Voting bhevaiour - allignment in politics

Question 1

Class deallignment

Answer 1

Class deallignment - the breakdown of class as a reliable voting indicator

• began with Margaret Thatcher - won 3 elections by gaining support from the working class
• Blair won 3 consecutive electoins by expanding his voter base into the middle class (‘mondeo man’)

Question 2

evidence partisan de-allignment

Answer 2

• ‘Red wall’ - mass movement of labour voters over to conservative for the first time in the 2019 election
• allignmnet is still strong in some areas, such as liverpool which consitently votes labour (70% of liverpool voted labour in 2024 GE)

Question 3

tradtional allignment

Answer 3

Conservatives:
* white collar, buissnes and proprty owners
* pro-economy middle-upper class (age35+)
* tories still held a small working class support

Labour:
* founded by trade unions
* voted for by working class. Such as coal miners
* middle class support, espcially in the state sector

Question 4

Evidence of party re-allignment

Answer 4

Some smaller parties have experienced strong identification, with 5% of Reform votes due to “I like/trust Nigel Farage”. Whilst there is still a small groups of party loyalists: 5% of conservative votes were because “I always vote for them/am a Conservative member.”