Yes. It's the moment Nick Clegg's been waiting for ALL WEEK

The results are in from my Leadership Poll.

First a reminder why this poll ran. Given the kerfuffle over  the Peter Kelner/You Gov piece advocating a change of leader one way or another, Stephen Tall's analysis of that piece, and of course the recent Lib Dem Voice survey of party members, it seemed reasonable to ask the question about how people felt about the future of Nick's leadership.

I was keen to ask as straightforward a question as possible - so I asked

"Should the Lib Dems go into the next General Election with a new leader?"


…which I don't think left much room for debate. No nuance there.

Now, a couple of cautions.  This is not a poll of Lib Dem members. This is a poll of folk who read my blog. A large percentage will be either members of the party or at least supporters, but many will not be. This is at best, a toe in the water of public opinion.

Secondly, this is a small sample. A small percentage of people who read either of the two posts promoting this poll actually went on to vote – which may indicate a general non interest in the issue (telling in itself) or a caution that their preference would be revealed (which it won’t).

Anyway, on to the poll result itself. Here it is:

A few observations.

Firstly and most obviously, there is a (small) majority who believe we should have a new leader installed at some point before the next General Election. Nick does not, on the basis of this poll, command overwhelming support within the party, and indeed this result is worse for him than the recent Lib Dem Voice poll. There is food for thought there in the DPMs office.

However – and I suspect many outside of the party will be surprised by this, given recent leadership ratings published (see below) – there is not a huge commanding majority calling for Nick’s head. Quite the opposite – votes are relatively close to 50:50. While he may have ‘lost’ this particular vote, Nick clearly still has a large base of support in the party.

Indeed, even some of those who voted ‘Yes’ were happy to say that they did so more because they felt the weight of public opinion was irreparably against Nick, than because they themselves felt he was doing a bad job.

"Quite unfairly, Nick Clegg has become the media's whipping boy and this seems unlikely to change. Before a new leader can be selected, however,the Party needs to decide whether it wants to reflect public opinion or ignore it. The latter hardly seems sensible if we want to remain a party of government"

"It pains me to say but yes. I'm a big supporter of Nick's but his (unfair) negative image will be too much of a hindrance."

This 50:50 schism – which many will interpret as typical of the Social Liberal/Orange Book debate that dominates much of the chat in the party at the moment – is a huge issue for the party, perhaps the huge issue - for until we resolve this, we cannot address the matter of gathering support from outside the traditional core base.

I imagine this is what is also motivating calls in the party to start sorting out our longer term policy agenda going forward. - and of course Nick telling people what that agenda is.

I suspect there will be plenty of debate around the leadership in the coming 18 months. There is often talk of the 'wisdom of the masses'. But on the back of this poll - it seems the party is split over whether to stick - or twist.