After another bad poll in today’s guardian I went sadly to look for solace. Notably I did find some; in effect it said we as Lib Dems must take polls with a pinch of salt.

Any glance over the election results over previous years have told us that we are becoming ever more effective in translating limited amounts of the popular vote into seats.

The UK polling report blog also makes for a very interesting read. All in all we might take from it that the polls are poor in measuring local work and variables, a area in which the Lib Dems vary most.

Firstly there might be the variables in don’t knows, I might suggest that unlike the polls who are systematic across the nation in how they allocate don’t know voters the Lib Dems vary wildly. In the areas that we work hard and knock up well we can be very effective in raising our vote. This would be especially the case in two – horse race situations, where they don’t know voter is unsure of how to use that tactical vote. This links closely to my second point about getting the vote out. Those who are unsure about their tactical vote will if pushed on the day go out and vote if pushed that failure to do so will let x in. Effective work on the day can then have a large effect on the end vote.

Polling has for the party being disappointing it seems that only a limited number of the growth in our vote over the last 10 years have become loyal. Nationally we are being squeezed between Con and Lab, this could work to ways. Nationally we may loose out in terms of the popular vote, but against that where there are two horse race situations the tactical vote could be more responsive than ever. We should at the end of the day, remember that all of our seats have come out of strong and local campaigning that national polls fail to account for.