NUS starts campaign to oust leading Lib Dems

[Berberis]

I did love the fact that the riots in London where by anti establishment students rioting over the fact the establishment is reducing the funding of their education

[Guest]

If the Lords pass the AV bill, we could see future coalitions with the Lib Dems and Conservatives tying up politics for a generation.

 

You forget that we have got to vote for the change first.

After that, we have got to cast our votes in the election.

bring it on.

I'm quite sure that your scenario will NEVER come to pass.

[Rupert_Baehr]

. .

[mossdog]

They'd borrow the money, wouldn't they?

Wot! you mean like we have done for the past thirteen years?..............but that has proved disastrous!

[wednesday1]

10,000 students in Hallam? Hmm, is there some verification of that?

 

 

 

 

I would have thought that figure is a conservative estimate Tone, as there are around 50,000 in Sheffield now.

[wednesday1]

Wot! you mean like we have done for the past thirteen years?..............but that has proved disastrous!

 

...................and the Tories, until the downturn said they wouldn't reduce public spending.

As for dealing with the credit crunch they never actually told us WHAT they would do.

[wednesday1]

If the Lords pass the AV bill, we could see future coalitions with the Lib Dems and Conservatives tying up politics for a generation.

 

 

Hopefully this bill which is all about Tory gerrymandering will not get passed,and is deserving of a thread of it's own!

[Tony]

I would have thought that figure is a conservative estimate Tone, as there are around 50,000 in Sheffield now.

 

I wouldn't have it thought it so certain since the boundary changes - Broomhill Stannington in. I don't know the current stats in Hallam which is why I asked.

 

Let's be straight though, Clegg's majority is one of the biggest in Parliament (15k?). He's not likely to be bounced in 2015 because of disaffected students. The Conservatives are more likely to win than Labour.

[wednesday1]

I wouldn't have it thought it so certain since the boundary changes - Broomhill Stannington in. I don't know the current stats in Hallam which is why I asked.

 

Let's be straight though, Clegg's majority is one of the biggest in Parliament (15k?). He's not likely to be bounced in 2015 because of disaffected students. The Conservatives are more likely to win than Labour.

Well the figs from a month ago from UK Polling Report indicate support as:

LDEM 33%(-20), LAB 31%(+15), CON 28%(+4) see full article below.

 

This collapse in LD support was well before student funding became so topical, so their support could now be under 20%. Any further significant swing to Lab (from their figs) would see Labour pull ahead.

 

 

 

Are Clegg and Huhne in trouble?

Posted on October 15th, 2010 by Anthony Wells

 

Conservative Home has two new Constituency polls conducted by Populus for Michael Ashcorft and looking at the constituencies of Nick Clegg and Chris Huhne. Full tables are on Lord Ashcroft’s website here and here.

 

Moving onto Sheffield Hallam, this is currently a pretty safe Lib Dem seat for Nick Clegg, with the Conservatives currently in a distant second place. The topline figures for general voting intention in the Populus poll are LDEM 33%(-20), LAB 31%(+15), CON 28%(+4): an even bigger collapse from the Lib Dems to Labour, but as Labour start off in third place Nick Clegg narrowly holds on.

 

Before anyone gets too excited though, constituency polling in Lib Dem seats is extremely difficult. As noted in Lord Ashcroft’s article, in the large scale polls YouGov did for PoliticsHome in 2008 and 2009 voting intention in Lib Dem seats shifted massively once you asked people to think of their own specific seats and they took into account tactical consideration and their own particular MP. It’s clear that some people answer voting intention polls based on their national preference, even if locally they may vote tactically or on the record of their local MP, and this problem is most severe in seats with Liberal Democrat MPs.

 

This means that we can’t tell if the results above are a sign off massive unwind in tactical voting for Lib Dems, or a massive failure of polls to pick up tactical voting for Lib Dems.

 

In Lord Ashcroft’s poll there’s a nod to this – they ask how people would have voted in their constituency where Chris Huhne/Nick Clegg is MP had they known the Lib Dems would form a coalition with the Conservatives, prompting with all the candidate names. Amongst those saying how they’d have voted, the figures in Eastleigh are CON 35%(-4), LDEM 42%(-5), LAB 18%(+. In Sheffield Hallam they are LDEM 43%(-10), LAB 27%(+11), CON 20%(-4). It’s still not perfect, people may think they’d still have voted X in May but would have changed their minds since (in response to Labour’s change of leader perhaps), but it does suggest there is still a strong personal vote there that will help Clegg and Huhne.

[Tony]

Polls change all the time and NONE of them matter until 2015. I asked how many students there are in Hallam since that was your earlier point.