The UK General Election of May 6th 2010

Page last edited: 03/04/2012

NEW on 29/01/2012

My Voting Behaviour documents have now been restructured, updated and revised. The original version of this document has been divided into two sections with little further revision but the original document on the 1970s to the 1990s has been divided into two sections and revised quite significantly in an effort to clarify the differences between the various models of voting behaviour developed from the 1970s to the 1990s. The third document on the General Elections of 1997, 2001 and 2005 will remain unchanged for the time being and I have now also written a  document on the 2010 General Election. which, as usual,  includes links to the excellent IPSOS MORI coverage. Thus the new structure is as follows: Click here for Voting Behaviour in the UK: Document One : The Analysis of Voting Behaviour in Great Britain [New Revised Document uploaded 28/08/2010.] Part A: The Analysis of Voting Behaviour in Great Britain: Electoral Stability, Party Identification and Social Class 1945-1970 Part B: Non-Class Influences on Voting Behaviour 1945-2010 Click here For Voting Behaviour in the UK; Document Two  [New Revised Document uploaded in early October 2010] Part A: Models of Voting Behaviour Part B: The UK General Elections of 1992 and 1997 Click here for Voting Behaviour in the UK: Document Three  The UK General Elections of 1997, 2001 and 2005: Some Comparisons.    Voting Behaviour in the UK : Document Four: The UK General Election of May 6th 2010   NEW

 

Further Reading Explaining Cameron's Coalition: How it came about : an Analysis of the 2010 British General Election: Robert Worcester, Roger Mortimore, Paul Baines and Mark Gill 2010 The British General Election of 2010: Dennis Kavanagh and Philip Cowley  2010 Britain at the Polls 2010 : Nicholas Allen and John Bartle {Editors] 2010 Britain Votes  2010 : Andrew Geddes and Jonathan Tonge [Editors] 2010 Campaign 2010; The Making of the Prime Minister: Nicholas Jones 2010 The Conservative Party from Thatcher to Cameron : Tim Bale 2010 Back from the Brink: The Inside Story of the Tory Resurrection : Peter Snowdon 2011 The End of the Party : The Rise and Fall of New Labour : Andrew Rawnsley2010 Whatever it Takes: The Real Story of Gordon Brown and New Labour :Steve Richards 2010 Back from the Brink: 1000 Days at Number 11 Alistair Darling 2011 Peace , Reform and Liberation; A History of Liberal Politics in Britain 1679-2011 Robert Ingham and Duncan Black [Editors] 2011 [Chapter 10 covers 1988 -2011] Useful Links Click here for BBC 2010 General Election homepage Click here for BBC on the career of Gordon Brown Click here for BBC on the career of David Cameron Click here for BBC Election Coverage: Key Moments....includes brief extracts from the TV debates.  Also on the Right of this page you will find a "Day at a Glance" facility which refers you to the BBC coverage of each day of the General Election Campaign. Click here for Guardian Video clip [9 minutes] of the highlights of the first TV debate Guardian Coverage of the General Election Guardian Interactive on unemployment trends 1984-2010 Guardian Interactive on comparative National Debt and Deficit Trends 1960-2011 Daily Telegraph Coverage of the General Election The Great Debate Election {Andrew Roberts for the Daily Telegraph] Independent Assessment of the General Election Result.  and Steve Richards on "The New Politics .[Look at the list of related articles and you can also use the Independent's Day in  a Page Article Archive facility  to find further very useful articles.  For example Click here for an assessment of Gordon Brown and here for the first day of the Coalition Government IPSOS MORI coverage of the 2010 General Election ...information on class, gender, age and voting behaviour, issue saliency, party leadership and much more. Click here for the IPSOS MORI Slide Presentation on the 2010 General Election IPSOS MORI and Party Leadership ....post 2010 General Election   *** Ipsos Mori : The Mass Media and the General Election Click here for Nick Robinson on the formation of the Coalition Guardian coverage of Lord Ashcroft's critique of Conservative Electoral Strategy Click here for the BES Slide Presentation on the 2010 General Election. Click here for Labour former Cabinet Minister Liam Byrne's Analysis of the 2010 General Election. Click here for a Runnymede Trust/BES Slide Presentation on Ethnic Minority Voting in the 2010 General Election Click here for the index of Commons Library Parliamentary Briefings. Once you reach the index page search use the relevant search categories to choose politics, parliament and government and then general elections. Choose the year 2011 [since the briefing for the 2010 General Election was actually published in Feb 2011] . You will then need to download the PDF  file which will take about one minute. It is worth it though. Click here for the LSE Centre for Economic Performance analysis of key General Election issues and policies

 

The UK General Election of May 6th 2010 [This document is rather long and I hope that students will find the following navigation links useful and that  the Summary will be helpful  for examination revision purposes]

• Useful Links [See above]

• Introduction: Aspects of British Party Politics 2005-2010

• Opinion Poll Data and Some Major Political Events 2005-2010

• The Leadership Debates

• The Result of the UK General Election of 2010

• Tactical Voting [External links only at present]

• Social Influences on Voting Behaviour

• Social Influences on Turnout [Added April 2012]

• The Mass Media and Voting Behaviour [External links only at present]

• Party Identification and Voting Behaviour

• The Influence of Salient Issues and Party Policies

• Party Images and Voting Behaviour

• Valence Issues : The Importance of Political Leadership

• The Parliamentary Expenses Scandal

• Summary: The UK General Election of May 6th 2010:

 

• Introduction: Aspects of British Party Politics 2005-2010

• Gordon Brown and the Labour Party [Click here for Steve Richard's Radio 4 series on Gordon Brown's Premiership and Click here for a Channel Four item with multiple links]

Gordon Brown had waited for a long time  to replace Tony Blair as Prime Minister and Leader of the Labour Party but when he finally did so it was not under very auspicious circumstances.

1. Commentators had documented evidence of the deep seated rivalries which existed between Tony Blair and Gordon  Brown even before the former came to be Leader of the Labour Party in 1994. As Tony Blair's tenure of the Premiership lengthened Gordon Brown increasingly came to believe that Blair had betrayed promises to step down in his favour and this exacerbated conflict between the two men  with clearly adverse consequences for overall government effectiveness.

2. It was widely believed eventually that Gordon Brown and his supporters had actually forced Tony Blair to resign "not under circumstances of his own choosing" which meant that Brown took over a Labour Party which was now disunited and seen as such by many voters.

3. It had appeared, that no other senior Labour Party politician would be able to defeat Brown in a Labour Leadership contest so that Brown was consequently elected unopposed as Labour Party leader and then automatically became Prime Minister without winning a general election. It has been fairly common for UK Prime Ministers to be replaced between general elections as exemplified most recently by the replacement of Harold Wilson by James Callaghan in 1976 and of Margaret Thatcher by John Major in 1990 but at least James Callaghan and John Major had faced elections to become leaders of their respective parties which Gordon Brown had not. Consequently there were initially fairly strong feelings among voters [especially among those not fully conversant with the workings of the UK Constitution] that Gordon Brown's position as Prime Minister was lacking in legitimacy and that he should ideally call a general election as soon as possible.

4. Labour by 2007 had been in government for 10 years and although it had won "landslide" General Election victories in 1997 and 2001 its margin of victory in the 2005 General Election was much smaller and there was growing evidence of increasing voter disillusion with the New Labour project. Gordon Brown as Chancellor had sometimes attempted to distance himself from Blairism but since in many respects he had been the main architect of much of Labour's domestic policy both he and the Labour Party could be expected to suffer electorally as  a result of its declining popularity.

5. Given that by 2010 Labour had been in office for 13 years it was clear that "Time for a Change " would be a major General Election theme. Therefore it would be essential for Gordon Brown as new Labour Prime Minister to offer the realistic prospect of "renewal" and "change"  within the Labour Government and to convince the electorate that he would craft a coherent future strategy appropriate to the needs and wishes of the British electorate . If he failed to do so he could expect to be punished at the next General Election as voters might turn instead to David Cameron who  would claim to have modernised the Conservative Party  or to the Liberal Democrats and  Nick Clegg who would criticise what he claimed were the tired solutions of "the two old parties" .

6. Gordon Brown replaced Tony Blair as PM  on 27th June 2007 and it has been suggested that Gordon Brown hoped initially to spend about one year establishing himself as a credible leader of a changed, rejuvenated Labour Government before calling a General Election perhaps in May 2008.

7. However Brown's apparently assured handling of two terrorist incidents and the problems associated with severe flooding and an out break of foot and mouth disease resulted in a surge in Labour's opinion poll ratings at the beginning of Brown's Premiership and the "Run" on branches of Northern Rock in September may also have encouraged voters to believe that any such financial difficulties would be handled more effectively by the experienced Gordon brown and the steady Alistair Darling rather than by the as yet untried David Cameron and George Osborne. Consequently speculation mounted that Brown might call an early General Election  which however  Brown chose not to do when opinion poll data from marginal constituencies indicated that Labour was far from certain to win an early General Election. The popularity of the Labour Government and of Gordon Brown then declined seriously , and despite some recovery at various times during the next three years a Labour victory never seemed likely although in the Spring of 2010 some narrowing of the polls suggested  that even if an outright Labour victory was unlikely Gordon Brown  might at least avoid outright defeat despite the many difficulties which he, his party  and the country had faced between 2007 and 2010.  And so it proved to be!  

8. Students requiring detailed information on the Brown Premiership should consult the reading list above  but in summary the major difficulties faced by Gordon  Brown during the course of his premiership included the following. It should be noted that some of the issues listed were more significant than others but that all combined to damage Labour's electoral prospects.

• There were from the outset concerns in some quarters that even if he had been an effective Chancellor he might lack to the flexibility to deal with the much wider range of issues that that he would now face as Prime Minister and the presentational skills necessary to popularise Labour policies although some did argue that a shift away from the Blairite emphasis on presentation to  a Brownite emphasis on policy substance would be no bad thing. Be that as it may it was soon being suggested that Brown's own working methods were disorganised, that he was failing to coordinate effectively the work of No.10 and of the Government as a whole and indeed that he was prone to outbursts of bad temper and to bullying his officials . These criticisms would be re-emphasised in Andrew Rawnsley's book The Death of the Party [2010] but denied by Brown's supporters.

• It was claimed that Brown was unable to establish a new attractive political narrative suggesting that he would be able to combine what [if anything?] remained of the attractions of the Blairite project with new insights and initiatives of his own.

• The circumstances surrounding the decision in the Autumn to postpone the General Election created difficulties for Gordon Brown from which arguably he never recovered. As the poll ratings of the Labour Party and of Gordon Brown personally improved in the early stages of his premiership speculation intensified that Brown might call an early General Election. The Conservatives were extremely worried that they might well lose such an early election but hopeful nevertheless that if they had a successful party conference this might just deter Labour from calling the election . In the event George Osborne  promised an increase in the inheritance tax threshold to £1,000,000 to be financed by  a £ 25,000 flat rate  offshore domicile levy on wealthy foreigners living in the UK; David Cameron delivered an effective [note-free] speech which attracted favourable mass media coverage; and in what was seen as a serious tactical blunder Gordon Brown visited British troops in Iraq in the midst of the Tory Conference which enabled his critics [including former PM John Major]  to claim that his visit had reflected less his concern for the welfare of British troops  than his desire to draw mass media attention away from the Tory Party Conference ;  furthermore it was argued that Brown then made misleading announcements about the scale of imminent British troop withdrawals which provided yet more evidence of Brown's fundamental duplicity. Meanwhile new Labour Chancellor Alistair Darling was obliged to announce his own proposals for inheritance tax reduction which appeared to be a pale copy of Osborne's original proposals although there were important technical differences between the Osborne and Darling schemes.

• Now , however, came polling data suggesting that Labour were rather less popular in marginal constituencies than they had believed and this finally persuaded Brown that he should not call an early General Election after all. Clearly Brown's initial  failure to dampen electoral speculation in the first place  followed by his decision to not to call an election had put him in a very difficult situation. To admit that he had called off the election because of the weakening polls would have undermined him seriously enough  but his claims that if an election had been called Labour would still have won it  but that he had decided against an early general election because he wanted to continue to govern in the national interest was widely seen as a disingenuous attempt  to extract himself from a difficult political situation which failed dismally. The "Father of the Nation" had become "Bottler Brown" as Cameron described Brown in Parliament as "the only PM in living memory who had flunked an election because he was certain to win it."

