Lib Dems looking weak on Europe? How to take the initiative back

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‘Europe’ as the issue is known has caused significant damage to the Tory party and has prevented many from voting for the Lib Dems. On the face of it we are on the wrong side of the debate which will not be good for electoral prospects. However, despite the poor support for the UK’s position in Europe in opinion polling there are things that the Lib Dems could do to regain the initiative and take some leadership on the issue.

 

UKpollingreport have written a nice overview of the current situation on the issue at present, which suggest that:

• 45% of people think that Britain’s membership of the EU is a bad thing, 22% think it is a good thing.
• 50% think membership has had a negative effect on the UK, 29% a positive effect.
• 10% of people support a more integrated Europe, 13-17% happy with the status quo, 33-40% supporting a less integrated Europe with more powers returned to the UK, 23-29% in support of total withdrawal from the EU.
• Questions on how people would vote in a referendum on EU membership tend to show a big lead for withdrawal (for example, 27% stay, 51% go)
• Asked how people would vote in a three option referendum, then people prefer renegotiation to withdrawal – 15% would stay, 47% renegotiate, 28% go.

Given these opinions it would seem that a party seen as positive on the issue would be fishing in a smaller pond for votes – not good for the Lib Dems. UKpollingreport have given the caveats that come with opinion polling but there is one other one which I would like to add. These opinion polls are the opinions of the people with the information as they understand it now, not as they may come to understand in a proper national debate.

One purpose of political parties is to attempt to create debates and inform the public on issues they see as important. What has happened recently is that political parties have shied away from tackling issues that are important to the party but are seen as unpopular by the public. Examples of this has been when Cameron told his party to stop ‘banging on about Europe’ for fear of turning voters away or when the Lib Dems did not enter into the debate on certain issues, mainly related to home affairs and penal reform, which was pointed out by Clegg when he became the home affairs spokesman for the party. So there may be a tendency for the Lib Dems to keep their heads down or at least not mention the positive effects of Europe in the current debate for fear of turning voters off the party.

However, there is another option that could show the commitment of the Lib Dems to democracy and Europe which would provide a good platform to debate the issue nationally. The Lib Dems could lead the way by debating the issue with a group of individuals and gaining their views after this debate which would show if there is a difference once people had engaged with the issues. This would constitute a different take on the opinion poll as it would reflect more what people really think once they have the information. Many would call it deliberative democracy and there is a format which could be used called a 21^st Century Town Meeting.

The 21st Century Town Meeting marks a departure from traditional public participation methods, such as public hearings. The 21st Century Town Meeting focuses on discussion and deliberation among citizens rather than speeches, question-and-answer sessions or panel presentations. The purpose of the Town Hall Meeting is to gather diverse groups of citizens who will participate in round-table discussions (10-12 people per table) and deliberate in depth about key policy issues. Each table discussion is supported by a trained facilitator to keep participants on task. Participants receive discussion guides that present further information about the issues under consideration.

Technology collects the individual table discussions and the results are compiled into a set of collective recommendations. Each table submits ideas using wireless groupware computers and each participant can vote on specific proposals with keypad polling. These two pieces of technology allow for real-time reporting and voting. Results from discussions are presented to participants within minutes and polling results within seconds. The entire group votes on the final recommendations.

This could be used for the Europe issue and would take one day and at the end of this day we would have some valuable data on people’s thoughts. I would suspect there would be a much softer approach towards the EU and maybe even a positive opinion towards the EU following this process. There would be some good suggestions about what to do which would be reflective not just of the party but of those who were involved (like an opinion poll). This could then change the national debate and would show that the Lib Dems are not on the minority side of this debate. This is what is called taking leadership on the issue.

For more information on this approach see AmericaSpeaks where they have used it for many issues including how to rebuild New Orleans, Ground Zero and for a policy on reducing the deficit.

Opinion Poll using the scaling question: Using it to improve campaigning

The scaling question is one of the more famous Solution Focused tools which is widely used now in all walks of life. It was developed as a tool to work with people to motivate them in a particular direction, or to at least identify how important things are to them. The beginning part of the tool is the one which people are most familiar with. This question has begun to be used more and more in politics, without ever really fulfilling the tools potential as it is never used fully. However, a recent opinion poll has again used it which shows some interesting results, which in turn would give us some important campaigning options.

