Liberal Party Votes.

[Gavmacp]

I am curious as to why people did not vote for the Liberals?

[Canary42]

Because they didn't know who they would side with.

[Canary42]

... in the event of a Coalition.

[fiction-factory]

2.4 million did. That's 1 million more than voted for the SNP

[Baldric]

Why would you?

[jim360]

I suppose really I knew that something like this was coming as soon as the Lib Dems joined the coalition but not on this scale.

The problem is that for the Lib Dems to join the Coalition was a betrayal of their left-wing support, and not right-wing enough for the right-wingers, so that both sides of their support deserted them.

[Gromit]

4.4 million less people voted for them this time than in 2010.

Then it seemed like a safe protest vote. So many people who had previously voted Labour, voted LibDem. Labour looked unelectable this time, so the votes never came back.

[Graudian]

They were not trusted from the day they reneged on their
tuition fees pledge.

[saintpeter48]

Graudian is right - They lost all respect when they reneged on their
tuition fees pledge. Clegg sold his soul for a bit of power and the public didn't forget it!

[tonyav]

Graudian
They were not trusted from the day they reneged on their
tuition fees pledge.


Yes, it'll take the lib dems years before the public trust them again imo.

[Gavmacp]

He never really became his own man. Always appeared as a puppet of Cameron and always appeared as a little irrelevant.
I get the feeling that Vince Cable was against going into coalition with the Tories.

[Hopkirk]

People feel the need for a protest vote.

Previously it was the Libs or the LibDems.

This year it was UKIP, Green or SNP.

[naomi24]

The Liberals equate to 'no man's land'. They've been a millstone around the neck of the Conservatives whose greatest achievement in this election has been to off-load them.

[jourdain2]

They reneged on tuition fees and then had a hissy-fit and reneged on boundary reorganisation, there were other things. It follows that they were completely untrustworthy and a vote for them would be a stab in the dark.

[jim360]

While the tuition fee thing didn't help, many of the Lib Dems MPs voted out on Thursday kept their promise to vote against. If elections are meant to be based far more on the person standing rather than the party they represent, to see some of them voted out was somewhat unfair. They kept their promise but were judged equally culpable by association apparently. Meanwhile, the chief culprit made it into parliament anyway. Not that Nick Clegg lasted much longer.

The Lib Dem's role in government has probably been quite useful, actually -- although I guess that depends on your personal politics. But their biggest policy point, lifting the minimum tax threshold by several thousand pounds in the end, was certainly a fine achievement and not at all something the Tories were going to do themselves. But they reaped what they have sowed, and while joining the Tory coalition was probably the right thing to do (certainly it's easier to buy that "we came together not in the party's interests but in the national interest" line they kept coming out with!) -- while it was the right thing to do, probably, they have paid a heavy price for it.

[tonyav]

Anyhow they will have a new leader very soon.
http://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/generalelection2015/lib-dem-leader-to-be-chosen-before-parliament-breaks-for-summer/ar-BBjyXuD

[tonyav]

Paddy Ashdown is blaming the opinion polls !.
http://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/generalelection2015/paddy-ashdown-opinion-polls-killed-liberal-democrats-election-chances/ar-BBjyKLg

[Old_Geezer]

The obvious answer must be that their preference was for someone else.

As for general trends, I suspect many Liberal supports are not keen on propping up some other party officially, and would prefer to be in opposition (given they have next to no chance of getting a majority). So when a leader decided some sway is better than none, and gets into a coalition, those supporters show their feelings by voting for other candidates next time around.

Their problem is when they throw away a high point it is difficult to get back there again. High points need to be built on.

[mikey4444]

Gav...The answer is obvious.

The LibDems signed their own death warrant, on the day that Cleggie stood side by side with dave in the garden of Number Ten 5 years ago.

People voted LibDem and got Tory, and the Party is now paying for that in spades. The surprising thing about this would seem that instead of most of those votes going to Labour, they went to the Tories.

So if those people didn't want the Tories last time, why vote directly for them now ?

[Cloverjo]

I did vote LD to try to keep the Tories out. It didn't work, though. An unknown Tory took almost half of the votes here. It is thought that the
LD only got in here last time because people were upset about the previous Con guy getting silly expenses for doing up his second garden etc.