• Brown's failure  to dampen electoral speculation had undermined fundamentally his strategy to establish himself  as a genuine, heavyweight politician governing in the national interest to such an extent that it was difficult to see how his premiership could recover and in the event he would now face a catalogue of events which threatened his continuation as leader of the Labour Party and Prime Minister. It seemed increasingly likely that Brown might be replaced before the next General Election or that  if he continued in office Labour would certainly lose the next election.

• The Labour Government could be accused of administrative  incompetence as  a result of the loss in transit between the offices of Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs [HMRC] and the National Audit Office [NAO]  of two  disks  containing the National Insurance numbers and bank and building society details tax details of 25  million parents eligible for Child Benefit. The Chairman of HMRC subsequently resigned  and the disks were never found.

• It was in November 2007 that Vince Cable, acting as Temporary Leader of the Liberal Democrats wounded Mr Bown with his remark in the Commons that "  The House has noted the Prime Minister's remarkable transformation in the last few weeks from Stalin to Mr. Bean.". This apparently "brought the House down" which may however merely be evidence that humour is subjective.

• Then came revelations that the Labour Party had received secret donations channelled through third parties from a certain David Abrahams  despite the fact that concealment of donors' identities was illegal under the terms of an Act introduced by Labour in 2000.This immediately brought back memories of the Cash for Honours affair of the Blair years and despite Brown's claims that he had no knowledge  of the details of these  donations created the impression Labour's financial affairs were of uncertain legality. Similar difficulties arose as a result of Peter Hain's enforced resignation following his late declaration of donations toward his Deputy-Leadership Campaign expenses. However in the event no charges were brought against Mr Abrahams.

•  Brown attracted further criticism as  a result of his Government's handling of the arrival in London of the Olympic Torch en route for China : Brown would be present as the torch was paraded in Downing Street but , given China's disregard of Tibetan civil liberties, Brown would not personally touch the Torch.

• Brown decided that he would not attend a meeting of European Union leaders to sign the Lisbon Treaty: instead he would sign it alone one day later claiming that Parliamentary Business prevented him from attending the main meeting. 

• In his last Budget as Chancellor in 2007 Gordon Brown reduced the standard rate of income tax from 22p to 20p and abolished the 10p tax rate on low income earners apparently without the adverse financial consequences for millions of low income recipients which became abundantly clear when these tax changes came into force in the financial year 2008-9. Labour MPs were incensed at Brown's apparent economic mismanagement combined with his unwillingness to admit error  and despite the belated,  expensive and still not entirely effective financial measures which were introduced to offset the effects of the abolition of the 10P tax rate  Labour went down to humiliating defeat in the 2008 Local  Election results [including the London Mayoralty Election where Boris Johnson defeated Ken Livingstone], the Crewe and Nantwich By-election , the Henley by-election where Labour finished 5th  behind the Greens and the BNP and the Glasgow East by Election where Labour lost what was thought to be a very safe seat to the SNP. Click here for a list of all by-elections between 2005 and 2010.

• Also in June 2008 Gordon Brown narrowly secured the passage through the Commons of a Bill introducing the possibility of 42 day detention without charge of terror suspects but this was achieved only with the support of the votes of the Democratic Unionist Party and even then it was made clear that the provisions of the Bill were likely to be much amended in the Lords which they subsequently were. Brown certainly antagonised liberals in side and outside his own party via the promotion of this bill although it has been argued that overall public opinion , rightly or wrongly, does favour a tougher approach to threats of terrorism.

• A challenge to Brown's leadership of the Labour Party seemed possible in the Autumn of 2008 but the intensification of the financial crisis and fairly widespread perceptions that Gordon Brown might be the leader best suited to deal with it destroyed the possibility of  any potential leadership challenge [for example from David Miliband who seemed to be positioning himself for such a challenge in the Summer of 2008 ] and also enabled Labour to close the opinion poll gap on the Conservatives. As Gordon Brown put it in his Labour Party Conference speech in a comment which could be taken to apply both to David Cameron and David Miliband, "This is no time for a novice."

• Gordon Brown then faced further severe difficulties in the Spring of 2009 which again threatened  his leadership. Brown had in fact been credited with the very successful management of the April 2009 G20 Summit in London  which apparently resulted in  a range of important decisions that could be expected to improve the prospects for international financial stability. Yet Brown's kudos was quickly undermined as  a result of the intensification of economic recession in the UK and elsewhere, the circumstances surrounding the forced resignation of Damien McBride, the breaking of the MP's expenses scandal and the furore surrounding Joanna Lumley's campaign to safeguard the immigration rights of retired Ghurkha soldiers and their dependents.

• There then followed a series of ministerial resignations[ Beverly Hughes, , Hazel Blears, Tom Watson, Jacqui Smith, , James Purnell, John Hutton, Geoff Hoon, and Caroline Flint ] between June 2nd and June 6th immediately before and after  the Local Election and European Parliament results of May/June 2009  which were dreadful for the  Labour Party. [ Click here for BBC coverage of the June 2009 European Parliament l Election Results and here for BBC coverage of the 2009 Local Council results]

• Brown certainly feared that there would be a challenge to his leadership at this point but for a variety of reasons no challenge was forthcoming and as the General Election approached it seemed increasingly unlikely that Brown would be replaced because it was not at all obvious that anyone else could do better, because any newly elected leader would have insufficient time to prepare for the approaching General Election and because potential candidates recognised that since electoral defeat seemed almost inevitable political self-interest suggested that it would be better to wait until after the General Election before launching their leadership candidatures. Nevertheless there would still be time for one more attempted coup against Brown in 2010 which again came to nothing.

• Yet Brown's difficulties were still not over : there were ongoing disputes with Chancellor Alistair Darling surrounding economic policy making and its presentation ; there were ongoing difficulties with leading military personnel over his handling of  the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan: he was obliged to correct the original financial information which he had provided as a witness to the Chilcott Inquiry into the Iraq war; he faced criticisms over his scrawled  letter to Jacqui Janes, the mother  of soldier Jamie Janes who had tragically died in the Afghan war and Labour's already faltering Election Campaign was further weakened by Mr Brown's description of Rochdale voter Mrs Gillian Duffy as a  "bigot". Clearly he had to apologise profusely for this , including at the beginning of the third televised leadership debate.

Gordon Brown, therefore , had faced a difficult time as Prime Minister, and opinion poll data suggested that David Cameron was rated as potentially a far more effective Prime Minister, sometimes by significant margins. It could be suggested that Gordon Brown's low personal poll ratings helped to depress the poll ratings of the Labour Party as a whole yet, despite all the difficulties facing Gordon Brown and the Labour Party opinion poll data in the Spring of 2010 began to narrow. David Cameron was still preferred to Gordon Brown as a future Prime Minister and the Conservatives were still ahead of Labour in the polls but by margins suggesting that a Hung Parliament rather than an outright Conservative victory was the most likely outcome.  

• David Cameron and the Conservative Party

In 2005 the Conservative Party went down to its 3rd consecutive General Election defeat albeit a narrower defeat than in 1997 and 2001. However in 2005 The Conservative Party was still perceived widely as the party of the privileged few rather than the many; as out of touch with ordinary people; as more preoccupied  with the interests of big business than with the interests of society as a whole; as unlikely to spend sufficient government money to defend public sector services and as generally critical of public sector workers; and as overly preoccupied with issues around law and order, taxation, the EU, immigration and asylum seekers; as outdated in its attitudes toward marriage and the family; and as unwilling to address sympathetically serious issues around national and international poverty , environment and development. With this catalogue of disadvantages it would be no simple matter to achieve victory in the next General Election and also although David Cameron might seek to reposition the Conservatives toward the Centre of British Politics he would also need to take account of  the more Right -wing views of many Conservative MPs, members and voters and within the Conservative press. David Cameron would find the management of Right-Wing opposition within his own party rather easier once the Conservatives established a clear opinion poll lead over Labour although criticism intensified again once the Conservatives' lead began to narrow in the Autumn of 2009. ,

David Cameron and his close advisers argued that if the Conservative Party was to win  the next General Election it would be necessary to "modernise" the Party. This would involve the renovation of Conservative doctrine or ideology [although many Conservatives still eschew the use of  this word]; the re-branding of the Conservative image and the modification of Conservative Party policies. With regard to ideology or doctrine Cameron's difficult task would be to distance the Party from Thatcherism in a manner which would appeal to centrist voters without alienating unduly the many Conservative MPs, members and voters  who still revered Lady Thatcher and her policies and also to differentiate a new and apparently more centrist Conservative Party from what David Cameron  [and many others] considered to be the now discredited ideology of New Labour.

The Conservative had made some limited attempts initially during  the leadership of William Hague and subsequently of Iain Duncan Smith to promote so-called Compassionate Conservatism which emphasised Conservative concerns to alleviate poverty, inequality and social deprivation. This theme was given even greater emphasis by David Cameron  who quickly set up six policy development groups [Economic Competitiveness, National and International Security, Overseas Aid, Globalisation and Global Poverty, Public Service Reform, Quality of Life and Social Justice  ]and appointed Iain Duncan Smith as chairman of the Social Justice Policy group which published reports entitled Breakdown Britain and Breakthrough Britain in 2006 and 2007. On the basis of these reports David Cameron stressed that it would be necessary for the Conservatives to fix our" Broken Society" but that this would not be achieved solely via increased intervention from the central state. Instead although the state would provide some  guidance our Broken Society" was to be fixed primarily via the development of "The Big Society."  

Click here for  a rather critical assessment of the Conservatives' approach  to the eradication of poverty. Of course Conservatives would reject such criticisms.

Much of David Cameron's new strategy appeared to be encapsulated in the now well known phrase  that "There is such a thing as society but it is just not the same thing as the state." In this single phrase  Cameron could signal that he wished to distance the Conservative Party from what centrist voters might see as the excessive individualism associated with Thatcherism as exemplified in her statement that "There is no such thing as society", a statement which has, however been subject to much misinterpretation, and to distance the Conservative Party also from what he saw as the excessive top- down centralism and bureaucratic regulation associated with the New Labour State. In Cameron's view in the new post-bureaucratic era  excessive state power could be reined in and replaced by the development of the Big Society.

Essentially the notion of  the Big Society suggested that the inefficiencies of excessive state control could be overcome via the reform of the public sector involving the growth of so-called quasi -markets within the public sector which would increase competition and consumer choice , the increased devolution of decision-making from Central to Local Government, the increased reliance on the Third Sector for the provision of services and the increased involvement of individual citizens .

 Of course there is more to The Big Society than this . Its critics have claimed that it underestimates the crucial role of the central state in the provision of public services and amounts only to a fig leaf designed to hide Cameron's true aim which is to shrink the central state and promote the expansion of the private sector for ideological reasons, claims which of course David Cameron and his supporters deny.  However  one significant problem which David Cameron did face was that although The Big Society was much emphasised in the 2010 Conservative Manifesto it was not an idea that canvassers found helpful on the doorsteps as many potential voters apparently found the concept quite difficult to grasp and were unenthused by it. Then once "Cleggmania "reared its head  especially during and after the first TV Debate it may be that  Conservative strategists felt it was more important to focus on the dangers of a Hung Parliament [!} and the potential introduction of Proportional Representation which tended reduce the time available for clarification of the nature of the Big Society.  Nevertheless the concept does apparently continue to influence the development of Coalition Government policy. 

See also  David Cameron's Big Idea  : A three  part Radio 4 Series presented by Steve Richards and  The Political Ideology of The Cameron-Clegg Coalition Government by Kevin Hickson  and click here for a critical perspective on the Big Society from Peter Beresford Professor of Social Policy at Brunel University. Of course supporters of The Big Society idea would reject the Professor's criticisms. 

David Cameron's strategy would eventually contain the following main elements.

