Such are the uncertainties of this election campaign, following last Thursday’s TV debate, that it is no longer outlandish to ask whether Nick Clegg could end up as Prime Minister.
The answer is probably no – I’d put the odds at 10-1 against – but longer-odds horses have won big races in the past. Much attention has been paid to the way Britain’s voting system is biased against the Lib Dems: they could end up with more votes than Labour or the Conservatives – but win half as many seats.
What is not appreciated is that the reason why this is so is also the reason why, once the party passes a threshold – around 38% - it starts to garner seats in massive numbers. With 40% they would probably have an outright majority, With 42% they win by a landslide. The main reason is that with, say 30-35%, they come second in a vast number of seats, but first in only 100 or so. But as they approach 40%, these second places start converting into first places; each extra percentage point yields them a barrow-load of seats.
One reason why the Lib Dems could, just possibly, achieve this is revealed by YouGov’s latest daily poll. We asked: “How would you vote on May 6 if you thought the Liberal Democrats had a significant chance of winning the election”. The responses: Lib Dem 49%, Conservative 25%, Labour 19%. On the – admittedly unrealistic – assumption of uniform national swing, there would be 548 Lib Dem MPs, 41 Labour MPs and just 25 Tories.
It won’t happen. But this question does show that if Nick Clegg continues to perform well in TV debates and voters regard him as a serious challenger, then Lib Dem support could rise further from the 30% or so that, all pollsters agree, it has achieved since last Friday.
What is more, far fewer people are deterred by the prospect of a Lib Dem government. We asked people whether they would be delighted or dismayed by different election outcomes – or whether they wouldn’t mind.
Here are the responses:
| Delighted | Wouldn’t mind | Dismayed | |
|---|---|---|---|
Lib Dem govt under Nick Clegg | 29% | 38% | 21% |
Con govt under David Cameron | 25% | 20% | 45% |
Lab govt under Gordon Brown | 18% | 23% | 51% |
Labour-Lib Dem coalition | 14% | 35% | 39% |
Con-Lib Dem coalition | 9% | 33% | 45% |
Grand 3-party coalition | 9% | 24% | 47% |
Not only is a Lib Dem government the most popular option; it is the one that frightens voters far less than any other option. If the Lib Dem bandwagon is to be halted and sent into reverse, Labour and the Tories must do far more to persuade voters that a vote for the Lib Dems would be seriously bad for Britain.
