The pollsters on polling 5: Are Liberal Democrat voters a largely Conservative or Labour-leaning group?

Last week we asked three of Britain's leading opinion pollsters, Stephan Shakespeare of YouGov, Andrew Hawkins of CommunicateResearch and Ben Page of Ipsos Mori, five questions on polling and we've been publishing their answers . So far we have seen our experts answers to the following questions:

1. Blair is still in office.  The public have yet to see Brown in Downing Street.  Then there's the silly and party conference seasons.  When will be a good time to start taking the headline polls seriously again? (Watch the answers here)
2. The traditional view is that governments are most unpopular in the middle of their terms and their popularity generally increases closer to elections.  In this era of constant electioneering does that historical pattern still hold true? (Watch the answers here)
3. What do you think of Robert Worcester's belief that economic competence, party unity and leader image are principal determinants of a party's success? (Watch the answers here)
4. Do you think that public opinion moves more quickly or more slowly than in the past? (Watch the answers here)

Today you can watch what the pollsters think about this question:

• Are Liberal Democrat voters a largely Conservative or Labour-leaning group? In summary: Andrew Hawkins says Lib Dem voters are more attached to Labour as a brand but because of the Iraq War they are lending their votes to the Conservatives. Stephan Shakespeare says they are not one block, some lean to the left some to the right, some people vote Lib Dem because they know they are not going to win. Ben Page says they are more Labour leaning than Conservative, partly because they have picked up a lot of disaffected Labour voters.

You can also read Peter Riddell's answers to the same five questions.

Comments

[Peter Kingsman]

I have really enjoyed these five videos. It is interesting to see where the three experts agree, and where they disagree.

[bluepatriot]

A lot of people vote libdem because they are the 'nice party' and appear to work hard locally. A lot of the time their success is completely unrelated to their left/ right stances.

[Sasha]

I would say that it depends where in the country you are talking about, the ones I come across in the West Midlands are by and large people would have fitted into a Macmillian-Heathite type Conservative party. What bluepatriot says is also quite true.