1. He would aim firstly to address the negative image of the Conservative Party which was widely seen as so "nasty" or "toxic" that many voters had simply written off the party as a credible alternative government and in many cases had ceased to listen to the Conservatives even if and when they articulated plausible policies. In this respect much has been made of the findings that respondents  might initially support particular policies but would reject the same policies if they were first told that they were actually Conservative policies.

2. Cameron therefore hoped first to improve the overall image of the party in the hope that  it would then at least receive what he considered to be a fairer hearing from the electorate. To this end he emphasised that the Conservatives recognised that the funding and organisation of the NHS and State Education services were important issues for the vast majority of the electorate and that the Conservatives would both fund these services adequately  and devise new policies  which would be more effective than what he described as Labour's centralist, top-down , over-bureaucratised approach.

3. Consequently the Conservatives under Cameron would be prepared to fight the next General Election on what were likely to be among the most salient issues of the Campaign [Health and Education] which previous Conservative campaigns had downplayed for fear that these were "Labour's issues" any coverage of which would be likely to increase Labour's support. This also helped to explain why the Conservatives in the 2001 and 2005 General Elections had concentrated especially on issues of law and order, taxation, the EU , immigration and asylum which, although, salient to many Conservative voters,  were less salient to the electorate as a whole and , in particular, less salient to the voters whom the Conservatives needed to attract if they were to win. Cameron, would of course, also emphasise these issues but as part of a much more balanced strategy which also emphasised voters' core concerns in relation to public services., the environment and civil liberties.

4. The Conservatives would also focus much more than in the past on environmental issues and civil liberties and  adopt a more "liberal" approach to law and order  To emphasise his commitment to the environment  a new Conservative logo was designed and David Cameron was filmed variously cycling to work or driving a team of huskies in the Artic [each of which unsurprisingly attracted criticisms of "spin rather than substance"]  while the Conservatives now opposed ID cards and the proposed introduction of stricter government regulation on detention without trial of terrorism suspects. Furthermore David Cameron did also initially signal a rather softer approach to juvenile crime which gave more attention to the underlying social causes of youth crime although the speech was reported dismissively in some sections of the media under the headline, "Hug a Hoodie". While such policy shifts may well have been indicative of David Cameron's own beliefs it is also true that the policies could be expected to attract wavering Liberal Democrats to the Conservatives.

5.  Cameron's Conservatives also signalled a change in attitudes to family life. While traditional family life was still to be valued so too was the viability of family diversity: cohabitation, lone parenthood and single sex relationships would be supported by Cameron's Conservatives rather than criticised as they typically had been by proponents of neo-Conservatism.

6. Cameron aimed to exercise greater centralised control over the selection of new prospective parliamentary candidates hoping to ensure that more women and British Minority Ethnic candidates would be chosen. However this initiative did occasionally result in acrimonious disputes between the Party leadership and the local constituencies over candidate selection.

7. Cameron's  Conservatives were able to spend much more than Labour in on the long run up to the election campaign and during the campaign itself. They were helped considerably in this respect by Lord Ashcroft who channelled considerable amounts of his own money into Conservative marginals although Cameron and former Conservative Party leader did attract considerable criticism once it was realised that Lord Ashcroft was not registered as domiciled in the UK for tax purposes  despite his long standing promise that he intended to regularise his tax situation.

8. The Conservatives recognised that at some point Gordon Brown was likely to replace Tony Blair as Prime Minister. By 2006 Brown's reputation as a highly successful Chancellor was still intact: his apparently effective management of the UK economy since 1997 had contributed significantly to Labour's second "landslide" victory in 2001 and to its third, albeit narrower victory in 2005 when most other aspects of the New Labour project were becoming increasingly unpopular [although still more popular than most of what was on offer from the Conservatives.] Consequently the Conservatives would need  to embark upon a systematic campaign to undermine the record of Gordon Brown as Chancellor  as a means of undermining his credibility as Prime Minister. The arrival of the credit crunch in 2007 and the economic recession in 2008 [ combined with Brown's  additional problems as outlined above] seemed to have give the Conservatives ample  opportunities  to destabilise Brown and at times Cameron did enjoy a substantial lead over Brown as the preferred next Prime Minister. However Brown and Darling continued to claim that they rather than Cameron and Osborne had the experience necessary to run the economy efficiently and the Conservatives' emphasis on the need for financial austerity may also have damaged them in the polls such that by May 2010 Cameron enjoyed only a narrow lead over Brown as preferred  Prime Minister and the Conservatives' lead over Labour on the management of the economy was also small.  

9. Although there were significant changes in Conservative strategy under David Cameron's leadership this certainly did not mean that the Conservatives neglected traditional Conservative themes. Indeed David Cameron and his supporters believed that once they had "detoxified" the Conservative Party and "rebranded" it  as a more centrist, caring, compassionate, environmentally friendly and liberal party they would  then be able re-emphasise traditional Conservative themes of immigration, asylum, law and order, taxation and Europe  but using language and tone which would not antagonise more centrist voters as had occurred in 2001 and 2005. It had come to be recognised that many voters combine slightly left of centre vies on the economy and public services  with rather authoritarian views on law and order and immigration and asylum and that l immigration and asylum and, perhaps to a lesser extent law and order, were increasingly salient issues in the 2005 and 2010 General Election. Thus the Conservative Party would practise the so-called "Politics of AND", a term originally devised during the ill-fated leadership of Iain Duncan Smith:  Cameron's Conservative Party would be the Party of the NHS and  of law and order; the Party of State Education  and of stricter immigration controls  and in order to implement this strategy David Cameron did ,for example , make rather more authoritarian statements on immigration and crime in 2009 and 2010 than in the earlier years of his leadership.

10. It could be argued that an electoral strategy based upon the Politics of AND had greater potential than the strategies deployed by the Conservatives in 2001 and 2005  but it was also the case that the Labour Party throughout the Blair Brown era had itself been alive to the potential electoral advantages of such a strategy and Brown was himself keen to demonstrate both his toughness on law and order and  national security and his desire to provide "British jobs for British workers."

11. As will be illustrated below David Cameron did succeed in increasing his leadership credibility, the Conservatives, overall image did improve, the Conservatives were preferred to Labour as the Party best able to manage the economy and also preferred to Labour on asylum and immigration, taxation, law and order  and even , in some polls on education . However on leadership, party image and party policies these Conservative improvements were insufficient to secure outright victory not least because the UK electoral system certainly worked to the disadvantage of the Conservatives in 2010.Many voters may well have believed that it was time for a change but they were not quite sure that David Cameron and the Conservatives were offering the kind of change which they wanted.

12. Click here for several links on the Ideology of the Conservative Party under David Cameron

• Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats

Click here and here for BBC coverage of recent Liberal Democrat politics

Between 2005 and 2010 the Liberal Democrats were led by Charles Kennedy [1999- 7thJan 2006] , Sir Menzies Campbell [ 7th Jan 2006- 2March 2006 as interim leader and 2 March 2006-15th Oct 2007 as elected leader], Vince Cable [15th Oct 2007-18 Dec 2007 interim leader]  and Nick Clegg [18Dec 2007--]. Charles Kennedy was obliged to resign as a result of concerns within the Party surrounding his alcohol consumption levels and perceptions that he was insufficiently proactive in relation to future policy development. He was replaced by Sir Menzies Campbell [who had defeated Chris Huhne in the Party leadership contest] but although Campbell was widely respected for his knowledge of foreign policy and in particular for his effective presentation of the case against UK involvement in the invasion of Iraq he did not take well to the leadership role and once it became clear that there would be no General Election in late 2007  pressure built up within the party for Sir Menzies Campbell to resign in favour of a younger man which he soon did . In a close leadership election contest Nick Clegg narrowly defeated Chris Huhne for the Party leadership.

Click here for the resignation of Charles Kennedy and the Election of Sir Menzies Campbell.

Click here for the resignation of Sir Menzies Campbell

Click here for Vince Cable's brief tenure as acting Leader

Click here for the election of Nick Clegg

Click here for 21 items on the Liberal Democrats from the Guardian's "The Election Day by Day " archive

It has been argued that from 2005 onwards there have been important signs of the ideological repositioning of the Liberal Democratic Party as a result of the increasing influence in the higher echelons of the party of Liberal Democrat MPs closely associated with so-called "Orange Book Liberalism" which implied a rather greater support for the economic principles of free market liberalism than had existed in the Liberal Democrat party under the leadership of Charles Kennedy, who , after all, had been a member of the Social Democratic Party [SDP] and espoused greater support for the kind of social liberalism which supported the active intervention  of the state in the organisation of the economy. The nature  of Orange Book Liberalism is analysed in detail in the following  sources and it is likely that the Increasing commitment of senior Liberal Democrats to these principles would have facilitated the negotiation of the eventual post-election Coalition Agreement with the Conservatives . However we may only speculate as to what proportion of eventual Liberal Democrat voters were familiar with the details of the ideological differences between Orange Book Liberals and Social Liberals which exist within the Liberal Democrats  

  Click here for BBC's Analysis on The Orange Book and the Liberal Democrats and here for a critique of the programme from a well informed Liberal Democrat supporter.

Click here for a very useful article by Richard Grayson: The Liberal Democrats: Journey to a Lib-Con Coalition and Where Else.

Opinion poll data during the leadership of Nick Clegg suggest that although his own personal ratings as leader did improve gradually in 2008 and 2009 [as did those of Liberal Democrats' Economics spokesperson Vince Cable] these higher personal poll ratings  did not translate into significantly improved poll ratings for the Liberal Democrats as a whole  and as the General Election approached the polls suggested that the Liberal Democrats were unlikely to improve upon the level of support which they had gained in the 2005 General Election and they may well have been fearful that in what was likely to be a close General Election their  vote might be squeezed even further .

Nick Clegg and the Leadership Debates

However Nick Clegg's effective performance  especially in the first of the three televised leadership debates seemed for a few days as if it might lead to a significant increase in Liberal Democrat support which would transform the result of the General Election. At this point in the General Election campaign several separate opinion polls were published almost every day and you may click on the UK Polling Report data below to see the results of all of the opinion polls during the campaign.

They show that the First Debate led to a substantial increase in the poll ratings of the Liberal Democrats which if anything increased in the following few days such that whereas one poll on April 15th had the party ratings as 37 [Con], 31 [Lab] and 22 [Lib Dem] a poll on April 16th had the ratings as 33 [Con], 28 [Lab] and 30 [Lib Dem] and a poll on April 20th had the ratings as 31 [Con}, 26 {Lab] and 34 [Lib Dem]. The Lib Dem Poll ratings did then begin to decline slowly although they remained consistently ahead of Labour until 27th April and their poll rating reached 30 for the last time on May 1st .

Nick Clegg's individual poll ratings had similarly increased as a result of his strong performance in the first debate  and the success of Nick Clegg  and the resultant transformation of the polls alarmed both of the main parties and led to the orchestration in the Conservative Press of a series of anti- Liberal Democrat editorials [often targeted particularly on the dangers of a Hung Parliament and the threats of electoral reform] as well as articles personally critical of Nick Clegg. Furthermore the Conservative Party itself organised a "Spoof" party Political Broadcast designed to emphasise the weaknesses[ according to Conservatives] of Proportional Representation

The Poll ratings of the Liberal Democrats and of Nick Clegg, although they remained at historically high levels, did decline gradually as Election day approached. and  further disappointments for the Liberal Democrats arose as their actual electoral support fell below their ratings in final eve of election polls . Nevertheless relative to the lack lustre ratings of the Liberal Democrats in 2008 and 2009 the 2010 General Election result could be rated as more of a success.   

1. Click here for BBC Coverage of the TV Debates

2. Click here for IPSOS MORI data which show the impact of the first debate upon party poll ratings

3. Click here for the IPSOS MORI Slide Presentation on the 2010 General Election and scroll to Slides 14-16 and 21-25

4. Click here for UK Polling Report data on the political parties' ratings 2005-2010

5. Click here for UK Polling Report data on party leadership ratings 2005-2010

Additional detailed information on the TV Debates  can be found in Campaign 2010: The Making of the Prime Minister: Nicholas Jones 2010

Who Voted Liberal Democrat in 2010?