The 2005 General Election had a turn out of about 61% while the 2010 turn out was about 65%. We could assume that those who scored the question an 8, 9 or 10 would have made up those who would vote in a General Election. While those scoring lower are less likely to vote verging on probably not going to. So while this is interesting for pollsters who use it for weighting their opinion polls, it offers campaigners a different slant.

Put simply, as a campaigner you want to know if you are wasting your time or not on talking to someone. In campaigning in general you may not make a destinction between someone you think would vote and someone who won’t as all conversations can be important. However, in targeted campaigning you make a judgement about whether they are likely to vote or not, and if not you move on (Obama used this extensively). But using the scaling question you can guide your judgement and potentially increase people to an 8, 9 or 10.

By asking the question (as asked by Ipsos-MORI) you get a baseline for where someone is at regarding voting. Where MORI stop there, you could go on to ask some questions to see if there is anything you could do to get them to the polling booth:

Q: Have you ever been at an 8 or 9 before? If so, what was different about then?

This gives you an idea about what needs to happen for this person to go and vote and if you can do anything to help

Q: What was your highest score? Did you go to vote at this score?

This tells you their scoring. If may be that they would go to vote at a 6 and so you could ask what needs to happen to get there? and if there is anything you can do to assist.

Q: What would need to happen to move up one point?

This gets them thinking about small steps that they would want to see to start moving towards going to vote and you can see if you can assist.

These types of questions get you into a positive dialogue about going to vote and steps to make it happen – which may be practical, political, or other reason – and gets you on their side in terms of making it happen. It maybe that they say 0 or 1 and you will get a quick answer to your question about whether you are wasting your time or not. It could help and could get a few more to the polling booths?

New opinion polls ask some interesting questions for Lib Dem strategy

Opinion polls throw up more questions than they answer but sometimes the questions are very interesting. It is interesting questions where progress is made as shown by the head of Google who says that he runs his company on questions not answers. So the recent MORI results have shown up some interesting questions too about the baseline support of the main Parties, which is lower than is usually reported, and who then go on to vote for the Party. It asks whether those people who are not inclined to vote for any particular party can be persuaded to vote for the Lib Dems?

The recent Opinion  Poll from Ipsos-MORI shows the Lib Dems on 15%, consistent with the ICM poll (which has them on 17% after weighting and 15% before) but not with any others. But when people were asked who they are inclined to vote for the results were very different:

The surprise is not the Lib Dems, as there has been talk of the baseline support for the Lib Dems being about 10% for a while. It is the low levels of support for Labour and the Tories which is surprising. Usually reported of being somewhere around 30% each it has been a reason cited for the difficulty in the Lib Dems breaking through, electorally. They went on to ask who they would vote for if there were a General Election tomorrow which again showed different results:

While the Lib Dems only pick up 1%, Labour nearly double their voting intentions and the Tories get more than double. With such small sample sizes it is difficult to tell if this has any meaning and I would like to see a larger sample used to see if this is significant or not. I just found it surprising that the scores were so different than previously believed. Does it mean that there has been a change in the mindset of the public around who they are most inclined to support? Does it mean that they are reverting to ‘type’ when it comes to voting? even if they are no longer inclined to vote for that Party? Does it mean they are more susceptible to persuasion to another Party? If so then what would it take to persuade them to the Lib Dems? particularly as the Lib Dems are seen as a centrist Party more similar to the profile of the country than the other Parties.

If Google run their company on questions, then maybe the Lib Dems need to stop giving people answers and start asking some questions? Maybe it would help?

Indications the new Lib Dem strategy is working? 16% in polls and old voters coming back

It was not that long ago that there were serious questions being asked about the Lib Dem strategy in Government. This prompted a change in strategy from the top of the Party, which was disguised as a ‘this was always what we were going to do’ plan. Just as the serious questions were being asked because of the anti-Lib Dem sentiment that was starting to grow, we should be looking to see if this new strategy is working. Generally the answer is no if you look at many polls but maybe there are green shoots appearing?

Despite Ed Miliband’s generally well regarded performance throughout the phone hacking scandal this poll has the Lib Dems picking up the votes from Labour. While one poll says nothing, it is worth highlighting to see if this continues to become a trend. As I have written in Making opinion polls more useful: Learning from the highs and the lows polls need to be kept into perspective and 16% in an ICM poll at this stage is not too catastrophic.

Additionally, there are other questions which were asked which are promising:

But among Lib Dem supporters and past voters, there are signs of recovery. In this month’s poll 62% of people who backed the Lib Dems at the 2010 general election say they would do so again now – much higher than the 45% or so typical in recent ICM polls.

