Voting Behaviour. The importance of short term factors in UK elections.

[Music] Welcome to this episode of the Politics Shed Podcast, which supports the Politics Shed website. All the information I will talk about here can be found in links below to the Shed website. Now I'm going to follow up the previous podcast on voting behavior. In that podcast I look to the long-term influences on voting behavior, such as ethnicity, religion, gender, and above all class. We explored ideas of class de-alignment and partisan de-alignment. Now it's time to look at the short-term influences on voting behavior. The short-term influences are the ones that is in some ways more interesting. Certainly they're interesting to journalists and politicians. If people are influenced by short-term factors such as personality of politicians, policies, manifestos, and election campaigns, then it means everything's to play for. If it's true, as we explored in the last podcast, that the electorate is becoming increasingly de-aligned. That is to say, class and party no longer correlate as much as they did. Party loyalty is declined as well. Partisan de-alignment. If those are true then it might be we'd expect the electorate to become more volatile. Change their minds easily. Be swayed by short-term factors, image, soundbites, photo opportunities, a gaff from a politician or a clever slogan that would make politics somewhat more interesting in some ways. Evidence for this volatility which has been predicted for a number of years is mixed. Some elections do appear to show that election campaigns can turn quickly and a week can be a long time in politics, as Harold Worson said. Another suggest that election campaigns at times certainly seem to make little difference in people that have made up their mind about how well vote weeks before the campaign starts. So some of the short-term factors are not quite so insubstantial or short-term as others. Let's start first then with the theory of valence or valence theory. Valence theory is the short-term factor of government competence. How the governments viewed? Whether people think they've done a good job and will do a good job, whether the opposition will be better, valence is a judgment about how the government has run the country. There are two important aspects to valence theory. First, if the judgment on the existing government, so to some extent it's a view that governments lose elections rather than oppositions win them. How well the government has done? Is judged by the election, if the government is judged to have done well then this little the opposition can do to offer something different why change a winning formula. The second aspect of valence theory is that the electorate generally agree on what they expect governments to do. Opinion polls have shown for many years that the single most important fact for a large proportion of the electorate is the economy. How well the government runs the economy, managers of the economy, will we be more prosperous or more importantly? Have the government run the economy well? In this sense it's a managerial sort of approach to voting. So in this sense the voter is a rational voter which is why sometimes valence theories seen as part of rational choice models of voting. The voter is a consumer. What they want to consume is a working economy increased prosperity. They make a sensible choice as to who will deliver that best and who has delivered it best. Change horses if the government's not delivering it. Keep them if they are. Opinion polls have shown for many years after the second world war through the 1950s, 60s and 70s. The date is that primarily people were concerned with the economy. Roughly, Opinion polls suggested there were four main concerns in order of importance. The economy first linked to the competence of the government or valence of the government. Second, the National Health Service and pensioners. The 1950s and 1960s were said to be characterized by a period of history called the post-war consensus in which there was little to choose between the conservatives and labour and it did all the major parties such as there were the liberals were very small in the 50s, 60s, 70s. Seem to agree on the main priorities and ways of running the economy. Canesian economic theory that is to stimulate demand to manage the possibility of recession or to avoid possibility of recession. A nationalised health service, an extensive welfare state and parts of the economy, nationalised or mixed economy. Those were the broad agreement areas between conservatives and labour. The 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. This consensus is seen to have ended in the watershed election of 1979. However, that means the elections and in the 60s labour one election of 64 and in the 1950s the conservatives consistently won elections. That means that the electorate were governed not by major differences of policy but instead by who would deliver those priorities best. Violence. Peter Dory, professor of politics at Cardiff University, argues that violence has indeed been important in most elections. However, he singles out 2017 as an election where this was less clear. Opinion polls before the 2017 election showed a distinct difference between those who inclined to vote labour and those who inclined to vote conservative. Conservative leaning voters saw a priority being Brexit, who would be the Prime Minister, a reaction to Jeremy Corbyn, the economy in third place and immigration. Whereas the labour leaning electorate saw the NHS defending the NHS and funding the NHS properly as being their number one priority. After that the austerity policies or bringing those to an end, the long period of policies pursued by the coalition and the Tory government after the great financial crisis of 2008, in other words, cutting back on public spending or austerity. Brexit came in third and finally poverty and inequality made an unusual appearance in the concerns of labour voters. For the many, not the few. This election, according to Peter Dory, marked a change away from violence and