In the 2010 General Election 23% of UK  voters and 24% of the voters of Great Britain voted for the Liberal Democrats. There were , however some variations in Liberal Democrat support as between different social groups. The information in the following table is taken from Ipsos Mori data based upon combined samples of 10,000 voters in Great Britain. [24 % of C1 voters voted Liberal Democrat : the same as the national % Liberal Democrat vote : this figure is not included in the table!]

I hope  to add further information in the future on aspects of Liberal Democrat politics .

• Opinion Poll Data and Some Major Political Events and Issues : 2005-2010

1. Click here for "A Journalist's  Guide to Opinion Polls" written for the British Polling Council by Peter Kellner

2. Click here for BBC information on the construction of its own Poll Tracker and on the polling techniques of several main polling organisations.

3. Click here for Guardian ICM Poll Data providing information on several key events

4. Click here for BBC Tracker providing information on several key events

5. Click here Guardian Coverage: The Election Day by Day  [236 photographs and articles]

6. Click here for The Guardian: General Election 2010: Ten datasets that shaped the campaign

• The Result of the UK 2010 General Election with some Comparisons

Share of UK Vote and Number of Parliamentary Seats Won

Note. In 2010 the combined % share of the vote of  the SNP, PC, N.Irish Parties, Minor Parties, Independents and the Speaker was11.9% and their  combined % seat share was 4.6%

Click here for more detailed results of the 2010 General Election from the BBC which includes detailed information  on votes cast for the minor parties.

1. The above statistics have been collated from House of Commons Research Papers on the 1997, 2001, 2005 and 2010 General Elections. They treat the Speaker as separate from the political party to which s/he actually belongs .

2. The Butler swing from Labour to Conservative is defined as the average of the % Conservative gain  and the % Labour loss between two General Elections and it was estimated that the  Conservatives would require a uniform nation swing of 7% between 2005 and 2010 for them to secure an overall Parliamentary  in 2010 General Election  although they could still win with a smaller national swing if they nevertheless achieved  7% swings in sufficient marginal constituencies  to bring them overall victory. It has been rare in UK post- war General Elections for any party to achieve a national swing as great as 7% and in 2010  the national swing to the Conservatives was 5.0% and they did not perform well enough in marginal seats to win an overall  Parliamentary majority.

3. Thus 2010 the Conservatives polled the largest number of votes and gained the largest number of seat but not enough seats to form a single party majority government. Consequently a Coalition Government between the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats was formed.

4. Once again the lack of proportionality of the First Past the Post electoral system was abundantly clear: the system discriminated especially against the Liberal Democrats.

5. However the system also harmed the Conservative Party in the sense that whereas in 2005 Labour had secured a workable House of Commons majority with 35.2%of the votes cast the Conservatives were unable to do so in 2010 despite gaining 36.1% of the votes cast.

6. Further information  on important aspects of the 2010 General Election result can be found in  Electoral Reform Society publications .

7. Click here for a Radio 4 programme on bias in the UK electoral system.

8. Labour's vote share at 29% indicated that this was clearly a very poor result for them [only 1.4% better than in 1983] but the operation of the electoral system helped them  to retain 258 seats : many more than the Conservatives retained in 1997 and 2001 despite gaining 31.5% and 31.7% respectively of the votes cast.

9. Labour's share of the vote was its second lowest since 1918 [only 1983 was lower] and so clearly Labour has much to do if it is to recover the share of the vote which it achieved in 1997.

10. You may click on the following links for BBC coverage of the General Election results in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales respectively. You may also click here for a concise  BBC item comparing voting trends  in England, Scotland and Wales and here for some further analysis from the BBC  of the General Election in Wales .

11. Measured as a proportion of the total Great Britain vote  the UK Independence Party vote share increased from 2.3% to 3.2% between 2005 and 2010; the BNP vote share increased from 0.7% to 1.9%; and the Green vote fell from1.1% to 1% although the Greens did win one seat , Brighton Pavilion, where Caroline Lucas, the leader of the Green party, was victorious. UKIP, the BNP and the Greens gained  much smaller shares of the vote in the 2010 General Election than in the European Parliament Elections of 2009 when the Parliamentary Expenses Scandal was at its height. However it is important to try to assess the extent to which UKIP votes may have led to reduced  Conservative support. I shall include some information on this in the near future.

12.  You may  click here for BBC coverage of the June 2009 European Parliament  Election Results 

Click here for Guardian coverage of estimates of outcomes of the 2010 General Election under alternative electoral systems

• Tactical Voting: External Links Only

I hope to provide information on Tactical Voting in the near future. Meanwhile I hope that you will find the following links useful

Click here and  here and  here for BBC items on tactical voting

• Social Influences on Voting Behaviour

I am extremely grateful to IPSOS MORI for permission to use the following data. IPSOS MORI are not  responsible in any way for the conclusions which I have drawn from the data.

• Some Comparisons between long -term relationships between  social class and voting behaviour and those that occurred in the 2010 General Election.

Click here for IPSOS MORI data on Social Influences on Voting Behaviour 1974[Oct] -2010

Oct  1974

1979

1983

1987

1992

1997

2001

2005

2010

Middle class (ABC1)
Conservative	56	59	55	54	54	39	38	37	39
Labour	19	24	16	18	22	34	34	30	27
Lib / Alliance / LD	21	15	28	26	21	20	22	26	26
Con lead	+37	+35	+39	+36	+32	+5	+4	+6	+12
Skilled working class (C2)
Conservative	26	41	40	40	39	27	29	33	37
Labour	49	41	32	36	40	50	49	40	29
Lib / Alliance / LD	20	15	26	22	17	16	15	19	22
Con lead	-23	0	+8	+4	-1	-23	-20	-7	+8
Semi / unskilled working class (DE)
Conservative	22	34	33	30	31	21	24	25	31
Labour	57	49	41	48	49	59	55	48	40
Lib / Alliance / LD	16	13	24	20	16	13	13	18	17
Con lead	-35	-15	-8	-18	-18	-38	-31	-23	-9

• The measurement of class voting presents considerable problems which have been dealt with elsewhere but it is now generally agreed that there have been long term declines in both partisan and class dealignment.

• It is difficult to summarise all of the relationships in the above table but essentially we see a significant decline in Labour's popularity between OCT 74 and 1983 followed by a gradual recovery under Neil Kinnock's leadership between 1983 and 1992 and significant improvement under Tony Blair in 1997. Labour's popularity was maintained between 1997 and 2001 but declined significantly between 2001 and 2005.

• In the Blair era it is notable that in 1997 and 2001 working class support for labour increased significantly but the increase in middle class support for Labour was even greater suggesting an overall decline in class voting between 1992 and 2001.

• In 2005 the decline in working class support for Labour was greater than the decline in middle class support for Labour  suggesting a further small overall decline in class voting.

• In 2010 the decline in working class support for Labour was again greater than the decline in middle class support for Labour suggesting further class dealignment between 2005 and 2010.

• As will be indicated below the patterns of support for Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat parties among AB, C1 and C2 voters were almost identical so that for these social classes the effect  of social class on voting behaviour had virtually disappeared although DE voters remained quite significantly more likely to vote Labour and less likely to vote Conservative than AB, C1 and C2 voters.  This is a very important point which students should  emphasise in any  answers to questions on the changing relationships between social class and voting behaviour .

• Social Influences on Voting Behaviour in the General Election of 2010

• Social Class and Voting Behaviour

Click here for IPSOS Mori Data on the Social Influences on voting behaviour in 2010

Click here for YouGov 2010 Survey for the Sun Newspaper [Fieldwork 2nd-3rd May] and Click here for a YouGov  2010  Survey for the Sun Newspaper [Fieldwork 4th -5th May]

Students should consult the original poll data for very detailed information on voting intentions in the 2010 General Election. For obvious reasons we should not expect the results from these polls to be identical but they do each illustrate the continuing weakening of the relationships between voting behaviour and social class .

Firstly let us consider the Ipsos Mori  estimates of the relationships between social class and voting behaviour where separate data are provided for   Social Classes AB, C1, C2 and DE

Social Class and Voting Behaviour 2010 {Percentage changes since 2005 are  in brackets] : Ipsos Mori Data]

Social Class	Conservative %	Labour%	Liberal Democrat%	Other%
AB	39   [+2}	26   [-2]	29  [ 0]	7   [ +5]
C1	39   [+2}	28   [-4]	24  [+1]	9    [+4]
C2	37   [+4]	29  [-11]	22  [ +3]	12    [0]
DE	31   [+6]	40   [-8]	17   [-1]	12   [+3]

 

On the basis of these data  we may note the following points in relation to relationships between social class and voting behaviour in 2010.

1. Between 2005 and 2010 the swing to from Labour to Conservative was much smaller among AB and C1 voters than among C2 and DE voters.

2. Whereas Labour lost 2% of its AB support ad 4% of its C1 support  it lost 11% of its C2 support and 8%  of its DE support.

3. Correspondingly the increase in Conservative support was smaller among AB voters [2%] and C1 voters [2%] than among C2 voters [4%] and DE voters [6%].war General Elections.

4. Among Social Classes AB, C1 and C2 patterns of voting behaviour were very similar  .That is: among social classes AB, C1 and C2 class voting virtually disappeared in 2010 and  the well known statement from  Peter Pulzer in the 1960s that "Class is the basis of British Politics: all else is embellishment and detail." which had become decreasingly accurate since the 1970s certainly does not describe the patterns of voting behaviour which occurred in 2010.

5. However DE voters were still 9% more likely to vote Labour than to vote Conservative  and this means that although the relationship between social class and voting behaviour did weaken considerably between 2005 and 2010  working class voters as a whole were still slightly more likely to vote Labour and less likely to vote Conservative than were middle class voters . However this was a very far cry from the high point of class voting in the early 1950s.

Let us now turn to the findings of two  You Gov surveys: Click here for YouGov 2010 Survey for the Sun Newspaper [Fieldwork 2nd-3rd May] and Click here for a YouGov  2010  Survey for the Sun Newspaper [Fieldwork 4th -5th May]:

Social Class and Voting Behaviour 2010 {Data for 2nd-3rd May = Black: Data for 4th-5th May  = Blue You Gov Data]. Differences in the two sets of data as expected are very small

	Conservative	Labour	Liberal Democrat	Other
All voters [taking account of intention to vote]	35   35	28  28	28  28	9  9
ABC1="Middle class" ]	37  37	27   26	27  29	7  8
C2DE [="Working Class"]	33    32	29  31	27  26	11 11

1. Data from YouGov surveys differ from Ipsos Mori data in that YouGov data distinguish only between classes ABC1 [="the middle class] and C2DE [=the working class] .

2. These data indicate that social class differences in voting behaviour in 2010 were very small: thus taking the data for the 4th-5th May ABC1 voters were 5% more likely than C2DE voters to vote Conservative and that C2DE voters were 5% more likely than ABC1 voters to vote Labour. To reiterate : these are very small social class differences in voting behaviour.

As is pointed out in  both "Explaining Cameron's Coalition[2011]  by R. Worcester, R. Mortimore, P. Baines and M .Gill [pp 280-282] and by Peter Kellner in his article* in Reassessing New Labour [2011 edited by Patrick Diamond and Michael Kenny  it is especially important to note also that as a result of the combined effects of changes in the UK class structure which resulted in increased and reduced  relative sizes of the middle class and working class respectively,  social class differences in turnout [AB and C1 individuals are more likely to vote than C2 and DE individuals] and the significant decline in C2 and DE support for Labour the Labour Party actually received more middle class votes than working class votes. in 2010 . This is a very important point which students should  emphasise in any  answers to questions on the changing relationships between social class and voting behaviour . [*Peter Kellner's article is entitled "The Death of Class-Based Politics."]

