Can the Liberal Surge counter the ‘wasted vote’ argument?

The miserablist chant “but they’re all the same” is often mistaken for voter apathy. It is no wonder that the electorate think that all politicians are the same when the media routinely feed us the false dilemma of two political parties. Well, welcome to Britain: a three-party democracy.

It is astonishing what happens when the media are forced to give balanced coverage of all three parties – something that only happens during an election campaign. It is like the Dr Who style perception filter normally obscuring the Lib Dems is suddenly lifted. People see them, hear their policies, and like them. The stakes have been ramped up much higher this time, with the UK’s first ever Leader Debates – something other countries have done routinely for years. It is something our never-elected Prime Minister Gordon Brown only agreed to out of desperation. He had nothing to lose. It resulted in some jaw-dropping upsets in the voting intention polls immediately after the first debate - with the BPIX/Mail on Sunday poll putting the Lib Dems in the lead for the first time in 104 years, on 32 points, ahead of the Tories on 31 and Labour on 28. This uplift in Lib Dems support has continued through the second debate last week, with all three parties neck and neck with only 11 days to the election.

Lib Dems 32% (+12), Con 31% (-7), Lab 28% (-3)
BPIX/Mail on Sunday poll, 18 Apr 10

No wonder many Labour and Conservative supporters have been outraged at the ‘unfairness’ of giving the ’sideshow’ that is the Liberal Democrats an equal platform in the TV debates (still think we’re a sideshow, boys?) No wonder the Tory spinmasters have been briefing the rightwing press on how to smear Clegg. And it is exactly this politics-as-usual sense of entitlement of the two largest parties that the electorate object to. The Lib Dem Labservative campaign brilliantly taps into this desire for a change from the old politics. And the look of bewildered exasperation on David Cameron’s face as the new boy gets all the attention he should be getting is there for all to see.

Look what happens when you let people see a few Lib Dem ideas, backed up with the only costed manifesto, delivered with honesty, authenticity – and a little exasperation that “we’ve been saying this for years”. Popularity ratings following the first Leaders Debate established Nick Clegg as the clear winner, with some polls as high as 61%. The day after the first debate, a YouGov poll of voting intentions put the Lib Dems at 30%, ahead of Labour’s 28%, with the Conservatives on 33%. The equivalent poll on Friday put the Tories in the lead on 34%, with Labour and the Lib Dems on 29%.

Margaret Thatcher famously refused television debates because she believed politics should be about policy, not personality. I agree. And the Lib Dems have more detailed and costed policies than the other two put together. If you agree with them, vote for them.

Yet the Liberal Democrats have always suffered from the “wasted vote” argument – that there’s no point in voting Lib Dem even though you want to because “they’ll never win”. This has always mystified me. First of all, I think you should vote with your conscience for the party whose policies you like best. Second of all, if everyone who wanted to vote Lib Dem actually voted Lib Dem, they might just win.

On Tuesday, a YouGov poll of voting intentions if the Lib Dems had a reasonable chance of winning put them at 49% with the Tories on 25% and Labour on 19%. Well, guess what: if half the electorate DOES vote for Clegg, he WOULD have a reasonable chance of becoming Prime Minister.

Just under half the country (49%) would vote for the Liberal Democrats if they were seen to have a reasonable chance of winning. Only 25% would vote for the Conservative party in these circumstances; a comparatively meagre 19% would vote for Labour.
PATRICK NEWTON, YouGov

Everyone likes a winner, and nothing succeeds like success. Clegg’s performance on at the Leaders Debates, followed by success in the polls, might just overcome this last hurdle of resistance. I’m sure I’m not alone in wishing for a game changing election upset to rival what happened in the US in 2008. Westminster politics seems so dull by comparison. Nick Clegg may not be Obama. But I think what galvanised people around the Obama campaign wasn’t just a charismatic leader (we had one of those – he turned out to be a war criminal), it was the slow-burning momentum-gathering grass roots groundswell of people who were fed up with years of being taken for granted and taken for fools. People who realised they could have change if they voted for it.

This is an unusual election year. We have a combination of the first televised debate, outrage over the expenses scandal, dismay at banker bonuses, fatigue with the incumbent Labour government, financial collapse and a desire to teach the elite a lesson. As Andrew Rawnsley said on This Week recently: “The electorate want to blow a raspberry at the political establishment. In Nick Clegg, they have found their raspberry.”

I don’t think any one of these factors alone would result in what the David Steele Spitting Image puppet called “The Surge”. But they are proving a toxic combination for what many thought were the only two horses in the race. If people continue to get excited at the polls, get over their ‘wasted vote’ fears and realise that they can have a say in who the next government is – can we win it? Yes we can!

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