Rose tinted spectacles

Lib Dem Voice were kind enough to post the article below on Friday - and it's caused an awful lot of comment.... Do pop over there to see what everyone has been saying...

We’re generally an optimistic lot aren’t we, looking on the brighter side when the world and his wife thinks we should be walking around with our heads in our hands. I even wrote a piece about how genuinely cheerful we are for the New Statesman the other day…

But whisper it gently… and just between us… you don’t think we’re fooling ourselves do you?

I say this because we seem to be taking it as read that the mid term polls are generally where we are now. “It’s always this bad’ seems to be the general gist…

Problem is – it’s not true.

I like to look at the combined polling average and a quick glance at January 2008 – the equivalent poll in relation to the May 2010 General Election as now – shows the following poll results

Conservatives 38%, Labour 30%, Liberal Democrats 17%

A few points here. The current UK polling average shows us polling at – just 10%. So it’s not true to say this is where we ‘always are’ at this point. It really isn’t. We were doing much better this time five years ago.

And nor, in the last election, did things shift that much from now. The final polling at the General Election was:

Conservatives 36%, Labour 29%, Liberal Democrats 23%

Now the sharp eyed amongst you will no doubt be shouting at the screen ‘we moved, we moved, we put on 6 points…’

Yes, we did, didn’t we. But look what we did the month before…

Now I’m not seeing change the leader. I’m not saying throw all the toys out of the pram. And I’m not saying lets get all negative – I’ve gone out on a limb today myself and said we should be targeting big wins at the 2015 election.

But let’s stop pretending that it’s ‘always like this’ and if we carry on as we are, it will all come right. History says it’s just not true.