Addendum March 2012 ;

 Social class differences in voting intention were clearly small at the 2010 General Election but parties' overall opinion poll ratings and relationships between social class and voting behaviour are also often volatile between General Elections. In the following  table the above  YouGov data  for May 2010 are repeated  but the RED data refer to the findings of a You Gov survey based on fieldwork March 27-28 2012  [following the March 2012 Budget and controversy around Conservative Party funding] for the the Sun Newspaper . Of course the large Labour lead in this poll may be temporary

 Click here for the  You Gov Survey based on fieldwork March 27-28 2012 for the the Sun Newspaper . Data from this survey appear in RED

	Conservative	Labour	Liberal Democrat	Other
All voters [taking into account intention to vote]	35    35   34	28   28   44	28   28  10	9    9 12
ABC1="Middle class" ]	37    37  38	27   26  40	27  29  11	7  8  11
C2DE [="Working Class"]	33    32   28	29  31  50	27  26   7	11 11  14

On the basis of this survey:

• Since May 2010 support for the Conservatives among the ABC1 voters has risen slightly [by1%] and fallen a little more  among C2DE voters [by 4%].

• There have been substantial increases in Labour support among ABC1voters [14%] and among C2DE voters [19%] in both cases at the expense of the Liberal Democrats.

• C2DE voters are  significantly more likely to vote Labour than to vote Conservative suggesting that the "Death of Class Politics" [see above] may not yet have occurred .

• However ABC1 voters are also very slightly more likely to vote Labour than to vote Conservative which is a far cry from the heyday of very strong middle class support for the Conservative Party.

• Of course we must draw no firm conclusions on the basis of one poll!

• Ethnicity and the 2010 General Election

Click here for a Runnymede Trust/BES Slide Presentation on Ethnic Minority Voting in the 2010 General Election 

Sociology students will be familiar with the important distinction between "race" [which is a biologically based concept of negligible scientific validity] and the much more useful concept of ethnicity which refers to the cultural, religious and linguistic aspects of different social groups' lives. I focus here on relationships between ethnicity and voting behaviour.

IPSOS MORI Estimates of Voting Behaviour in the General Election of 1997

When he became leader of the Conservative Party David Cameron stated that he hoped to promote the election of more Conservative BME MPs and this may have encouraged greater electoral support among BME voters for the Conservatives.  In the event in 2010 27 BME MPs were elected to Parliament:  16 Labour MPs , 11 Conservative MPs and zero Liberal Democrats. and so  Mr Cameron can claim to have made some progress in this respect. Nevertheless members of BME groups are still under-represented in Parliament: at the time of the 2001 Census BME members constituted 7.9% of the UK population but only 4.2% of MPs after the 2010 General Election. 

It has been argued that gradual changes in the UK class structure resulting in the increased representation of ethnic minority members within the UK middle class could be expected to lead to increased support for the Conservative party especially perhaps among Indian -origin and some -origin voters. However you may Click here for a Runnymede Trust/BES Slide Presentation on Ethnic Minority Voting in the 2010 General Election which suggests  that even though there has been some decline in Minority Ethnic support for Labour Minority Ethnic voters remained considerably more likely to vote Labour than to vote Conservative in 2010..

Click here for BBC Radio 4 Analysis programme on "A New Black Politics?" This programme lasts about 30 minutes and is  thought provoking and ,in parts, controversial. Perhaps it will also provoke class discussion!

• Region and Voting Behaviour

Voters in Scotland, Wales and the more northerly regions of Great Britain have traditionally more likely to vote Labour than Conservative  partly because there have traditionally been larger percentages of working class voters in these areas and because in areas of high working class concentration the likelihood that working class voters will in fact vote Labour tends to be greater. It has been noted elsewhere that the linkages between social class and voting behaviour have tended to weaken especially since the 1960s but it has also been argued that there are good reasons to believe that this process of class dealignment may be stronger in the South of England than in Northern England, Scotland and Wales.

Percentage Vote Shares of Conservatives, Labour, Liberal Democrats, SNP and PC 1997-2010

The following data illustrate regional differences in voting behaviour between 1997 and 2010. They have been collated from successive House of Commons Library Research Papers on the General Elections of 1997, 2001, 2005 and 2010. {Notice that I have included the SNP and PC votes as percentages of the Scottish and Welsh votes respectively but have not included the SNP and PC votes as percentages of the GB and UK votes; neither have I included data on votes for other UK parties nor on the vote shares of the Northern Irish parties. Interested students may consult the original sources for these data. ] 

With regard to the General Elections of 1997, 2001 , 2005 and 2010 if we compare the General Election results of 1997 and 2010 we may note the following main regional trends

• Notice that in each of the 4  General Elections English voters have been more pro-Conservative and less pro-Labour than Scottish and Welsh voters.

• However note that in both 1997 and 2001 English voters were nevertheless more likely to vote Labour than to vote Conservative. In 2005 and 2010 the reverse was the case.

• Labour's large 1997 leads over the Conservatives in the North East, the North West and Yorkshire and Humberside diminished substantially by 2010.

• The East Midlands and the West Midlands  were pro-Labour in 1997 but pro-Conservative in 2010.

• London was strongly pro-Labour in 1997 but only narrowly pro-Labour in 2010.

• The Conservatives' 1997 lead over Labour in the East ,the South East and the South West increased considerably by 2010.

• Between 1997 and 2010 there was little overall change in Labour's lead over the Conservatives in Scotland.

• Support for Labour actually increased between 2005 and 2010: the only Country/region where this occurred. Reasons included Gordon Brown's Scottishness, the fact that the Liberal Democrats had discarded two Scottish leaders and the possibility that  the SNP rather than the Labour Government received more blame for economic difficulties in Scotland. Notice also that David Cameron's strategy seemed to fall on many deaf ears in Scotland.

• Support for Labour in Wales declined very considerably between 1997 and 2010 and the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats gained approximately equally as  a result of the decline in Labour's support .

• Liberal Democrat support in creased between 1997 in all of the English Regions and in Scotland and Wales . However interestingly, the increase in Liberal Democrat support was smallest in the South West which has traditionally been the area most strongly in support of the Liberal Democrats leading to speculation that Liberal Democrat support may have peaked , at least temporarily in the South West.

• The final row of the second table provides a measure of regional variation  [RV] in voting behaviour in the general elections of 2005 and 2010.  For each main  political party the RV statistic  shows the percentage difference in voter support  between the most popular region and the least popular countries/regions. You may notice for example that the regional variation in support for the  Lib Dems  is lower than for the Conservative and Labour parties and that the RV increased for the Conservative Party increased by more than the RVs for  Labour and Liberal Democrats.

• Social Influences on Turnout

[Click here for IPSOS Mori Data on the Social Influences on voting behaviour in 2010. This document also provides detailed estimates of the social influences on turnout in Great Britain and of the changes in the social distribution of the turnout since 2005.]

Click here for information from the BBC on regional differences in turnout

The main trends were as follows:

1. Overall GB turnout was estimated as 65%.

2. Male turnout [66%] was slightly higher than female turnout [64%].

3. There were significant age differences in turnout ranging from 37% for 18-24 year olds to 75% for those aged 65+.

4. There were significant gender differences in turnout among voters aged 18-24 but not among other age groups. Turnout among males 18-24 was 50% but only 39% among females aged 18-24.

5. There were significant Social Class differences in turnout ranging from 76% among AB voters to 57 % among DE voters .

6. Voter turnout varied significantly according to housing tenure: turnout among home owners was 74%, among mortgage holders 66%, among social renters  55% and among private renters 55%.

7. I hope to include some information on ethnicity and turnout fairly soon.

This link lists the percentage turnouts in every constituency.

Manchester Central [44.31%], Leeds Central [46.01%] and Birmingham Ladywood [48.66%] had the lowest turnouts and Renfrewshire East [77.26%], Westmoreland and Lonsdale [76.86%] and Richmond Park [76.23%] had the highest turnouts.

• The Mass Media and the General Election

. I hope to provide some further information on the Mass Media and the 2010 General Election fairly soon which Meanwhile the following paragraphs recycle some general information on the Mass Media and voting behaviour from an earlier document and you may also find the subsequent links useful.

1. Click here for a Guardian Item on the Press and the General Election

2. Click here for a Guardian Item on TV and The General Election

3. A detailed analysis of relationships between newspaper readership and voting behaviour n 2010 can be found via the following link to the Ipsos Mori site. 

• Some Data on Party Identification and Voting Behaviour 1997-2010

Although Party Identification is a weaker now than in the 1945-1970 era it nevertheless still influences the voting behaviour of many individuals. From the above data it is clear that in some General Elections parties poll above their core levels  of support as measured by the Party Identification data and that in other general elections they poll below their core levels of support . Thus in 1997 the Labour Party polled significantly above its core level of support and in 2001 and 2005 the Conservative Party  polled significantly above its core level of support which was, however, very low especially in 2005 when around the time of the 2005 General Election only 16% of respondents actually identified with the Conservative Party.

Turning to the 2010 General Election we may note the following points

1. Identification with the Conservative Party increased from 16% to 30 % between 2005 and 2010 which can perhaps be taken as evidence of partial success for David Cameron's overall political strategy.

2. Furthermore Conservative electoral support at 36.1% was 6.1% higher than its core support  as measured by the party identification data.

3. However Labour identification was actually higher than Conservative identification and Conservative identification was only marginally greater than in 1997 when the Conservatives were heavily defeated.

4. Labour might take a little comfort from the possibility that it may be able to win back some of the 6% of Conservative voters who did not actually identify with the Conservative Party although nobody is suggesting that this will necessarily be easy.

5.  Between the May 2010 General Election and December 2011 Labour has often led the Conservatives slightly in the opinion polls but it might be argued that , given the scale of unemployment and economic uncertainty , their opinion poll ratings have been disappointing , and, even worse from  Labour's perspective, in the course of December 2011 the Conservatives have actually opened up a small opinion poll lead over Labour. David Cameron will be hoping that more voters are actually beginning to identify with the Conservatives..

Click here for the full Ipsos Mori Data on Party Identification  2001-2008

Click here for the full Ipsos Mori Data on Party Identification 1993-2010

• Issues, Party Policies and the 2010 General Election

Click here for the BBC on Parties and Issues 

On the basis of the Ipsos Mori  "Political Triangle"  in which respondents are asked to allocate marks out of 10 for political issues, political leadership and political parties as influences on their General Election voting decision political leadership and political issues were seen as of equal importance as influences on voting decisions and both were seen as more significant than political parties themselves. Click here for the IPSOS MORI Slide Presentation on the 2010 General Election and scroll to Slide 11.

From the 1970s it has been argued by proponents of issue voting models of voting behaviour that for increasing numbers of voters the key determinants of voting behaviour are the party policies on issues that the voters consider to be most salient and in Issue Voting Models it has been argued that General Elections were likely to be won by the Party which had the preferred policies on the most salient political issues. It is , however, important to remember that survey respondents may state preferences for a the policies of a particular party on a particular issue because of a prior allegiance to [or identification with] that particular party rather than because they genuinely favour that party's policies all of which means that the impact of issues and policies on voting behaviour does remain uncertain.

Major opinion poll research companies collect data on issue salience and on political parties' ratings on individual issues  and there are very important similarities between the findings of different surveys of different companies which enable analysts to draw some important general conclusions about voting trends. However there are also some important variations in survey results deriving from the statistical point that random samples of about 1000 are subject to a margin of error of plus or minus three percent, from slight differences in some of the questions asked, in different polls, from differences of timing of different polls and from other technical details relating to different polls Disregarding for the time being the variations in survey finding we may draw the following general conclusions in relation to issue salience and political parties ratings on particular issues. [See also A Journalist's Guide to Opinion Polls by Peter Kellner for the British Polling Council]

1. All major surveys indicated that in broad terms the Conservatives' overall policies  were preferred to Labour's policies. Click here for the IPSOS MORI Slide Presentation on the 2010 General Election and scroll to slide 29.

2. All major surveys indicate that voters believed the most salient issue of the 2010 General Election was the state of the economy.

3. All major surveys indicated that at the time of the 2010 General Election the Conservatives were narrowly preferred to Labour as the Party best able to manage the UK economy effectively. Click here for the IPSOS MORI Slide Presentation on the 2010 General Election and scroll to slides 32-36.

4. All Major surveys indicate that Health, Education, Immigration/Asylum/Race Relations and Crime/Law and Order were among the other most salient issues in the 2010 General Election.

5. Longer term data , for example from the Ipsos Mori Monthly Issues Index suggest that the salience of Immigration/Asylum and Crime/Law and Order increased between 2001 and 2005 and between 2005 and 2010. Other things equal one would expect such trends to have improved the electoral prospects of the Conservative Party.

