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Vince Cable is the answer to his own northern conundrum



Nick Clegg's leadership has run out of time to win back disaffected supporters in the north of England, says the Northerner's political commentor Ed Jacobs. Who might? Check the mirror, Vince
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Seeing the light. Might Cable have a chance where Clegg has none. Photograph: Leon Neal/AFP/Getty Images

Addressing the party faithful in Brighton this week, Business Secretary, Vince Cable highlighted the north as an example of the difficulties that the Lib Dems are facing in being outflanked by Labour on the left. Speaking of the Labour Party's 'reasonable poll ratings', he declared to delegates:


We know from their union funded campaigns against us in Northern cities that Labour can still be a ruthless political machine.


In light of the internal party memo leaked to the Spectator's 'Coffee House' blog this week, pointing to the party having a chronic shortage of firm data to understand what the public across the north and elsewhere are thinking about them, the Northerner decided to step in by using the plethora of opinion polls which will be a hallmark of the conference season. All figures relate to findings from those surveyed across northern England and it should be noted that the margin for error increases when looking at the regional data from national polls.

Headline Results

At the heart of any polling are the questions around voting intentions at the next General Election. Taking an average from Ipsos Mori's analysis of how the country voted in 2010 by region, across the three northern regions the average Lib Dem support stood at around 7.3%.

With that in mind, this week's polling from ComRes for the Sunday Mirror and the Independent on Sunday,putting the Lib Dems in the north on 7%, and from YouGov for the Sun putting them on 11%, suggests that despite the headlines and Vince Cable's own assertion, support for the Lib Dems seems to be holding up across the region.

The Guardian's own monthly ICM poll, however, puts the Lib Dems on just 6% across the north, 1% behind the SNP who don't even field candidates in the region!

That Apology

Having become an internet hit in the loosest sense of the word, Nick Clegg's apology for the party's u-turn on tuition fees came to sum up his efforts to reverse public perceptions of his leadership this week. But did it have the desired effect? Lib Dem MPs such as Greg Mulholland in Leeds and John Leech in Manchester, with high numbers of students in their constituencies, will particularly be hoping so.

The figures, I'm afraid, provide them with gloomy reading.

YouGov polling for the Sunday Times suggested that far from making things better, the apology could well have worsened the situation for the Lib Dems in northern England, serving only to remind the public that the party which, during the 2010 election, made such a big thing about broken promises by Labour and Conservatives, had done the very same thing on tuition fees.

Asked how the apology had changed people's views in the north towards Nick Clegg, 11% said it made them look at him in a more positive light; 17% said it left them with a more negative impression of the Lib Dem leader whilst 50% said it made no difference whatsoever as they already had a negative attitude to the Deputy Prime Minister.

Further, just 16% said that the apology made Clegg look stronger this compared to the 48% who said it made him look weaker. and 16% said that the apology would make it less likely they would vote Lib Dem compared with 3% who were more likely to do so. Further, 48% said that the apology was not genuine, compared with 25% who said it was.

ICM's survey for the Guardian proved even grimmer for the Lib Dem leader, with 75% of respondents in the north saying that the apology made it less likely that they would listen to what he had to say in the future.

Sorry is often the hardest word to say in politics, but the danger for the Nick Clegg who sold himself to the electorate as different and new at the 2010 election, is that the public now seeshim as just another politician to whom they are not prepared to give the benefit of the doubt. The Lib Dems problem seems simple: whatever they have to say, the public has given up listening. It is a dangerous place for any political party to find itself in.

The leadership question

It was the elephant in the room during the entire conference. While Paddy Ashdown used a fringe event to declare Nick Clegg to be the best party leader in the last 100 years, there's little doubt that northern voters feel much less rosy. Nick Clegg. The north doesn't seem to be listening. Photograph: Suzanne Plunkett/Reuters

Asked by ComRes in a poll for the Sunday Mirror and the Independent on Sunday to say which of a range of options best described Nick Clegg, top of the list came 52% who described him as 'inexperienced'. For a party which, the Deputy PM argues, has become one of three parties able to govern, this will be a worry. Party strategists had been hoping that the mere fact of their being in Government would overcome the accusation that a vote for a Lib Dem is a vote for a party that has no hope of gaining the keys to Number Ten.

This was followed by 44% who said they felt the Lib Dem leader was 'out of touch with ordinary people' while just 15% of respondents in the north felt that he was 'more honest than most other politicians.'

In YouGov's poll for the Sun meanwhile ,voters were given the following options to describe Nick Clegg and asked which they felt most applied to him – honest; in touch with the concerns of ordinary people; charismatic; sticks to what he believes in; a natural leader; decisive; strong; and good in a crisis. Worryingly for the Deputy PM , 64% of those polled in the north said that none of these applied to him

So if not Clegg, then who? Having laid down the challenge faced by the party in the north, Vince Cable is at this stage the likely answer to the very problem he posed.

The polls this week showed:

ComRes found for the Sunday Mirror and Independent on Sunday that 29% of northern respondents felt Vince Cable as leader would make a better job than Nick Clegg compared with 23% who disagreed.

Responses given to Ipsos Mori showed that 14% said that they would be more likely to vote Lib Dem with Cable as leader compared with 7% who felt the same if Clegg continued.

ICM's poll for the Sunday Telegraph found 33% of northern voters feeling Vince Cable was more electable compared with 20% who said they same for Clegg.

YouGov recorded that 21% of respondents from the north felt Cable would make the best leader compared with 10% who opted for keeping Clegg.

In his speech to the conference, Cable flagged up the north as an area where the Lib Dems are being particularly squeezed. However simplistic it might seem, the problem is not the "ruthless political machine" which he claimed his colleagues up here faced in the form of the Labour Party, but the fact that the party's own leader that has lost the trust and confidence of the north.

Having lost his and his party's unique selling point as a new, fresh, different party that, unlike the other two, kept to its promises, it is difficult to see how the Lib Dems in northern England can get themselves heard again without a new leader. We may only be halfway through the current Parliament but for activists and MPs alike the question is simple: at what stage does a leader become such a drag on the party that it becomes time for a man overboard moment?

What do you think? Is there any way that Nick Clegg and the Lib Dems can rehabilitate themselves?

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