voting behaviour and the media Flashcards
what are the three main turning points in post-war politics?
1979,1997 and 2010
what is the 1979 election results and context?
3 May 1979: Thatcher’s first victory.
Turnout: 76%
Size of Majority: 43 seats
Number of seats: 339
% of the popular vote: 43.9
Increase in seats for conservative: +62
The election initiated 18 years of conservative rule under Margaret Thatcher up to 1990 and under John Major until 1997- ending the post-war consensus.
Called after James Callaghan’s minority Labour government lost a vote of no confidence in the House of Commons (most recent time).
Thatcher’s initial majority was modest but it increased in 1983 and 1987; John Major clung to power in the 1992 election.
Labour descended into a prolonged period of left/right infighting over policies until the reinvention of the party under Tony Blair in 1997.
what are the 1997 election results and context?
1 May 1997 Blair’s New Labour Victory
Number of seats: 418
Turnout: 71.4%
Size of majority: 179 seats
% of the popular vote: 43.2
increase in seats for Labour: +145
Landslide victory that removed John Major’s conservatives from office and opened the way to 13 years of Labour government.
Tony Blair was PM until 2007 when he was succeeded by Gordon Brown.
The Liberal Democrats emerged as a significant third force at Westminister.
The conservatives were troubled by ongoing divisions, poor leadership and an inability to appear relevant to contemporary society. They were unable to dislodge Labour from power in the next two elections (2001 and 2005).
what are the 2010 election results and context?
6 May 2010 The first post-war coalition
Turnout: 65.1%
Number of conservative seats: 306, 36.1% of the popular vote
Number of Labour seats: 258,
29.0% of the popular vote
Number of Liberal Democrat seats: 57, 23% of the popular vote
Size of majority: none following the election; the conservative- liberal democrat coalition had a majority of 77
The election saw Gordon Brown removed from office ending the New Labour era.
David Cameron’s conservatives increased their share of the seats, benefiting from 4 years of efforts at modernisation under their new leader.
The conservatives did not gain an independent majority, so they had to form a coalition (the first since 1945) with the Liberal Democrats. Against predictions, the coalition survived a full term, partly due to the fixed-term parliament act on which the liberal democrats insisted.
Cameron won a small conservative majority in the 2015 election.
what factors affected the 1979 and 1997 elections?
party policies and manifestos
the election campaign
the wider political context
what was the party policies and manifestos of the 1979 election?
Both Labour and Conservative had moderate manifestos.
Both gave bringing inflation down a high priority.
Callaghan came from Labour’s traditional centre-right and resisted pressure from his more left-wing party.
Thatcher’s manifesto stated it wanted to move more to the right.
Thatcher mentioned moving recently nationalised infrastructure to private hands and reducing the power of trade unions.
what was the election campaign leading up to the 1979 election?
The Conservative campaign adopted the techniques of modern advertising under the guidance of Gordon Reece and Tim Bell.
The labour campaign lacked this.
Thatcher used ‘photo ops’; tea tasting and holding a baby calf.
Conservatives were ahead of Labour in opinion polls.
Thatcher was still behind “Sunny Jim” Callaghan by 20 points which is why it was wise for her to decline a televised debate with him which would have highlighted this difference.
what is the wider political context of the 1979 election?
The real reason for the conservative victory was the weakness of the Labour government.
Callaghan had a minority government which left it vulnerable to defeats in the commons.
During the winter of discontent (early months of 1979), the government’s attempt to impose a 5% limit on pay increases collapsed as a series of strikes- by lorry drivers, health workers, refuse collectors and gravediggers. This created a sense of national paralysis.
Furthermore, Callaghan failed to control militant trade unions.
The media presented Callaghan as out of touch with the issue “Crisis? What Crisis?”; this was after Callaghan dismissed questions from a journalist questioning about the situation.
what were the party policies and manifestos of the 1997 election?
The “New Labour” regime abandoned old-fashioned policy ideas about nationalisation, tax increases, and strengthening of trade union powers. Furthermore, he was more strict on law and order as there had been an increase in crime rates in the early 1990s.
Tony Blair had the support of a greater part of the press; The Sun and The Times.
Policy: reducing the sizes of primary school classes and reducing hospital waiting lists.
Blair emphasised constitutional reforms.
what was the election campaign of the 1997 election?
Blair employed public relations experts to handle the media, used focus groups to access public opinion and systemically targeted marginal seats rather than safe seats.
Labour’s share of the vote increased on an average of 12.5% in its target seats and 13.4% in constituencies that it neglected.
Family image
Alistar Campbell
Charismatic Blair
what was the wider political context of the 1997 election?
Conservatives had a narrow victory in 1992.
Turnout in 1997 was low, 71.4%, which meant 31% of the registered electorate voted Labour.
Economic policy: In 1997, the economy was in recovery from the recession in the early part of the decade.
Black Wednesday (September 1992)
Monthly opinion polls showed that Labour was ahead of conservative from the autumn of 1992 onwards.
The conservatives had lost their reputation as efficient managers of the economy.
Tory Sleaze: series of financial and sexual scandals in the conservative party and continuing divisions over Britain’s relationship with the EU.
Weak leadership of the conservatives.
what factors affected the 1979 election?
party policies and manifestos
long-term factors in voting behaviour (social factors)
social class
what were the party policies and manifestos of the 2010 election?
Little difference between 3 main parties.
The main issue was to reduce the budget deficit- which had increased to $163 billion since the financial crisis (2007-08)
what were the long-term factors in voting behaviour (social factors) of the 2010 election?
This ‘sociological model’ links voting behaviour to group membership. It suggests that electors tend to adopt a voting pattern that reflects the economic and social position of the group, or groups, to which they belong. Therefore it reflects the importance of social alignment, reflecting the social diversions and tensions within society.
Most significant is social class. Gender, ethnicity, religion and region.
Until the 1970s, voting patterns were stable and habitual. Most voters could be classified as ‘core’ voters, with only around one-fifth being so-called floating voters. However, a variety of long-term factors influence voting.
how did social class affect the 2010 election?
Peter Pulzer (1967) famously declared: ‘Class is the basis of British party politics; all else is embellishment and detail.’
Political socialisation: When the way you decide things politically is based on the way you’ve learnt to behave based on the people around you.
The family is the principal means by which political loyalties are forged.
Partisan alignment: when voters have a very strong, long-term connection with a political party and where their support for it is very certain irrespective of who leads it or policy modifications.
However, from the 1970s onwards, the UK has experienced an accelerating process of class dealignment. This does not mean that social class has become irrelevant to voting behaviour, but only that the relationship between class and voting has weakened substantially.