6. Longer  term data suggest that Labour continued to be preferred to the Conservatives on Health but that its lead on this issue was declining between 2001 and 2005 and between 2005 and 2010. Labour's ratings on Education were also declining : by 2010 in some polls Labour still enjoyed a narrow lead but in others the Conservatives were actually the preferred party on education. 

7. All major surveys indicate that the MPs [and peers] Expenses Scandal had only a very limited impact on voting intentions in 2010 .  Click here for the IPSOS MORI Slide Presentation on the 2010 General Election and scroll to slide 41.

For purposes of Advanced Level Examinations students should emphasise the above seven points but I include further information below on some of the technicalities  involved in the collection of these data along with additional more detailed information on Issue Saliency and respondents' preferred party on key issues. Different polling organisations use different samples and may phrase their questions about issue saliency differently and all poll findings in any case are subject to a small margin of error. 

Consequently although there are substantial agreements in the poll findings of different polling organisations there are also some variations in the relative saliency of different issues and in the parties' ratings on particular issues. However Advanced Level students  should take advice from their teachers as to the depth of knowledge of these matters which is actually required for Advanced Level examination purposes

 Issues and Policies : Some Technicalities

As a result of differences in the nature of different surveys themselves  there are also important variations in the findings of different surveys some of which are outlined in the following table adapted from Ipsos Mori and You Gov Poll data.

• In their monthly Issues Index Ipsos Mori collect monthly poll data from respondents answers to two questions related to salient political issues; [1] What would you say is the most important issue facing Britain today? and [2] What do you see as other important issues facing Britain today?  . You may click as appropriate to access the commentary and data in the Ipsos Mori  April 2010 Issues Index. The data indicate the most salient issues in April 2010 and trends in the relative saliency of different issues over time. In April 2010 the economy is shown to be the most salient issue and the salience of both race relations and immigration and immigration and law and order have increased in recent years while the salience of Health and Education have declined recently although they were  still considered to be the fourth and fifth most salient issues respectively in April 2010.

• However Ipsos Mori argue that it is important also to conduct surveys in which respondents are asked specifically which issues are very important or important  in influencing respondents' actual voting decisions and in the  Ipsos Mori Political Monitor  reported below respondents are asked to assess the importance  for their voting decision of  a range of listed issues and I shall concentrate on these Political Monitor data rather than the Issue Index data which give abetter guide to the  electoral salience of particular issues  and you may click here for the  March 2010 Political Monitor .

• Ipsos Mori also collect data on the Best Party on Key Political Issues  and present two series of data:  the answers of respondents who have already mentioned specific issues as salient and also the answers of all respondents to the survey whether or not respondents have mentioned particular issues as salient. For some issues and policies the differences between these two sets of data are small but in the case of Crime/Law and Order and Immigration/Race relations/asylum respondents who stated these issues to be important were especially likely to support Conservative policies on these issues. Ipsos Mori argue that the data from respondents believing particular issues to be salient are likely to be a better guide to voting intention than the data from all respondents. Click here for the Ipsos Mori data  [from BPOKI Research] .The Charts in this presentation refer to all respondents and not only to respondents who have mentioned particular issues as important but the more detailed numerical tables refer to all respondents and to respondents who have mentioned particular issues as important factors influencing their voting decision. Interested students can also peruse Ipsos Mori longer term trends relating to  Best Party on Key Issues data .

• Ipsos Mori also provide an exceptional overall presentation on the 2010 General Election. The data on issue saliency in this presentation are taken from the Political Monitor and the data on BPOKI refer to all respondents and not to respondents who have stated that particular issues are salient. Click here for the IPSOS MORI Slide Presentation on the 2010 General Election.

• You Gov collect similar information but there are various technical differences as between the Ipsos Mori surveys and the You Gov surveys which unsurprisingly result in slight differences in the findings of the different surveys although in several respects the Ipsos Mori and You Gov results are broadly similar. You may Click here for YouGov  May 2010 Issue Saliency data[ From a YouGov Poll for the Sun Newspaper : fieldwork  4th-5th May] a and  Click here for YouGov May  2010 for  Best party on Issues data. [From You Gov Poll for the Sun Newspaper: Fieldwork 2nd-3rd May]

• In the following table  I attempt to summarise some of the main findings for the above mentioned Ipsos Mori and You Gov sources. Students should of course consult the original sources for further details. 

Issue Saliency and Party Political Ratings 2010 [with some comparisons with 2001 and 2005] [I have made a few minor clarifications to the column headings in this table  on February 6th 2012. Also this table may originally not have worked in some browsers. Hopefully it does now!]]

In relation to this table we may note the following points.

1. The Ipsos Mori Political Monitor and the You Gov survey invites respondents to choose issues from a given list  issues which will have an important influence on voting decision. The Ipsos Mori and You Gov lists are not identical and respondents may choose as many issues as they wish in the Ipsos Mori surveys but a maximum of three issues in the You Gov surveys. Consequently we should expect some variation as between the Ipsos Mori and You Gov survey results

2. The Economy is shown to be the most important/salient issue in both  surveys

3. There is some variation in issue saliency rankings as between these different surveys. Race relations/ Asylum/Immigration, Crime/Law and Order, Health and Education are all seen as salient issues in Ipsos Mori and You Gov surveys  but whereas Health and Education outrank Asylum/immigration in the Ipsos Mori Political Monitor data the reverse is the case in the  You Gov Survey. Crime/ Law and violence are seen as the 7th most salient Ipsos Mori data and the 6th most salient issue in the You Gov data and so there is considerable agreement here.

4. In column 2 the Ipsos Mori BPOKI data indicate that in 2010 the Conservatives were preferred to Labour on the Economy, Education [very narrowly and there were tied rankings among respondents mentioning the issue as important], Asylum /Immigration, Taxation, Crime and Anti-social behaviour, Defence and MPs' Expenses [although the Liberal Democrats were preferred to the Conservatives and to Labour on this issue.] Labour were preferred to the Conservatives on Health, Unemployment and Benefits.

5. In column 5 we see that respondents in the You Gov Survey expressed similar preferences although there were some differences. Labour was narrowly preferred to the Conservatives on Education and the Conservatives were preferred to Labour on Unemployment ... perhaps a little surprisingly.

6. As is indicated by the Ipsos Mori data in column three there was also a deterioration in  Labour's ratings between 2001 and 2005 and between 2005 and 2010 on all of the most important issues as is indicated by the Ipsos Mori data in column three.

On the basis of these data we see that the combined effects of changes in issue salience and improvements in respondents' ratings of Conservative policies on the most salient issues of the General election could be expected to result in improvements in the Conservatives' overall poll ratings. However the Conservatives would still fail to achieve outright victory.

The Economy and the General Election

For much of 2008 and 2009 the Conservatives were preferred to Labour as the party best able to manage the economy but their lead on this issue tended to narrow in late 2009 and early 2010.tDuring the Campaign the Conservatives'  lead over the Labour Party on the economy was generally small and, indeed , there were some polls at some times during the Campaign which gave Labour a small lead over the Conservatives on the economy. In answer to  the IPSOS MORI Survey question "Which Party has the best policies on the economy? " respondents replied Conservative  29%: Labour 26% , Liberal Democrats 12%: Other/None/Don't Know 36%. A small Conservative lead over Labour . Click here for the IPSOS MORI Slide Presentation on the 2010 General Election. and scroll to  slides 32-36 for Ipsos Mori data on attitudes to parties and the economy.

The  economy  was considered to be the most salient issue of the campaign which is hardly surprising given the onset of the Credit Crunch, the depth of the economic recession from 2008 to 2009 , the possibly precarious economic recovery in 2010, the parlous state of the public finances and the likelihood of  public expenditure reductions and tax increases once the General Election was over.  George Osborne had promised in 2007 that, if elected the Conservatives would match Labour's Public Expenditure plans up to 2010-2011  but with the onset of the credit crunch and the economic recession the Conservatives developed a much more critical analysis of Labour's economic policies.

1. They claimed that  the onset of the credit crunch and subsequent economic recession revealed clearly  that Gordon Brown's much vaunted claim to have "abolished boom and bust" via effective management of the economy amounted to a gross distortion of the economic realities.

2. According to the Conservatives the financial crisis which enveloped first Northern Rock and then major UK banks such as RBS and HBOS arose to a considerable extent because of the failure of the inefficient system of financial regulation which had been introduced by Gordon Brown.

3. The UK's relatively high rate of economic growth high had been fuelled by excessive growth of personal and private corporate debt which  were unsustainable in the long term.

4. Labour's high rates of public expenditure in the boom years meant that  Labour had failed to build up the budget surpluses which could be used to offset the budget deficits which would inevitably occur as a result of Government attempts to deal with the effects of the credit crunch combined with the effects of economic recession. Consequently both the public sector borrowing requirement and the size of the national debt were increasing alarmingly.

5. The increases in the PSBR and the National Debt  carried the threat that international credit rating agencies would downgrade the UK's AAA credit rating which would result in higher interest rates and increased borrowing costs which  would further undermine the Government's finances and  discourage both private investment and consumption which would restrict the possibilities of economic recovery.

6. Keynesian- inspired attempts to generate economic recovery via the continuation of high levels of government spending and borrowing would inevitably fail and deeper cuts to public spending than were eventually proposed by Labour would be necessary if economic recovery was to be secured. During the General Election Campaign the Conservatives focused upon the need for immediate reductions of government expenditure of £6B over and above those proposed by the Labour Party

7. The Conservatives recognised that these public spending cuts would lead to increased public sector unemployment but they promised that the burdens of public spending cuts would be evenly shared because "We are all in this together" and promised that they would introduce measures which would promote private sector employment thereby offsetting the effects of declining employment in the public sector.

8. The Conservatives also attacked Labour's record on poverty and inequality. Thus they claimed that under Labour even if overall poverty levels had declined extreme poverty had actually increased; that income inequality as measured by trends in the value of the Gini Coefficient had actually increased between 19997 and 2010 and that rates of social mobility had fallen indicating a reduction in equality of opportunity.  David Cameron stated on several occasions that a future Conservative Government should be judged on the  effectiveness of its policies in improving the living standards and the life chances of the most disadvantaged members of UK society. We shall see .

Of course Labour rejected these arguments

1. According  to Labour the financial crisis derived primarily from external causes, most importantly from the implications of the  excessive growth of sub prime mortgages in the USA.

2. The Economic recession in the UK and elsewhere was itself caused primarily by the international financial crisis for which Labour were not responsible.

3. Labour's taxation and spending policies prior to 2007 had been entirely sensible and responsible . Neither the budget deficit [PSBR] nor the national debt had been especially high prior to the financial crisis and the economic recession but it was the financial crisis and the economic recession which caused the subsequently  rapidly growing imbalances in the public finances.

4. Labour had responded effectively to the financial crisis and the economic recession and recognised that tax increases and government spending reductions would be necessary in the longer term. but claimed that Conservative proposals would result in too rapid tax increase and public expenditure reductions which would put at risk the economic recovery which was apparently now underway.

5. Labour rejected the Conservatives' claims in relation to poverty, income inequality and social mobility. Thus they emphasised that they had reduced overall poverty and that the data suggesting that extreme poverty had increased are recognised by statistical experts to be unreliable; that even if income inequality had increased Labour's taxation and social benefits policies had significantly reduced income inequality in comparison with the inequality levels which would have occurred if Conservative policies had remained in place; and that insofar as social mobility rates were declining this could be explained to a considerable extant as a consequence of the increased economic inequality which occurred during the years of previous Conservative governments , especially those of Mrs Thatcher.

During the General Election Campaign the Conservatives focused upon the need for immediate reductions of government expenditure of £6B over and above those proposed by the Labour Party while both Labour and the Liberal Democrats argued that these additional public expenditure reductions  were likely to undermine the current potentially fragile economic recovery [although once in coalition the Liberal Democrats  acquiesced in the Conservative programme of public expenditure cuts on the grounds that Greek economic problems pointed  to the possibility of a growing crisis of confidence in the British economy leading to increased interests rates if the international bond markets lost confidence in the viability of the incoming Coalition Government's debt reduction programme.]

