Today’s YouGov poll gives LibDem Brian Paddick the support of just 7% of Londoners.
If the polls don’t move considerably in his favour, he’s set to finish a long way short of the “best ever” result he promised party members in September.
A modest improvement on 7% would see the party just about win 2 seats (they currently have three) on the London Assembly, narrowly avoiding running mate Caroline Pidgeon sitting alone for four years.
But here’s something you may not know and which LibDems may find comforting – at each of the past three Greater London Authority elections their Assembly London-wide list has outpolled their Mayoral candidate.
In 2000 they received 14.8% and 4 London Assembly seats. At the same election Susan Kramer scored 11.87% of the Mayoral vote.
In 2004, MP Simon Hughes got 15.27% of the Mayoral 1st preferences, while the Assembly slate received 16.88% and 5 seats.
And while they lost 2 seats in 2008, the party’s list vote was 11.41% versus 9.80% for Mayoral hopeful Brian Paddick.
So, if the LibDem Assembly list manage to outpoll Paddick by around 3%, they’d probably keep their current three Assembly seats.
Pidgeon already has a higher profile than any other running mate in this or previous Assembly elections. The numbers above probably tell us why.
Jim Jepps says
When I heard the 7% figure I thought the same thing – if they did get that it would be a lot better than it could have been
Damian Hockney says
There still does not appear to be much sign of voters using the London Mayor voting system in the way that it is most effective (and the way it is touted in other elections in the world). Because your second vote effectively counts as your first vote after your favourite candidate is eliminated, it is supposed to encourage you to vote for the party (however unlikely to win) that is truly your first choice: but polls and results appear to indicate that voters don’t appear to be going for their first choice first and then putting their “least worst most likely of the two frontrunners” as the second choice. This logic of the system should really throw up almost the opposite of the experience of the LibDems as detailed in the piece above – you would assume that the 20%+ of the voters who opted for the party in the General Election, run on first past the post, might turn out for the LibDem candidate in the London Mayor election and actually be joined by others who now know they can vote for the LibDems safe in the knowledge that their alternative vote has equal weight in preventing which of the other two “main” candidates they might not want to win.
Instead, it seems that people often still vote for someone who is not their first choice because they can’t quite believe that the second vote (usually for one of the two most likely to be elected) really counts as much as their first choice.
What on earth is the logic in this system of, for example, giving the Green Party or UKIP your second vote. Give it your first vote, confident in the knowledge that even if you “know” the Green or UKIP isn’t going to win, your second vote (for one of the “main” two) will count. Hundreds of thousands of voters gave wasted second votes last time to Greens, UKIP and BNP; a big first vote for minor parties has little risk and is probably something that the voters would actually like to deliver. It is also tailor made for the LibDems but we seem to be drifting further towards a first past the post mentality with this election rather than any gradual dawning of its potential. Systemic and planned bias against small parties by the BBC and other media is partly responsible of course, but this cannot be the whole story, as the LibDems are included in a favoured candidate status by the BBC when it fixes what coverage can be given to the three “main” candidates (not two) and how little can be given to the “minor” ones.
The advantage of voters following the logic of the system is that its proper application really does allow you to vote for your first choice, but allows the built-in fallback for the cautious. And of course it creates a much more interesting election.
Most of us who have been involved in these elections with a smaller party have heard: “I was going to give you my first vote, but I put Ken/Boris first and gave you my second vote because I didn’t want Ken/Boris/whoever to get in”. It is as if no-one quite believes that your alternative counts. Aaaaargh.
Brian Paddick says
The fact is, London Liberal Democrats have not really started our media campaign yet. We have not made any formal policy launches and we have some radical and innovative policy ideas that we honestly believe will capture London voters’ imaginations. We also have a significant campaign machine, the likes of which the Liberal Democrats have never seen before, a great team of talented candidates that truly reflect London in terms of gender and ethnicity and better financial backing than ever before. We also have other ideas that we believe will grab the headlines. Meanwhile local parties are fully engaged and delivering the message on the ground in far greater numbers than even we predicted. Of course we need to translate activity into votes but I stand by my ‘best ever result for the Liberal Democrats in a Greater London Authority election’ prediction.
Colm Howard-Lloyd says
One reason there may be no sign that second preference votes from one of the two top candidates transfer to the less favoured top candidate, is that the Mayoral elections use a Supplementary Vote system which precludes this.
In the 2008 elections 15% of second preference votes were for the second round rival of their first preference candidate, and were eliminated under the rules. Add this to the 17% who did not express a second preference and you can speculate that most electors treated this as first-past-the-post.
A supplementary vote system is intended to increase the relevance of the smaller parties, but so far this one has heavily (79%) favoured the top two candidates in the first round of voting.
Martin Hoscik says
At each of the previous 2 elections and ahead of this one, people tell me they are scared that their least preferred of the top two might get elected in the first round and so feel they HAVE to cast their 1st preference vote for a candidate who is really their 2nd pref.
How many that’s true of is impossible to know.
Colm Howard-Lloyd says
I don’t expect that “fear” is unique to the London Mayor elections.
Smaller parties tend to suffer from an imagined “tipping-point” before which voters believe their vote for that party will be wasted.