Paula Surridge has written a post on her PS: Polling Snippets blog looking at the political views of people who voted Liberal Democrat in this year's general election, and in particular of those who cast tactical votes for us.
These voters who won them scores of seats in the South of England did so because they really wanted to defeat the Conservatives and because the Liberal Democrats hadn’t upset them recently. To hold onto these votes both of these things will need to remain the case.
While the former can almost be taken as read, the later is a key challenge for the party as it juggles these voters with those who chose the Liberal Democrats as their first choice party but who may be more willing to consider the Conservatives in the future.
A strategy aimed at positioning the Conservatives closer to Reform seems like a gift to the Liberal Democrats, creating a space for them to oppose the government and delineate themselves from the Conservatives. But they will need to remember that a significant part of their success rests on a group of voters who may be very unforgiving of any perceived slights to their liberal-left agenda.
It may be the LibDems turn to carry the electoral Ming vase, albeit with the Conservatives seeming keen to offer some bubble wrap in case of minor slips.
A common answer I get when I ask fellow Lib Dems how many points they think we lost post tuition fees is “about 8%”.What I want to do here is not to discuss the pros and cons of the 2010 Higher Education Act, but simply to lay to rest this lazy assumption and to reassert objective reality. Because the fact is that our poll numbers had fallen to the 10/11% level we’re used to now weeks before the Browne report had even landed.