Click here for BBC data on recent economic trends charting the extent of recession. 

Click here for Guardian comparisons of Labour and previous Conservative economic records

 Some of the disagreements among professional economists around these issues of economic policy are outlined in an Observer article published about one month after the General Election.

Click here for a page of links on analysis of state of UK economy .

• Party Images and the 2010 General Election

Ipsos Mori publish very detailed trends upon a range of topics relating to the public images of the political parties. I have extracted and rearranged the information in the following table from this original Ipsos Mori table.

Although Labour's image as measured by several criteria deteriorated between 1997 and2001 and between 2001 and 2005 Labour's image was nevertheless still more favourable than the Conservatives' image by 2005. However note that on several criteria the image ratings of the Labour and Conservative Parties narrowed very substantially. Note also that on some important criteria , especially criterion 1 , all parties gained consistently poor ratings .

Percentages of the Electorate believing that the Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat Parties are......

In general terms between 1997 and 2010 Conservative party ratings have tended to improve and Labour's have tended to deteriorate on the basis of the criteria Used by Ipsos Mori. Between 2005 and 2010 Conservative ratings improved especially according to the following criteria: : they are now seen as more likely than Labour to understand the problems ; as having a better team of leaders than Labour; as having more sensible policies than Labour; and as more professional in their approach than Labour. The Conservatives in 2010 were also less likely than in 2005 to be seen as divided; less extreme ; less out of touch with ordinary people and less likely to promise anything to get elected. However it is important to note that even though the Conservative Party image has improved according to a range of criteria   its ratings remain lower  on several criteria than were those of the Blair Governments especially in 1997 and 2001. 

 

• Spatial Issues, Valence Issues and Party Leadership and the 2010 General Election

1. As has been pointed out elsewhere it has become increasingly important in the analysis of voting behaviour to between Spatial Issues and Valence Issues. Spatial issues are those on which political parties  adopt different political positions: [for or against privatisation; for or against increased taxation; for or against increased government spending; for or against greater economic equality; for or against industrial relations legislation sympathetic to the trade unions  and so on]  whereas valence issues are those on which there is a general consensus among political parties and voters in that for example all political parties and all voters are in favour of increased economic efficiency , improved living standards, better health care and reduced crime and on these issues voters are assumed to choose between the political parties on the basis of their assessments of the likely competence of the political parties to achieve these objectives.

2. Especially important are the voters assessments of the economic competence of the political parties but it is also possible that even if voters approve of a particular party's policies on particular issues they may still doubt the competence of that party to implement its stated policies effectively thereby undermining that party's electoral prospects. It has been argued also that the increased importance of valence issues has increased the importance of political leadership as a determinant of voting behaviour as voters' perceptions of overall party political competence are nowadays said to depend heavily of their relative perceptions of the competence of different party leaders.

3. In the era of strong party identification prior to the 1970s it was usually argued that leadership effects on voting behaviour were much weaker than the effects of  party identification. There were very strong correlations between party identification and leadership preferences and where there was no such correlation it was clear that voting decisions were influenced more strongly by voters' party identification than by their leadership preferences.

4. It has been argued more recently that in the era of declining party identification and increasing mass media focus on the political leaders that political leadership is an increasingly important influence on voting behaviour. This may arise especially if party policy differences on spatial salient issues are  relatively small because in these circumstances perceptions of overall governing competence to deliver on valence issues [such as improved living standards, better health care and reduced crime] are  likely to be more significant determinants of voting behaviour and it is the perceived abilities [or otherwise] of the  party leaders [and other significant members of the leadership team] which are crucial to the creation of an image of governing competence.

5. Using this line of argument voters relative preference for John Major over Neil Kinnock in 1992 helped to improve the Conservatives' overall ratings for economic competence and thereby helped them to win the 1992 General Election while voters' preferences for Tony Blair over John Major [1997], William Hague [2001 ] and Michael Howard [2205] are considered by many to have been important influences on the General Election results of 1997, 29001 and 2005 although it has also been argued that Blair's declining popularity did cost Labour votes in 2005 although he was at least still more popular than Michael Howard. Nevertheless some controversy still exists: some famous analysts such as Ivor Crewe argued for example that in 2001 the Conservatives lost more because William Hague was unable to offset  the unpopular policies and image of the Conservative Party than because he actually added to Conservative unpopularity. 

6. In the General Elections of 1997, 2001 and 2005 Tony Blair was rated more highly as the best potential Prime Minister than any of the Conservative and Liberal Democrat leaders contesting these General Elections although his opinion poll lead over Michael Howard in 2005 was lower than his lead of John Major in 1997 and William Hague in 2001.

IPSOS MORI Data: Who would make the most capable Prime Minister?

 Gordon Brown did experience a short honeymoon in the early stages of his Premiership when both the Labour Party and Mr. Brown personally achieved higher opinion poll ratings than the Conservative Party and Mr. Cameron personally. However following the postponement of an expected General Election the poll ratings of Mr Brown and of the Labour Party declined, recovered slightly in the early stages of the "credit crunch" but then declined mainly as a result of the combined effects of the economic recession, the MPs expenses scandal and the perceived relatively poor performance of Gordon Brown as Prime Minister. However Gordon Brown's ratings did improve slightly in 2010.

Click here for the IPSOS MORI Slide Presentation on the 2010 General Election and scroll to slides 13-19 for Information on Party Leadership 

1. On May 5th, the day before the General Election in answer to the IPSOS MORI question "Who do you think would make the most capable Prime Minister best Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, David Cameron or Nick Clegg  respondents answered: 33% David Cameron, 29% Gordon Brown, 19% Nick Clegg, 19% Non/Don't Know. We may note that David Cameron achieved significantly higher poll ratings  than previous Conservative leaders [except John Major in 1992] but that his ratings were lower than those of Tony Blair in 2005 and not much higher than those of Gordon Brown in 2010.

2. The Conservatives were seen as having the best team of leaders and the best senior leaders but in each case their leads over Labour were small [5% and 3% respectively.

3. On some criteria Gordon Brown was preferred to both David Cameron and Nick Clegg.

Click here for the BES Slide Presentation on the 2010 General Election. You might like especially to compare the IPSOS MORI and BES Poll ratings of the Party leaders.

Click here for UK Polling Report data on Party leadership ratings 2005-2010 which indicate that  David Cameron often held a double figure lead over Gordon Brown in 2008 and 2009  but his lead did narrow considerably in 2010 as did the Conservatives' lead over Labour. Thus in 2010 David Cameron's lead over Gordon Brown was usually in single figures although one May 2010 poll did give David Cameron a 12% lead.

• The Parliamentary Expenses Scandal

 For several years there have been obvious signs of increasing dissatisfaction with and disengagement from the institutions of the UK political system as indicated by the growth of partisan dealignment, the decline in party membership, the low levels of electoral turnout and the low levels of trust in politicians reported in opinion polls. Voters have been alienated by what they perceived as the "sleaze " of previous Conservative Governments[1979-1997] and the "spin" and alleged financial malpractice in the era of Labour governments [1997-2010] . It has been suggested that the origins of the 2009 MPs' Expenses Scandal lay in decisions of successive governments since the early 1980s not to fund [for fear of antagonising public opinion] the substantial increases in MPs' pay recommended by independent inquiries  but instead to acquiesce quietly in an increasingly generous and loosely regulated MPs' expenses which was to compensate "subtly" for the limited increases in MPs' salaries.

Increasingly , however, the MPs' Expenses system itself attracted criticism which MPs sought to deflect but in 2008 the  High Court  ruled in 2008 that Parliament had no legal right to disregard demands for full disclosure of MPS expenses and when Harriet Harman's efforts to prevent full disclosure failed and evidence of MPs questionable expenses claims [ such as those of Home Secretary Jacqui Smith] began to leak out it was agreed that the  office of Registrar of Members Interests would copy all relevant MPS. expenses data onto disc with a view to eventual publication. However it came as no real surprise when a government official leaked this information to a national newspaper , the Daily Telegraph, reportedly in exchange for payment of £150,000, and the Daily Telegraph began daily publication of MPs and Ministers' expenses claims on May 8th 2009.

Many Peers and MPs were shown to have behaved entirely honestly and reasonably in relation to their expenses claims and only four MPs [all Labour] and two Conservative Peers were actually found guilty of illegal behaviour and imprisoned. However a substantial number of MPs and Peers Expenses claims involved questionable interpretation of the rules governing expenses claims while the rules themselves soon came to be regarded widely as inappropriate. Attention focussed especially on  the questionable designation of second homes, the "flipping " of homes for financial gain and claims for  expenses not remotely connected with MPs' and Peers' political duties:  gardening expenses, house repair, expensive furniture, duck houses and moat cleaning involved claims of hundreds and in some cases thousands of pounds while in other cases there were claims for "adult" CDs, newspapers, toilet seats and even Remembrance Day wreaths which, although not financially comparable to the huge salaries  and bonuses currently being earned in the financial sector ,were seen by many as pointing to the penny- pinching small mindedness of some Honourable Members. 

Opinion Poll data suggested initially that the MPs' Expenses Scandal had intensified already existing high levels of dissatisfaction with the political system and it was also widely believed that the  scandal was especially likely to harm Labour partly because Labour was after all the governing party and partly also because David Cameron's handling of the crisis was widely seen as more effective than Gordon Brown's. Brown's ill-judged  and poorly executed response in a You Tube video attracted widespread derision  which was if anything intensified  by dismissive references to it by Hazel Blears [who was herself attracting considerable criticism as a result of her own dubious interpretation of the rules surrounding the designation of here second home which obliged her to repay several thousand pounds of claimed expenses. Brandishing a cheque for several thousand pounds while many were now increasingly suffering the effects of recession did little to enhance her or Labour's popularity.]

However it has also been argued that the Expenses Scandal may also have harmed the Conservatives who were to some extent deflected temporarily from reinforcing the issue agenda which they hoped would ultimately win  the General Election. In the event although the scandal certainly contributed to the reduced electoral support for all three main political parties and to the increased support for minor parties , especially for UKIP, in the 2009 European Parliament Elections it is likely that its impact on the General Election result was much weaker.

• Overall support for the political system recovered to its pre-Scandal levels.

• A particularly large number of MPs  decided not to seek re-election which could be expected to reduce the impact of the scandal

• Electoral Turnout increased by 3.9%

• Support for non-mainstream political parties increased only slightly by 1.5%.

• Few voters now mentioned the Expenses Scandal as a salient factor influencing their voting behaviour

[Students who require more detailed information on the Parliamentary Expenses Scandal may consult this Wikipedia link and these  BBC links one and two . Click here for BBC coverage of the career of Speaker Martin and here for the events surrounding his resignation. Click here for BBC information on imprisoned Labour MPs and Conservative Peers and Click here for BBC information on Labour Peer Baroness Uddin and click here for the factors leading to the resignation of Labour MP Ian Gibson.  Click here for a Guardian Editorial suggesting that Ian Gibson had been an effective MP and that he will be missed.]

• The General Election of 2010: A Summary

• The General Election of 2010 resulted in a Hung Parliament which subsequently led to the formation of a Coalition Government of Conservatives and Liberal Democrats.

• The Poll Ratings of Nick Clegg and of the Liberal Democrats as a result of his strong performance in the first debate  and the success of Nick Clegg  and the resultant transformation of the polls alarmed both of the main parties and led to the orchestration in the Conservative Press of a series of anti- Liberal Democrat editorials [often targeted particularly on the dangers of a Hung Parliament and the threats of electoral reform] as well as articles personally critical of Nick Clegg. Furthermore the Conservative Party itself organised a "Spoof" party Political Broadcast designed to emphasise the weaknesses[ according to Conservatives] of Proportional Representation

• However although the Poll ratings of the Liberal Democrats and of Nick Clegg remained at historically high levels, they did decline gradually as Election day approached. and  further disappointments for the Liberal Democrats arose as their actual electoral support fell below their ratings in final eve of election polls . Nevertheless relative to the lack lustre ratings of the Liberal Democrats in 2008 and 2009 the 2010 General Election result could be rated as more of a success.  

