YouGov, Populus and some Lib Demmery

This morning's YouGov poll for the Sun has topline figures of CON 34%, LAB 38%, LDEM 8%, UKIP 13% (tabs here. Meanwhile the twice weekly Populus poll has figures of CON 34%, LAB 41%, LDEM 10%, UKIP 7% (full tabs are here

The Sun also had a batch of YouGov polling about the Liberal Democrats in advance of their conference (I expect there will be more Lib Dem polling to come at the weekend).

The broad picture is still pretty miserable for the party. 42% think that the Liberal Democrats have influence in government (8% a lot, 34% a little), and 40% said they had contributed something positive to the coalition (the most popular choice, on 20%, was more moderate and centrist policies, followed by more interest in the less well off on 15%). However, 44% said that the Lib Dems had not contributed anything positive to government at all. Perhaps most worrying for the party, only 19% said they had an idea what the Liberal Democrats stand for these days, down from 26% a year ago.

Few people thought the Liberal Democrats had delivered on many of their specific aims in government. The one area where Lib Dems are seen as delivering is on tax, 10% think they have gone a long way to reducing the income tax paid by low earner, 38% some way. People rated them much less well on all the other aims YouGov asked about, just 22% think they've made at least some progress on protecting the environment, 22% on increasing taxes on the wealthy, 20% on reforming banking, 15% on constitutional reform, 13% on improving civil liberties.

Of course, this all has to be viewed in the context of the Liberal Democrats being quite a small party. While I am sure the Lib Dems would like it if a majority of people thought they were wonderful, realistically they are not aiming at majority support at the next election. Rather they will be looking to limit the losses from 2010, to increase from their current poll rating and hold on to a core of support, possibly in the mid-to-high teens. If there is a core of people who think the Lib Dems have contributed a lot to government, have delivering on their aims, and those people can be pursuaded to vote Liberal Democrat, then that's something for them to build on.

Even so, things look difficult looking forward. 4% of people say they will definitely vote Liberal Democrat at the next election, a further 14% that they'll consider it. Another 31% say they might vote for them in the future, but not at the coming general election.