. . a tide in the affairs of [the Liberal Democrats]

As Shakespeare said  (J ulius Caesar Act 4, scene 3) :

"There is a tide in the affairs of men
Which taken at the flood leads on to . . ." well, who knows?

Two opinion polls published  over the weekend show the Liberal democrats ahead of the Tories, with the latter  in fourth place.

Here's one of them.



BREX: 27% (-1)
LAB: 25% (-1)
LDEM: 14% (+3)
CON: 13% (-1)
GRN: 8% (+2)
CHUK: 6% (-2)
UKIP: 3% (+1)

 Of course, it's only by 1% and well within the poll's margin of error, so nothing to get too excited about.

But as Harold Wilson said: "A week is a long time in politics,"  there's still 11 days to go before the EU elections, and the political situation is more volatile than most of us can remember.

Sometimes circumstances favour a political party.  As mentioned in the previous post, they favoured the Greens in our recent local council elections because both Sir David Attenborough's TV programmes and the demonstrations inspired by the Swedish schoolgirl Greta Thunbeerg were very much in the headlines.  The Greens perform strongly in this opinion poll.

But we Liberal Democrats performed not just strongly but very strongly in those same elections, winning over 700 council seats (whereas Labour lost over 80 and the Tories over a 1 300).

So just for once, and after  a long period in the doldrums, we are, if not yet once again "flavour of the month,"  in poll position among the Remainers (in England.   Of course: things are different in Scotland Wales and Northern Ireland).

In this poll Liberal Democrats have almost twice as much support as the Greens, and more than twice as much as Change UK (the Tiggers)

An article by Jonathan  Freedland in the Guardian  urges the Stop Brexiteers to give their vote to the Liberal Democrats. Of course, that's probably speaking to we anoraks, but a movement  started by Gina Milear, the wonderful woman who went to the High Court to force Mrs May to give parliament some say in Brexit, has set up a website Remain United  which may have a wider currency because it's on Twitter.   This recommends those who wish to stop Brexit to vote  Liberal Democrat in England, SNP in Scotland and Plaid Cymru in Wales.

Given than stopping Brexit is by far the most important political objective for anyone who has the reputation of the nation, and all our futures, British and European, at heart, this issue should transcend other minor variations of policy and party loyalty.

So in the next eleven days there's all for us to play for.