towards a more distinctly issue-based voting. The general election of 2019 was dominated by one issue, Brexit and by one slogan "Get Brexit done". The Labour Party stood on a platform of renegotiating the Brexit deal and holding another referendum. The Greens and the Lib Dems rejected the whole notion of Brexit. But the Conservative Party stood for "Getting Brexit done" whatever that might mean, concluding it bringing it to an end, stopping the whole process and, above all, leaving the EU. In that sense, 2019 can't be compared with most elections, it's very unusual that election becomes a kind of referendum on one issue. Another factor in the 2019 election, though, was the large-than-life personality of Boris Johnson, one of the few leaders. Of a political party who could be widely recognised by almost the entire population long before they became a leader, and even before they became a senior minister. Boris Johnson was a personality. He's a personality, whether hanging from a zip wire or appearing on "Have I got news for you?" Boris presented a character. How important is leadership? How important are prime ministers? For some time now, commentators on British politics have wondered whether our politics is becoming altogether more presidential. To some extent, they look at the prime minister's role itself, and that's another debate on the role of the executive, whether the executives actually are in their acquisition of power and their dominance of policy-making becoming more like presidents. But are our elections becoming more Americanised? Commentators point to things like "Professional campaigning techniques" which draw on the advertising industry, soundbites, photo ops, professionally produced election broadcasts, and very clever management of the media, responding quickly, trying to capture the attention of the media by what's known as "spin" or media manipulation. In these more media-focused campaigns, the leaders of parties tend to dominate. In the 1940s and early 50s, the leader of the Labour Party Clement Attlee campaigned, often, just with his wife and a policeman for security, traveling around the country and his family car, getting out to meet people in formerly in the street. In the 1960s and 70s, it was still be common to have rallies, street corner speeches, but in the 1990s it began to change significantly. The media became increasingly important and they projected one particular message. The leader. One particular image. The leader. The leaders attract, by the media, followed by a posse of reporters. Their shown-round factories and hospitals kissing babies, picking up litter, holding calves, wearing white coats. They dominate the campaign. How significant are the figures of the leaders? There are some elections that act as useful case studies. Certainly at the end of the Second World War, in the famous election of 1945. Winston Churchill was overwhelmingly well known, rather like Boris Johnson, he couldn't have walked down the street without easily being recognised. He had a larger and life personality. He's the man who won the war. He was wildly popular. And yet, his government went down to a crushing defeat in 1945. He was personally far more popular than the Conservative Party. The people, it was agreed, had voted for something new. A new party led by the altogether less charismatic, Clement Attlee. In 1992, however, Honest John Major had replaced Margaret Thatcher. A doctor could deliberately hold fashion style. He took out a soapbox and a megaphone. Wishing eggs thwising past his head, he projected an image of the man next door, the chap in the card you can see down the pub. Ordinary everyday chap. An election broadcast which came to be known as John Major the Movie. He showed him being driven around Brixton, pointing out his old house, not talking policy, not talking ideas, not talking promises, just projecting himself. A chap. A nice chap. This was said to have contrasted badly with Neil Kinneck. His Welshness, an image as the Welsh windbag, the man who couldn't answer a question without 16 different parentheses and codiceels and changes of direction, alienated it is said many people. In 1979, Tony Blair presented a fresh, faced image in his early years he was referred to as Bambi. Young, dynamic, friendly, a mug in hand, a smile on his face, different from the stuffy old toys, new and youthful and dynamic. Tony. Mrs. Thatcher, on the other hand, in the 1980s, had never really won the hearts of the British people. Wildly popular among many conservatives, she never really became popular among the population. And as the 1980s wore on and Mrs. Thatcher entered the latter part of a decade in power, her popularity declined to the extent that the Conservative Party removed her from the leadership, even though she had won three consecutive general elections. They saw her as a liability. After 2003, Blair's Bambi image had changed. The disasters of the Gulf War, Blair was seen as a representative of dishonesty, of spin, of cash for honours. He survived growing demands that he should leave by promising, after the 2005 election, not to run again, but to step down in the near future, eventually leaving office in 2008, like Thatcher, one of the most successful leaders of his party. Forced out, when he became a liability, Gordon Brown, in 2010, was seen as less popular than Labour. For a light Labour's programme, they didn't trust Gordon Brown. And the reverse was true of the Conservatives. Many people were not particularly attracted by Conservative policies, but they liked David Cameron. At the moment, the Tory Party are trying to choose a new leader. And for all the world, it appears to be an election that's taking place, even though a little over a hundred thousand or a hundred and fifty thousand people will actually take part. But she soon act and Liz Truss, up resenting different policies, principally over taxation. But in another way, the members of the Conservative Party are being asked to consider who will be an electoral asset at the next election. So the Conservative Party leadership election has