UK Voting Behaviour and the Media notes - Edexcel A Level Politics
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UK Politics (9PLO)
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PEARSON (PEARSON)
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Three key general elections and various factors to explain outcomes
Changing role of the media
KEY GENERAL ELECTIONS
1979- THATCHER’S FIRST VICTORY
PARTY POLICIES AND MANIFESTOS
- Both gave high priority to bringing down inflation
- Thatcher’s policy contained little indication that she planned to move her party right
(no mention of privatisation or reducing trade union powers) so when Callaghan
warned the electorate, it had little credibility
ELECTION CAMPAIGN
- Thatcher leaned into photo opportunities (because of modern advertising specialists
who told her to) and was pictured doing everything from tasting tea to holding a
newborn calf, whereas Labour’s campaign lacked awareness of these finer details
- But although the cons outpaced Labour in opinion polls, Callaghan was 20 points
ahead of Thatcher on who would make the better prime minister so it is difficult to
measure the impact of the campaigns on opinion- it remained fairly split
CLASS
- Thatcher appealed to the majority- ‘it is to the majority that I am taking this evening’
- Her election was about moderation and competence
- Both AB and C1 were in large, majority favour of the cons, however labour just about
missed out on a majority hold on C2 (49%)
- Sense of class dealignment- possibly because the unemployment rate went up under
Labour in 1978
MEDIA
- The BBC published an article about UK unemployment figures topping one million
(during Labour)
- Sun accused Callaghan of being ‘out of touch’
- Provided tories with the sustenance to launch a successful campaign
- Labour isn’t working campaign
THATCHERS BUSINESS WORK
- Thatcher provided loans to save the British Steel Corporation
, 2010- FIRST POST-WAR COALITION
PARTY POLICIES AND MANIFESTOS
- Little difference between the 3 main parties on the main issue of the election- the
need to reduce the budget deficit which had increased to £163 million since the
financial crisis 2007-08
- All 3 pledged to make savings without sacrificing essential public services
- Since 2008, Cameron and his team focused their attacks on Labour’s alleged
mismanagement of the economy (reckless overspending) and in one opinion
poll, 59% of voters agreed most of the extra money Labour spent was wasted
ELECTION CAMPAIGN
- Limited importance of campaigns on the final result
- Conservatives intensely targeted marginal seats yet were still 20 seats short of a
majority
- Brown called a reporter a ‘bigoted woman’ after she asked him a hostile question, yet
despite the media coverage, Labour still held Rochdale, the area it happened
MEDIA
- The lib dems positive viral marketing caused their online popularity to skyrocket and
they produced a series of youtube videos alongside their ‘labservative’ website which
was used to berate Labour and the conservatives
- Although the lib-dems were leading hugely on social media, this was misleading
because their demographic was made up of younger, more liberal voters with the
lowest voter turnout
- ¾ of youths said they would only vote if they could do so via texting or social media,
so their vote did not help in the election
- Televised debates- attracted attention esp. From older people → therefore the cons
still took on a lead party position and the lib dems did not completely dominate
AGE
- Disparity between conservative and labour increased as age did with the difference
being -2% (conservative) of people age 18-24 and 13% (conservative) of people age
65+
- For the lib dems it was the other way around with them having 30% of the votes for
people 18-24 and only 16% for people age 65 and over
- This could link to the media as lib dems had a huge social media presence targeted
at young people whereas older people tended to prefer traditional media which was
mainly cons leaning → less younger people voted which is why lib dems had less
CLASS
- Conservatives got fairly equal votes across the classes except for DE (working class)
which was down to 31% from 39-37% everywhere else
- Labour had high votes in DE, 40%, but did not do as well anywhere else
- Lib dems vote slowly decreased over the classes but this was a minimal change
since 2005
- Standard class voting behaviour
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