So while we all hear about stories such as Lib Dems ‘to lose half their voters at next election’ which tell us we need a new strategy we don’t hear the reverse when things are improving which would tell us that maybe the new strategy is working. So Clegg and the Team need to keep on doing what they are doing now which is getting noticed (such as here or here) and maybe this will turn into a new trend.

Making opinion polls more useful: Why our current opinion poll ratings are actually fairly average

Following on from Making opinion polls more useful: Learning from the highs and the lows the second major point is making opinion polls useable as a campaigning tool. If we could use opinion polls in a more meaningful way with voters to find out what they wanted in small, specific steps, it would significantly increase our understanding of what people want from the national or local party. So here we can see how to make opinion polls more useful.

The Liberal Democrat party was formed in 1988 and for many the merger between the SDP and the Liberal Party will be remembered for many difficulties where the party sank to a low of 5% (ICM). Many in the party hoped the days of such a low were behind them but were all shocked by the result of the Barnsley Central by election this year which gave the Lib Dems 4.2% of the vote. I imagine that anything less than 5% in opinion polls would question the integrity of the party altogether. We could therefore say that the 5% mark can be seen as the lowest for the party.

Following the TV leaders debates before the 2010 General Election many in the Lib Dems eagerly read the papers and the polls and felt excited by the Lib Dems recording 30%, which was above what many had dreamt of. These two figures give us the range that opinion polls can move between for the Lib Dems: 5% – 30%

Opinion polls in the red and we can be seen to be doing very badly historically, while anything in the green can be seen to be doing particularly well. In this context the 15% that was being recorded by ICM just before the local elections is fairly average for the party (and this turned out to be accurate in the share of the vote the party got in the elections).

Everyone has an opinion on how to move the opinion polls up but many conflict and to it is the leadership which selects what they want to act on. However, we can place these polls into a context that makes opinion polls simpler and more useful. Creating a scale, which can be used with members and the public, can produce simple specific things which people want to see the party doing which would improve their opinion. This makes the job of selecting what to listen to easier.

Scales have been used in many areas of life to produce simpler solutions and one ICM poll even asked people in July 2010 to rate the Lib Dems out of 10 and gave them an average score of 5.5. Iain Roberts said at the time “…but what do the marks out of ten actually mean? … Is that good? Bad? Middling? I’ve no idea”. So how do we interpret these results?

The use of scales are simple and easy for everybody and everyone can give a mark out of 10 for the party without much thinking about the reasons why. Taking the worst the Lib Dems could do – 5% – and make this 0, then take the best they could do – 30% – and make this 10 we get ourselves our scale.

Now according to this scale, 5.5 given by the public in July 2010 would have produced a poll of 19.5%. So compare this to the actual opinion poll of the Lib Dems for July 2010 we can see that it was 19% – suggesting this scale could be fairly accurate.

The last opinion poll (ICM) and the local elections showed the Lib Dems on 15%. What the party wants to know is what they need to do to make this go up. However, what we often do is think about what needs to happen to be at 23% (election result) or higher. This results in opinions involving major changes. However, using the scale is a simple way of getting useful information from people about what the party needs to do to improve opinion polls in small, specific steps.

15% would put the Lib Dems at 3 out of 10. There is no way that the Lib Dems would go from 3 to 10 as they need to go to 4 first, then 5, all the way to 10. So we ask people ‘what would you be noticing differently if this was a 4 out of 10’ or ‘what would you need to see for this to move to a 4’ or some variety. This gives small, specific things that the party can do which would build poll ratings.

Examples of this can be seen here:

• Liberal Democrats Score 5.5??? Developing scaling questions in politics
• Campaign Scaling Question: A technique to win over swing voters and soft opposition voters at the front door

So what would you rate the Lib Dems out of 10 today? How do you think the public would rate the Lib Dems out of 10 today?

Making opinion polls more useful: Learning from the highs and the lows

Politics is a contest by which we measure the progress of the contest through opinion polls. While many say they hate opinion polls, tell people they pay no attention to them or that ‘the only poll that matters is the election’, the truth is always that they do indeed matter to all involved in politics. This has resulted in many different kinds of polls and many conclusions stemming from them. Politics is full of opinion and advice but this is not always good advice and using opinion polls can often inform your advice either way. So is the way we interpret and analyse opinion polls useful? Is there another way we can use opinion polls to produce better advice?