• The operation  of the FPTP electoral system discriminated against both the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats. In 2005  Labour had secured an overall House of Commons majority on the basis of 35.2% of the popular vote whereas in 2010 the Conservatives failed to secure an overall majority despite gaining 36.1% of the popular vote. As usual the FPTP system discriminated most against the Liberal Democrats.

• The result was clearly disappointing for Gordon Brown and the Labour Party whose share of the popular vote at xx% was its second lowest in the post 2nd World war period. Labour failed because it failed to articulate a credible overall strategy for the future government of the UK and its opinion poll leads in terms of preferred party policies on salient issues, on a range of image criteria and leadership criteria had declined quite significantly between 2001 and 2005 and declined even further between 2005 and 2010. Thus the Conservatives were the preferred party on the economy [which was the most salient issue of the campaign], on immigration and race relations and on law and order [which had become increasingly salient issues in the 2005 and 2010 General Elections] and even narrowly [in some but not all polls on Education [which had traditionally been a "Labour issue"]. Labour remained the preferred party on Health but by a narrower margin than in previous General Elections . Labour's lead on a range of image criteria such as looking after people in real  need and understanding the problems of Britain had also declined significantly especially in comparison with 1997 and 2001.

• Despite his apparent successes in relation to international financial matters Gordon Brown had failed to create an image of leadership competence and he failed to convince the electorate that he would be able to manage a process of necessary policy renewal within the Labour Party which left him open to the danger that many voters would now come to believe that after thirteen years of Labour Government it was now "time for a change". He also faced considerable political difficulties as a result of his perceived dithering over whether to call a General Election in Autumn 2007, the financial crisis,  the subsequent economic recession , his abolition of the 10p tax rate, the MPs' expenses crisis , the criticisms of his managerial style and his allegedly poor relations with ministers and senior civil servants and his poor presentational skills all of which led to three perhaps poorly organised and half-hearted attempts between 2007 and 2010 to force him to resign the leadership of the Labour Party . If even his own Party was dissatisfied with his leadership this could hardly be expected to encourage  confidence among the wider electorate while Brown's  so-called "Bigotgate"  gaffe could possibly have been expected to be the last straw [!] leading to Labour defeat and Conservative victory. But is was not to be...quite!

• David Cameron had what many people believed to be very effective communication skills and a strategy designed to improve the overall image of the Conservative Party and to develop voter-friendly policies  which would locate the Conservatives closer to the ideological spectrum than had been the case under the successive unsuccessful leaderships of William Hague, Iain Duncan Smith and Michael Howard. Cameron's aim in a nutshell was to "decontaminate the Conservative brand" by reforming the Conservative PPC selection procedures and focussing on issues such as the necessary expansion of public services and the protection of the environment while de-emphasising  traditional Conservative themes such as immigration and race relations, law and order, taxation reduction and Europe in the hope that once the brand had been detoxified the electorate would now be more willing to listen sympathetically to what the Conservatives had to say on traditional Conservative themes.

• In a phrase which was first coined during the leadership of Iain Duncan Smith this was to be the politics of AND: better public health services and tougher law and order; better schools and tougher immigration laws and so on. Opinion poll data suggest that Cameron's strategy was partially successful: he was preferred to Brown as a Prime Minister; the Conservatives were preferred to Labour as the Party best able to manage the economy; and Conservative ratings in other policy area and on other image criteria all improved but as the data presented in the main body of this document suggest the Conservative ratings simply did not increase enough to secure victory. Also given the parlous state of the Labour Party it must have been very disappointing to the Conservatives that they did not secure outright victory in these circumstances which seemed particularly favourable to them.

• Data from Ipsos Mori indicate that although David Cameron was perceived at the time of the 2010 General Election as most likely to make the most effective Prime Minister his overall lead over Gordon Brown was considerably smaller than Tony Blair's over John Major, William Hague and Michael Howard respectively in 1997, 2001 and 2005 .

• Thus the data on party policies, party images and party leadership along with the relatively negative effects of the first past the post electoral system on Conservative seat gains clearly help to explain why the Conservatives increased their support relative to 2005 but not by enough to secure outright victory. David Cameron failed to "seal the deal" with the British electorate.

• With regard to the social influences on voting behaviour note the following basic points

1.  There was a significant decline in class voting such that in 2010 there were  little differences in the patterns of party support among AB, C1, and C2 voters although DE voters were still quite significantly more likely to vote Labour than to vote Conservative although the difference was smaller than in previous general elections.

2. The combined effects of the relative increased and reduced sizes of the middle class and the working class respectively, the class differences in turnout and the decline in class voting meant that Labour actually received more middle class votes than working class votes. You may like to revisit the assignment on social class and voting behaviour.

3. Ipsos Mori data and YouGov data on relationships between social class and voting behaviour in 2010 were very similar.

4. In the Ipsos Mori poll data Women remained more likely to vote Labour and less likely to vote Conservative than men although some YouGov surveys suggest that the more traditional gender differences in voting behaviour had to some extent reasserted themselves. Given the differences in poll findings it will be important for students to discuss this point with their teachers.

5. Age differences in voting behaviour were small

6. Minority ethnic voters were more likely than White voters to vote Labour and less likely than White voters to vote Conservative. However support for Labour did decline among Minority Ethic voters and Indian voters were more likely to vote Conservative and less likely to vote Labour than other Minority Ethnic voters. You may Click here for a Runnymede Trust/BES Slide Presentation on Ethnic Minority Voting in the 2010 General Election which suggests  that even though there has been some decline in Minority Ethnic support for Labour Minority Ethnic voters remained considerably more likely to vote Labour than to vote Conservative in 2010..

7. All regions/countries apart from Scotland swung from Labour to Conservative. Only in Scotland was there a swing from Conservative to Labour.

8. The Liberal Democrats fared poorly in Scotland partly because they had dismissed two Scottish leaders [Charles Kennedy and Menzies Campbell between 2005 and 2007.  

• The outcome of General Elections depends to some extent upon the voters' assessments of parties' policies on the most salient issues of the General Election. In relation to the General Election of 2010 it is important to note the following main points but also to remember the strengths and weaknesses of the issue voting model of voting behaviour. 

1. The Conservatives were perceived as having better overall policies than Labour.

2. The most salient issue of the campaign was the economy on which the Conservatives now enjoyed small advantage over Labour. In 1997, 2001 and 2005 Labour was considered more economically competent than the Conservatives.

3.  Asylum and immigration had become an increasingly salient issue between 2005 and 2010. In Ipsos Mori polls asylum and immigration were less salient than Health and Education but in YouGov polls Asylum and Immigration were more salient than Health and Education. This may have been because the questions on issue saliency were phrased differently in the different companies' polls

4. Health was  the second most salient issue in the Ipsos Mori survey : Labour enjoyed a small lead over the Conservatives and but Labour's lead  had declined significantly between 2001 and 2005 and gain between 2005 and 2010..

5. Education was now the third most salient issue in the Ipsos Mori surveys: Labour's large  lead on this issue had disappeared by 2010 and in some polls the Conservatives were rated narrowly ahead of Labour [Ipsos Mori: all respondents], in some polls the ratings were equal [Ipsos Mori : Individuals mentioning Education as important] and in other polls Labour were rated narrowly ahead of the Conservatives You Gov: All respondents]

6. The Conservatives enjoyed substantial leads over Labour on Asylum/immigration, Taxation, Crime and anti-social behaviour, Defence and Reforming MPS expenses..

7. In the Ipsos Mori polls Labour did have small leads over the Conservatives on Unemployment, Benefits and Climate change although the Liberal Democrats were actually the preferred Party on Climate change. However in the last YouGov Poll before the General Election the Conservatives' policies on unemployment were narrowly preferred to Labour's were

8. The Conservative Party was perceived as better able than the Labour Party to deal with the MPs' Expenses Scandal but the electoral salience of this issue had declined significantly between April 2009 and May 2010.

9. Conservative electoral support could therefore be expected to improve as a result of these developments in the issue and policy agenda but not necessarily by enough to propel the Conservatives to outright General Election victory.

• With regard to the impact of changes in party images on voting behaviour I repeat the summary which has already appears above. Students may scroll upwards to find further details.

1. In general terms between 1997 and 2010 Conservative party ratings have tended to improve and Labour's have tended to deteriorate on the basis of the criteria Used by Ipsos Mori. Between 2005 and 2010 Conservative ratings improved especially according to the following criteria: : they are now seen as more likely than Labour to understand the problems ; as having a better team of leaders than Labour; as having more sensible policies than Labour; and as more professional in their approach than Labour. The Conservatives in 2010 were also less likely than in 2005 to be seen as divided; less extreme ; less out of touch with ordinary people and less likely to promise anything to get elected. However it is important to note that even though the Conservative Party image has improved according to a range of criteria   its ratings remain lower  on several criteria than were those of the Blair Governments especially in 1997 and 2001. 

• Spatial Issues, Valence Issues and Party Leadership in the 2010 General Election [See above for further information on the distinction between Spatial Issues and Valence Issues]

1. It has been argued more recently that in the era of declining party identification and increasing mass media focus on the political leaders that political leadership is an increasingly important influence on voting behaviour. This may arise especially if party policy differences on spatial salient issues are  relatively small because in these circumstances perceptions of overall governing competence to deliver on valence issues [such as improved living standards, better health care and reduced crime] are  likely to be more significant determinants of voting behaviour and it is the perceived abilities [or otherwise] of the  party leaders [and other significant members of the leadership team] which are crucial to the creation of an image of governing competence.

2. Gordon Brown did experience a short honeymoon in the early stages of his Premiership when both the Labour Party and Mr. Brown personally achieved higher opinion poll ratings than the Conservative Party and Mr. Cameron personally. However following the postponement of an expected General Election the poll ratings of Mr Brown and of the Labour Party declined, recovered slightly in the early stages of the "credit crunch" but then declined mainly as a result of the combined effects of the economic recession, the MPs expenses scandal, [the significance of which had nevertheless declined by May 2010]  and the perceived relatively poor performance of Gordon Brown as Prime Minister. However Gordon Brown's ratings did improve slightly in 2010.

3. Click here for the IPSOS MORI Slide Presentation on the 2010 General Election and scroll to slides 13-19 for Information on Party Leadership 

4. On May 5th, the day before the General Election in answer to the IPSOS MORI question "Who do you think would make the most capable Prime Minister best Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, David Cameron or Nick Clegg  respondents answered: 33% David Cameron, 29% Gordon Brown, 19% Nick Clegg, 19% Non/Don't Know. We may note that David Cameron achieved significantly higher poll ratings  than previous Conservative leaders [except John Major in 1992] but that his ratings were lower than those of Tony Blair in 2005 and not much higher than those of Gordon Brown in 2010.

5. The Conservatives were seen as having the best team of leaders and the best senior leaders but in each case their leads over Labour were small [5% and 3% respectively.

6. On some criteria Gordon Brown was preferred to both David Cameron and Nick Clegg.

• The MP's Expenses Scandal

1. When the MP's Expenses Scandal first broke in April 2009 many voters were  enraged by it and the scandal was clearly a major explanatory factor in the reduced support for all three main political parties and increased support for UKIP, the BNP and the Greens in the European Parliament Elections of 2009. However in May 2010 by comparison with 2005 overall turnout increased slightly and support for non-mainstream parties increased only slightly suggesting that despite the involvement of some MPs from all mainstream parties in the Expenses Scandal the vast majority of voters still wished to support mainstream rather than non-mainstream parties. There were arguments that perhaps the Expenses Scandal might harm Labour more than the Conservatives but it seems likely that any such differential effect was small and possibly non -existent.

• The Conservative Liberal Democrat Coalition.

The web site  which accompanies  the Politics UK  Textbook by Bill Jones et all contains some very useful additional student resources including resources on the formation and performance of the Conservative -Liberal Democrat Coalition. You may click here for all of the Student Resources and then  Click on Updates on current developments in UK politics. Alternatively click here for a direct link to a very useful Update on the formation of the Coalition and its performance to Feb 2011.

You may click here for a page of new links which I am using to try to keep up to date with developments in UK Politics. This page will be updated continually and  will eventually be used to "set the scene" for the next General Election whenever that may be.