It's into the valley of political death for Gordon Brown. He now faces a triple squeeze. It may not be as credible as the threat from the Tories in England and Wales and from the SNP in Scotland but Nick Clegg has used his summer message to signal a shift of resources to fifty Lab-Lib marginals, mainly in northern England. Hat tip to Jonathan Isaby for spotting the video. Jonathan analyses Nick Clegg's latest tactical u-turn here.
I think a 5 year old might be better at reading an auto-cue than Clegg. Very wooden
Posted by: Patrick | July 29, 2008 at 17:14
Situation excellent, I shall attack.
Posted by: David Miliband | July 29, 2008 at 17:32
Well it certainly did not cost much to produce!
Posted by: James Sproule | July 29, 2008 at 17:39
"It didn't cost much to produce" !! Probably true BUT where would the Tories be without the Ashcroft money ?
Posted by: Roberts | July 29, 2008 at 17:48
Probably in the same pile of doo-doo as Gordon Brown would be without the TU money....
Posted by: Bullingdon Bumbuster | July 29, 2008 at 17:50
Like Cameron Clegg should start wearing ties. He needs to look more serious not less.
Posted by: Vincent Wall | July 29, 2008 at 17:53
A lot of LibDems in the south with Tory candidates breathing down their necks won't like this switch of scarce DimLib resources.
Posted by: bluepatriot | July 29, 2008 at 17:58
Clegg looks, and sounds, like a muppet. What an embarrassment to his party.
Posted by: John Reeks | July 29, 2008 at 18:15
What a disastrous mistake they made electing Nick Clegg. Chortle, chortle.
Posted by: Ross | July 29, 2008 at 18:18
This is probably the best tactic the Lib Dems could employ.
The rule of politics; is when a party is down, you kick them.
Past elections has shown that they generally fair better against Labour than the Conservatives. The planned wipe out in 2005 resulted in 5-3 to the Conservatives as opposed against Labour where they scored 12-0 to the Lib Dems.
It will be interesting if the Lib Dems can achieve treble digits or at least close to it, the pressure in all regions could at least on paper force Labour into 3rd place, probably won't happen, but with Brown in charge, it's far from off the cards.
Posted by: DavidRHayes | July 29, 2008 at 18:22
Conservatives to the Right? surely not! Conservatives to Left I would have thought!
Posted by: david1 | July 29, 2008 at 18:25
I actually suggested this a while back as the best way of absolutely knocking Labour for six and effectively taking them down as a political force, the Lib Dems should work on the centre-left and left while the Tories took over the Centre-right and right of the political spectrum, effectively squeezing Labour until their eyes popped.
Posted by: James, Swadlincote | July 29, 2008 at 18:40
Can't see that Clegg can do anything else.
We Conservatives should be quite happy, as this could usher in another Eighties-style decade of a split Left, which could give us three terms in government (if we don't screw up. If.)
Where does this leave Clegg's (laughable) attempt to position the party as tax-cutters though?
Posted by: Neil Reddin | July 29, 2008 at 18:43
Is this an admission of defeat by Nick Clegg? After all far more of the seats they are closer to winning are Conservative held as are (Rochdale and Withington excepted) all of the Lib Dems vulnerable seats.
The list of 50 is also interesting in that it appears to include Pendle (an almost certain Conservative gain on current form) and Penge (where the nominal 2005 outcome puts the Lib Dems third). Would I be wrong in guessing that the target list is nearer 15 than 50?
Posted by: SimonC | July 29, 2008 at 18:56
I'm now thinking Labour could lose more seats than we did in 1997. We'll win 150. The SNP could win a dozen. Even the hapless Mr Clegg might win a handful.
Posted by: bluepatriot | July 29, 2008 at 19:00
Does anyone know of a list of target seats apart from the one on ukpolling report?
I know I've come across a website that compares Labour vs Libs, Labour vs Conservative and Conservative vs Lib targets, but can't seem to remember what it is.
Posted by: torydeb | July 29, 2008 at 19:21
Jeez - has he put on weight, or is that just a really unflattering angle?
Posted by: James | July 29, 2008 at 19:26
This is excellent news for us.
Clegg is basically throwing in the towel against the Conservatives, recognising we're on the up and to take us head on would be a waste of resources.
He's recognised that the opportunities now are against Labour, in seats where the Cons are third place and the voters just as fed up with Brown as anywhere else, and looking for someone else to vote for.
Notice he barely mentioned the Tories at all, other than to say he's going to look for votes in places where we're not strong - what an admission that he can't beat us!
Posted by: James | July 29, 2008 at 19:36
The Lib Dems are facing annihilation down South from us and up North from the SNP. The odd Labour seat may be all they have any chance of getting at the next election.
Posted by: Man in a Shed | July 29, 2008 at 19:59
SimonC - I wondered about how low down they would have to go to get 50 seats - Hartlepool is the answer (at least on Rallings and Thrasher's numbers).
Their top 50 Labour target seats include plenty of Lab-Con battles where they will get squeezed, as well as several three-way contests where they might struggle.
I suspect 20 is about the realistic number, probably winning 10-15 at best.
Posted by: Robert McIlveen | July 29, 2008 at 20:03
This is a survival strategy. The Lib Dems face evisceration in seats they compete with Conservatives for and only gains from Labour offer any prospect of redemption.
Desperate tactics that I suspect will fail.
Posted by: Old Hack | July 29, 2008 at 20:49
Probably more effective at helping you get to sleep than counting sheep, in fact I rather expected a cartoon sheep or crow or two to start wondering about behind him to start relieving the monotony, I presume they switched camera now and again just to relieve the monotony for anyone watching, who knows maybe they were bored too.
Nick Clegg is largely an irrelevance, Chris Huhne is an irrelevance and they've already ready ditched Menzies Campbell who while he lost much of his energy over the years certainly has imagination and is not nearly as uncharismatic as Nick Clegg.
Posted by: Yet Another Anon | July 29, 2008 at 20:56
So if you're a Tory in a seat where we're in 3rd with no chance in a LD/Lab match, would you be prepared to hold your nose and tactically vote LD in order to maximise the carnage for Labour? That's the reason why we were hit so hard in 97, Labour and LD voters going tactical made the result in terms of seats look a lot worse for us. Perhaps it's time to play that game?
Posted by: South Down Tory | July 29, 2008 at 21:31
The Lib Dems have always benefited from tactical voting - although their supporters stopped supporting Labour against us by and large in 2005.
Maybe this is a signal to the (few) tories in Lab-LD contests to vote, although it might work out as much as one to Lib Dems that tactically voting Tory is a good idea - if so, Labour are in extra trouble...
Posted by: Robert McIlveen | July 29, 2008 at 22:49
surely this is great news... opportunist LibDem optout as always.
Posted by: oberon Houston | July 29, 2008 at 23:05
I have to say that as a call to arms for the Lib Dems, this wasn't very good. But as a tactic, if I was in his shoes that's exactly what I would do.
I have speculated in the past that Labour could be knocked into third place and return fewer MPs than Labour - even in England. I think its time I sussed out the betting odds for such an outcome.
Posted by: David Eyles | July 29, 2008 at 23:17
We could reduce the Lib Dems to 15-20 seats - if we really try.
Most of their seats are marginal.
Posted by: Joe James B | July 29, 2008 at 23:39
I thought they were swinging to the Right under Clegg. Now presumably they're going to attack Labour from the Left?
Posted by: RichardJ | July 30, 2008 at 00:13
Thank you very much for the great information.
Thanks
511 pants
Posted by: 511 pants | August 13, 2008 at 17:05