The Conservative vs Lib Dem general election battle explained in one graph
From the excellent Chris Cook, the Peter Snow of a new generation, a graph showing where Theresa May and Tim Farron have been visiting for the 2017 general election:
Here's another battleground for you, nerds. Unlike Lab/Tory charts, @timfarron/@theresa_may are fighting over the same seats. pic.twitter.com/Mavgu2p9wh
— Chris Cook (@xtophercook) May 8, 2017
As he rightly highlights, tracking where party leaders visit is a good insight into what a party’s strategy is (or at least what it is comfortable to be seen in public as having as its strategy).
The academic evidence about the electoral impact of a party leader’s visit is actually fairly muted, and in the days when I was frequently tracking daily canvass data during elections, it was very rare to see a noticeable bump in support for any party following their leader’s visit. That said, parties do believe leader visits matter and there are longer-term benefits which are not immediately visible in support levels for each candidate, such as in setting local media expectations as to who has a chance of winning locally.
For more on what the Liberal Democrat prospects are, see my earlier analysis in Lib Dem Newswire.
We must make it clear to all Tory REMAINERS that we are NOT going to involve ourselves in a Lib Lab coalition. They fear that more than Brexit, they will loose least from it. It must be hammered in day after day.
But no Tory Coalition unless Ted Heath comes back to lead it!
That’s exactly what Tim Farron has said. No coalition with either May or Corbyn. But yes that has to be on every leaflet.
I agree there should be no coalition. However I do think that where a Green or a Labour candidate is much more likely to beat the Tories than the Liberal Democrats then voters might consider not voting or spoiling their papers. Difficult.
It is a nonsense to rule out coalitions. Be honest. We are a party with a fundamental belief in proportional representation, and that means sharing power with other parties.
@Peter: I don’t see how you get from ruling out coalitions for the current first past the post election being fought to what the party would do with a future election under PR? The circumstances of the two – different time, different voting system, different context – are so different, how is one meant to be a sign of the other?