seats behave differently under the two systems? And would the effect be different depending which parties were in contention?

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