When we look at opinion polls we often use a selected time frame and give opinions based on this such as this from just before the 2010 General Election

This gives the party a sense of excitement but disappointment when the result was called. Equally, when we look at opinion polls today standing at about 11% this gives us a sense of panic that the party is doing worse than ever. And so this reading of opinion polls often leads to rapid changes of policy or decisions (e.g. see here).

Another common use of opinion polls is to view them over a longer period of time such as this one

This shows a steady improvement for the Lib Dems following the formation of the Liberal Democrat Party in 1988 and a general improvement in the Liberal vote over a long period of time. It shows the gradual decline of the 2 main parties and this suggests that the Lib Dems will continue to do well as the public slowly want more choice in who they vote for in general elections. Some even suggest that the issues the Liberals believe in such as liberalism, localism, internationalism and environmentalism are the same issues we have campaigned on for decades but more people are voting for it now. This use of polls can suggest a ‘steady as she goes’ policy.

However, either use of these polls misses the lessons and many opportunities to improve the parties understanding of what they do well and how to replicate this success. The party used the first poll in the run up to the General Election and tried to capitalise on Cleggmania by changing their strategy and this did not work. The party voted for Ming Campbell in 2006 as a safe pair of hands, which is the advice from the second reading of opinion polls, only to see the opinion poll ratings drop to 11% and so he resigned.

So what would make opinion polls more useful? Knowing when we were doing well and why we were doing well and seeing if there were patterns we could learn from would be a good start. Knowing the range we might expect in polls so we could compare where we are at may also be more useful. So if we were to take the detailed Lib Dem opinion polls over the period of time the party has been in existence in its current form (since 1988) we may be able to make more use of it:

I am using the Guardian/ICM opinion poll data mainly as it is available but also that have generally been more accurate come polling day. Using this we can see the peaks and troughs of the opinion of the public on the party. This more detailed view allows us to focus on where the party was doing well and where it wasn’t. We can see that the Lib Dems had a low of 5% near the start of the formation of the party and while many hoped the days of such a low were behind them, we were all reminded that this is not the case following the Barnsley Central by election result this year which gave the Lib Dem vote of 4.2%. We can therefore say that the 5% mark can be seen as the worst the party could do.

Following the TV leaders debates before the 2010 General Election many in the Lib Dems eagerly read the papers and the polls and felt excited by the Lib Dems scoring 30%, which was above what many had dreamt of. These figures give us the expected range for the Lib Dems: 5% – 30% which we can produce the following chart

This gives us an idea of when we are doing well and can look for what we were doing at the time to produce that improved opinion amongst the public so we can continue to do this. This identifies what works for the Lib Dems and can look something like this:

For anyone reading this, your ideas about what was happening at the time of when we were doing well in the polls would be much appreciated and we can then build up a better picture of patterns. Generally, when the Lib Dems have been given an issue to focus on we do well – Bosnia, Iraq, anti-terror stance – or when we are given time in the media we have done well – elections, conferences, TV debates. The two together produce high poll ratings. Now we are in government we have the media opportunity but we don’t necessarily have an issue as pointed out by Neil Stockley. So advice for the Lib Dems – find an issue and push it hard.

From this approach we can also look at what doesn’t work, the times when we were in the red (which is for another post but suggestions are welcome), so we can stop doing what doesn’t work. Using polls in this way may provide us with more learning about what works for the Lib Dems and what doesn’t – the production of opinion with useable solutions.

Using this chart can provide us with a more meaningful scale of the the Lib Dems poll ratings, which again will be another post.

Opinion polls which show some fundemental beliefs about Lib Dem strategy are wrong (and what needs to be done)

The recent Sun commissioned opinion poll makes for interesting reading for the Lib Dems. Unfortunately, it is not a good news story of increased voting intention, but it questions some of our fundamental beliefs which has informed our political strategy and the recent calls to the party leadership. This poll shows how many people believe that the Lib Dem vision of society best represents what they want:

It is not good news that at present only 11% of people responded that the Lib Dems reflect the kind of society they want, and it probably wouldn’t surprise people to see that of those intending to vote Lib Dem a vast majority believe they do. The interesting thing is the fact that only 32% of people who voted Lib Dem in 2010 believed they did. More people who voted for the Lib Dems believed other parties reflected the kind of society they want than the party they voted for. Much has been written about the types of voters the Lib Dems attracted in the 2010 General Election and it was never going to be possible to retain these votes. However, this fact poses some questions for the Lib Dems.

