LibDem voters switching to Labour

Only just over a quarter (27%) of Lib Dem voters at the 2010 general election say they would be certain to vote and to vote Lib Dem again in an immediate general election. One in five (20%) say they are certain to vote but would now vote Labour. New analysis of Ipsos’s monthly political monitor data since the start of 2011 reveals the dramatic scale of the swing to Labour among those who voted Liberal Democrat a year ago. In contrast, around three in five of those who say they voted Conservative (59%) or Labour (63%) would vote for the same party again and are “absolutely certain” that they would turn out, with most of the rest in each case unsure whether they would vote at all. The Coalition between the Conservatives and the LibDems has failed to bring their party supporters closer together. Four times as many of those who voted Liberal Democrat are now certain they would vote and would back Labour as have switched their support to the Conservatives (20% of Lib Dem voters compared to 5%). Nor has there been any appreciable movement the other way, with only 2% of those who voted for the Tories a year ago now sure they would vote Liberal Democrat.

There has been hardly any churn between Labour and the Conservatives voters since the election. Just one percent of 2010 Labour voters would now be certain of voting Conservative and three percent of 2010 Tory voters certain to vote Labour in an immediate general election.

Reported 2010 vote
	Conservative (n=1,126) %	Labour (n=1,049) %	Liberal Democrat (n=738) %
Certain to vote and would now vote...
... Conservative	59	1	5
... Labour	3	63	20
... Liberal Democrat	2	1	27
... some other party	3	2	6
... undecided/would not vote/refused	2	3	6
Not certain to vote	31	31	35

(Note that this analysis differs from the way in which voting intention results are usually presented, as those who are unlikely to vote or have not expressed a voting intention are not excluded from the percentages.)

• A new book, Explaining Cameron's Coalition, written by Sir Robert Worcester, Dr. Roger Mortimore, Dr. Paul Baines and Mark Gill will be launched on 11 May and is now available for pre-order.

Technical note

Ipsos interviewed 4,164 GB adults aged 18+ by telephone in four monthly Reuters/Ipsos Political Monitor surveys between January and April 2011. Of these, 1,126 said that they voted Conservative, 1,049 Labour and 738 Liberal Democrat at the 2010 general election. Data are weighted to match the profile of the population.