Are the Liberal Democrats finished in Manchester?
“They’re going to get annihilated at the next election, too.”
That was the brutal prognosis given by one student when asked about the hammering the Liberal Democrats took in the Manchester Council elections in May.
Those elections, held one year after the formation of the Westminster coalition with the Conservatives, saw the Liberal Democrat group on the council shrink by a third, as they lost all of the 11 seats they were defending to Labour.
Not even their most senior figures were safe. Group leader Simon Ashley lost his Gorton South seat with a massive 16.6% swing to Labour. Like many others, he thinks that a lot of local Liberal Democrats are suffering from voter anger at the coalition.
"Last year, the Lib Dem Councillors, many of which had a long experience of working hard for their area, were punished for being part of the government,” he said.
This assessment is shared by other senior figures in the local party. Sarah Harding is an executive member of the Southport and Manchester local parties as well as being the national Policy Coordinator for Liberal Youth, the Liberal Democrat young members’ organisation.
She explained: “We saw a referendum on the national government in a local election, and the electorate showed their displeasure at, among other things, the tuition fee rise.
“Most Liberal Democrats in Manchester didn’t support the rise but some were punished. This, coupled with a resurgent Labour party, led to this temporary decline in our support.”
The infamous ‘Tuition Fees Pledge’, signed by Nick Clegg has certainly generated a lot of anger at the national level, especially from student organisations such as the National Union of Students (NUS).
In Manchester, a loss of student support could spell disaster for the party. In addition to a raft of council seats in student areas, John Leech MP is widely understood to hold the ultra-marginal Manchester Withington constituency on the back of a large student vote.
According to University of Manchester student and community leader Sarah McCulloch, this alleged betrayal of students means the Liberal Democrats are in serious trouble.
“The Liberal Democrats are going to struggle to recapture votes from people whom they actively courted by promising them free education, only to triple the fees when they had the chance to do something about it,” she explained.
“There's a generation of people who swore never to vote Tory again after Thatcher - there's now an entire generation who will never vote Liberal Democrat again.”
Although Liberal Democrats like Miss Harding maintain that most of the local members opposed the tuition fee rise, McCulloch does not believe that this will convince the electorate. She finished:
“All credit to John Leech for keeping his promise to vote against tuition fees, at least, but all the councillors and would-be councillors who thought that they would keep the student vote because they'd somehow all forget about tuition fees were sorely disabused of that notion at the last election, and I suspect it will be rammed home at the next.”
However, in focusing so much on one obviously student-focused issue, could the party risk over-simplifying the cause of their loss of student support? Students have at least as broad a range of views as the rest of society, and the reasons for their disenchantment with the Liberal Democrats might be just as complex.
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Nick Renaud-Komiya, editor of the University of Manchester’s student newspaper The Mancunion, goes so far as to say that his decision had nothing to do with tuition fees at all.
He explained: “I need to make clear at this point was that the tuition fees issue was not one of the things that made me change my mind about being a party member. I had always felt that the Lib Dems' policy to scrap tuition fees was totally unrealistic and unfeasible given the state of higher education.”
However, he continues: “I see student hostility to the Lib Dems around campus all the time. Most of it is from people angry over the tuition fees 'betrayal'.
“In retrospect it was intellectually dishonest and foolish for the party to sign those pledges on tuition fees. I understand part of these people's anger given that the party heavily targeted students.”
He also draws the comparison with Margaret Thatcher that Ms. McCulloch earlier: “It's also simply fashionable to hate the Lib Dems. In much the same way that many young people today hate Thatcher but can't really tell you why.”
Despite the focus on the student issue, the Liberal Democrats are quick to point out that local political conditions also played their role. Simon Ashley talked about the impact of local cuts on their support.
He said: “We lost the argument about whether the cuts in Manchester were fair, and of course Labour made the cuts worse, trailing closures like Levenshulme baths, before "saving" them.”
This line about hardball Labour campaigning is also taken up by Withingon MP John Leech: "Labour have abused the position last year’s results gave them,” he explained.
“They ended weekly black bin collections, and turned down Government money to re-introduce them. They would rather spend £600K on taxis for staff than crossing patrols, although we have helped force a partial U turn on these cuts."
Sarah Harding summed up the party position: “We are a party that has always campaigned on local issues and provided fantastic local councillors and Members of Parliament, I expect our support to level out in the near future.”
She may have reason to be hopeful. The graph below, plotting the seats on Manchester council from 2001 to 2011, clearly shows the big rise in Liberal Democrat support from 2004 onwards based on their opposition to the Iraq War.
The latest results show a sharp collapse back to the pre-2003 position as student support ebbs away. If they’re lucky, the Liberal Democrats might have fallen back to their base of hard-core supporters.
If not, they may well be wiped out in 2013.
Dear Henry, The swing away
Dear Henry,
The swing away from me in Gorton South was 6%. We lost by 200 in 2010 and 650 in 2011. I polled just over a hunderd votes less than when I won in 2007.
It was a terrible night, but not quite as terrible for me as you make out.
Best wishes,
Simon Ashley
This is a bizarre article.