The Lib Dems have consistently complained that the party is not getting its message across and members of the party have demanded the leadership and the party push the Lib Dem message harder. The underlying belief is that if only people got the Lib Dem message, then more people would want to vote for them and the polls would rise; and in many ways this is true.

However, the Lib Dems have complained about this problem for years, not just since it has been in this Coalition. The polls dipped to 11% when Ming Campbell was in charge and he stepped down complaining that the press focused more on his socks than the policies. And again this was true.

But considering the fact that the Lib Dem polls have always gone down after an election leaving the core Lib Dem vote, hence the rise in this poll in voters who believe the party’s vision of society, may mean we have to consider another possibility other than that people are not getting the message. Maybe people do get the message that we have given out and those who agree vote for the party. Then the party attracts people who agree on other specific issues but not with the Lib Dem message, it attracts protest votes and tactical votes but not people who believe in the Lib Dem message. So in the election in 2010 most people who voted for the Lib Dems did not believe the Lib Dem message.

We see the pattern of  losing votes after an election (those who don’t believe in the Lib Dem vision) reverting to our core vote (polls go down), pick up specific issue votes (polls go up) and at election time gain protest votes (polls peak). But look at this poll for Labour or the Conservatives. People who vote for them believe in the society their party wants and their poll ratings remain more consistent than ours which makes it easier to build on.

Maybe we need to consider the fact that the message the Lib Dems have, the vision of society they communicate, is not convincing people. The message the party has is good enough for those who believe in the party and its values and principles, but it is not good enough to widen the party’s support base. The Lib Dems’ campaign in the general election seemed to focus heavily on gaining specific issue and protest votes, not widening the party’s support base through better communication of the Lib Dems’ vision of society. The party will naturally lose this support outside of elections if this is the strategy so why are we surprised the polls have dipped?

A majority of Lib Dem voters do not yet believe in the Lib Dems. This is where the Lib Dem strategy needs to focus. No more protest votes, no more targeting specific issue votes, but a wholesale campaign to convince people of the society we believe in, the society we joined the party for. We need a better story for that society, not just specific policies, not just specific gains in government, but a story about a liberal society, what this means and how it affects citizens.

People do not vote for what you do, they vote for why you do it. The party needs to give people something to believe in.

Liberal Democrats Score 5.5??? Developing scaling questions in politics

It was interesting to see the recent Guardian poll asking the scaling question to rate the government and the political parties out of 10 as this uses a key component of solution focused work. When asked to award the coalition marks out of 10 for its performance so far the total score was 5.1. The Conservatives scored 6.6, the Liberal Democrats scored 5.5 and Labour 4.2.

I wouldn’t be surprised if this confuses people as to its meaning as highlighted by Iain Roberts who says “…but what do the marks out of ten actually mean? … Is that good? Bad? Middling? I’ve no idea”.

The scaling question is one of the simplest, most appealing and accessible tools that have emerged within the practice of the solution-focused approach and people who have never even heard of the solution focused approach use scaling questions. This site gives some interesting posts on the origins of the tool.

While it is a step in the right direction towards a solution focused politics without the rest it is as Iain Roberts points out, meaningless.  The scale used in the Guardian poll is a success scale and the initial question of where are we now is the platform of which we can work with. The actual score that the Liberal Democrats got of 5.5 does not mean anything it is what we do now we have that score than has meaning.

So we have an initial score of 5.5. We should then ask why it is a 5.5 and not a 1 (for example). This elicits what they have done well and what people consider to be strengths. We then know what is working and that we can do more of it. We then ask so what would the Liberal Democrats be doing differently if the score was a 6.5? What would you notice them doing/saying differently at 6.5? This then looks to elicit other specific things which people would consider to be beneficial for them and their lives.

We then work up the scale so we know in specific terms what would be considered success for the Lib Dems. We then have something to come back to when asking them in the future about this success.

It would be nice if a polling company for the Liberal Democrats would do this and see what answers we got. Maybe this would produce different answers? Maybe not? But it would be worth a go and then the process could be adapted to suit the Lib Dems in the pursuit of increasing their score on the basis of specific things which they could do or achieve.

For a more comprehensive explanation of the scaling method have a look here, however, it was designed for work with clients who needed a change in their lives. This site looks at how we can adapt this to work for politics.