This is a bizarre article. The emphasis on students is totally unwarranted.
"In Manchester, a loss of student support could spell disaster for the party. In addition to a raft of council seats in student areas, John Leech MP is widely understood to hold the ultra-marginal Manchester Withington constituency on the back of a large student vote."
Which council seats? I don't think students will have had much of an impact on Gorton South.
The nine seats the Lib Dems will be defending in 2012 are Gorton South, Whalley Range, Withington, Miles Platting and Newton Heath, City Centre, Chorlton Park, Levenshulme, Didsbury East and Didsbury West.
There are a reasonable amount of students in City Centre and Withington. There is probably the largest number of students in Fallowfield Ward and it has been safe Labour for at least 10 years.
My guess would be that the vast majority of students don't bother to vote and have very little impact as a group on either local or parliamentary elections in Manchester.
At the very least, I see no evidence to suggest they are the deciding factor in Manchester.
Also, surely it would have been worth mentioning that Sarah is a former Lib Dem candidate and maybe getting a quote from a Labour Councilor/MP?
Just to point out, I'm Henry
Just to point out, I'm Henry Hill the article's author and this is the only comment I've posted. Just so nobody thinks that the 'to my commentator' posts are from me.
And let us not forget that
And let us not forget that the recent Feltham and Heston by-election results resulted in the Lib Dems down seven points and beating UKIP by just 90 votes.
Inverclyde's by-election saw the Lib Dems drop by 11 points. Leicester South saw a swing of 8% from the Lib Dems to Labour. And who's going to forget Barnesley by-election, where the Lib Dems managed to come sixth behind UKIP and the BNP.
I could go on to mention the loss of 800 councillors in the last election, but I think you know about it. Maybe we should be like the rest of Europe and maybe we should get used to compromise; but all polls suggest that isn't going to be happening soon enough to save you.
To my anonymous commenter: I
To my anonymous commenter:
I was indeed aware of all of those issues that you mentioned, yes. I note also that Ramsey McDonald was leader of the coalition you mentioned and thus less likely to suffer from it (as David Cameron has not) - and even he lost his own seat in 1935.
The narrative of the Lib Dems, built by themselves, was that they were fluffy lefty liberals. The Lib Dems shattered that idea themselves when they went into coalition with the Tories. Despite your triumphant note regarding the Labour-Liberal coalition in Scotland, the last Scottish election saw the Liberal Democrats lost two thirds of their seats, or did you forget that? Was that just a polling hiccup, or was that people who would never vote Tory realising the Lib Dems amounted to the same thing?
I received a phone call a month ago from someone asking me for money for the Lib Dems - apparently they missed the memo. If I'm getting calls, its not the negative narrative that's going to get you, it's that no-one trusts you with their money. Good luck surmounting that one.
Sarah
As for Sarah Mcculloch -
As for Sarah Mcculloch - Sarah you won't remember or probably want it pointed out but liberals once had a pact with labour, they were also in power with labour in Scotland for 8 years and most recently they supported labours budget in wales. In addition the labour pm Ramsey McDonald once led a coalition mainly made up of tories. Compromise is part of politics whether in single party gvmt or in coalition. The rest of Europe gets it, may be it's time we did - and actually the lib dems have had some big victories over the Tories. Little promotion of that tho in the media as it doesn't suit the narrative to say positive things about a party you're seeking to destroy
Politics is a cyclical
Politics is a cyclical business and the lib dems will suffer for a while but they will bounce back. They're making tough decisions in a coalition. Labour made the mistake of the Iraq war without any need to compromise. They did that all alone as a party with lots of power. A lot of the hatred towards the lib dems springs from a general bias towards anything that isn't the status quo in the UK. The lib dems, pluralism, coalition politics is a threat to the duopoly. Many won't either want to understand this analysis or indeed realise where this springs from but realise please that not one national newspaper supports the lib dems and in turn the rest of the media doesn't give them a fair crack of the whip either. Despite this the party is still registering between 10 and 14 pc in polls and will continue to do so. I predict they will lose seats at the next GE but their national share will be around 18pc. They remain the most powerful Third force in Europe and will probably once again hold the balance of power. Liberalism is the longest tradition in British politics, it ain't dead yet by a long long way
I feel obliged to point out
I feel obliged to point out that I was asked about my opinions regarding students and the Liberal Democrats and that I did not forget that the majority of voters hate the Liberal Democrats because of the cuts, and have written on it extensively here: http://www.sarahmcculloch.com/blog/2010/10/25/death-liberal-democrats-co...
It should also be noted for the benefit of all those local Liberal Democrats who have sneered at the suggestion that their party is due to be obliterated that not only have the Lib Dems lost the entire student vote but that the Green Party has jumped from 8,000 to 15,000 members in a little over 18 months, indicating that they and UKIP are now the protest party of choice.
People who like the actions of the government are voting Tory, and the traditional sources of support have found other more accommodating parties - whither now for the hypocrites and toadies of the Liberal Democrat party? I suggest you enjoy your time in government while it lasts, because I doubt it will ever happen again.
Sarah McCulloch
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