become very presidential. In a sense, it's taken on all the characteristics of the American primaries, with all the animosity, which will one day soon be forgiven and forgotten. Overall then, how significant is the charisma, qualities and appeal and popularity of a leader these days? In some elections more than others, it's certainly not the absolute determining factor. However, it's more significant than historically it used to be. Because of some degree in then, British elections have become somewhat more presidential. Before we move away from the importance of leaders, the presidentialism of elections, and the Americanisation of our political culture, it might be important just to quickly say that much of this of course is a construct of the media. It's always worth remembering that we see the world in this media saturated society through the media. My vision, my view, my idea of what is happening in an election is governed by people who wish to capture my attention, either to sell forms of media or to prove their own worth. So turning an election into personalities, into clashes of personalities, into a race, into a competition between individuals is much more entertaining. So elections may indeed be becoming more presidential, but it may be more a function of the media, than a change in the nature of the electorate. It's now time to turn to the importance of election campaigns themselves. That fall to five weeks, that occurs before the actual election, and from the time when the Prime Minister announces that there will be an election and the Queen has given permission for the election to take place. In this country, elections happen every three to four years in practice, the law states, that they must happen at least every five years. The Fixed-Term Parliament Act, making that slightly more likely. If, what I've said earlier about, "dealignment," both "partisan-dealignment" and "class-dealignment," then we should expect voters to be more volatile, more changeable, and more fickle. Research suggests that in the 1940s, 50s, 60s and 70s, most people went into election campaigns already knowing how they would vote. Few of them actually changed their minds during the campaign, no matter how well run it was. So today, it's expected they should be more floating voters, more people who haven't made up their mind. And indeed, that does appear to be the case since, in 2017, 32 percent of the electorate, according to opinion polls, such as Ipsos Moray, stated that they knew beforehand how they would vote and didn't change their minds during the campaign, about a third of electors that compares with somewhere in the region of 80 percent to 84 percent in the 1960s. Two-thirds of electors then were making their mind up in the narrow confines of the four to five weeks of the campaign. Indeed, in 2017, 14 percent of electors said they made up their mind on the day they were going to vote, some of them, presumably, as they walked in to the polling station, a case of "Enie-Mini" or something like that. 2017, again, supported this idea. The 2017 general election provided suffologists and journalists with evidence for this new and highly expected volatility among the electorate. It was an unusual election in that the Fix Term Parliament Act should have ensured that the elections were five years apart, but this was a snap election, revealing that the Fix Term Parliament was ineffective. No opposition can refuse an election. It's pretty much prime ministers can choose to have elections when they wish. Theresa May had a majority of 17, which she considered insufficient to give her the strong and stable mandate she required to negotiate firmly with the Europeans. She wanted a refreshed mandate, a big majority, to prove to the Europeans that she was strongly in charge of Britain they couldn't bank on the change of government anytime soon, and to give her the authority to conclude some kind of deal with the Europeans. The referendum had ensured that Britain was leaving the EU, we were now negotiating how we would leave. The debate was between "hard Brexit"—virtually walk away at its most extreme—and "soft Brexit"—some kind of negotiated settlement, which would ensure a relationship with Europe. The election campaign of 2017 was observed in hindsight as fairly bad for the Conservatives. They didn't need to call the election, and electors don't like having elections they don't feel they need. It was called for political purposes. Pignum polls were the principal reason to Theresa May. decided to call the election a 21-point lead in almost every opinion poll, should have translated into a thumping great majority for the Conservatives. As the campaign unfolded and especially in the last couple of weeks, the lead vanished. And the end result was that the Conservatives made a net loss of 13 seats. Not for thumping great majority and the strong and stable government. In fact, it was now a minority government. The Conservatives had thrown away an overall majority in parliament, making 2017 one of the most disastrous miscalculations in electoral history. Actually, the difference between Labour and the Conservatives was really very narrow. The Conservatives won 42.4% of the vote, which was its highest share since 1983, and Labour won 40% of the vote, which was its highest vote since 2001. Another headline or another way of thinking about the 2017 election was the return of two party politics. The little parties did fairly badly, apart from the Scots and Nationalists. The appeal of UKIP was diminished because the referendum had seemed to take away their principal reason for existence. The Liberal Democrats were still recovering from having seen to have betrayed the electorate during the coalition. Then there was the campaign itself. People got to see the leader Theresa May up close for the first time, the strong home secretary who modelled herself to some extent on Mrs. Thatcher. Proved to be the Maybot, rather awkward, rather humorous, lacking personality. The left-wing radical Jeremy Corbyn was transformed into Jezero, as they both appeared on television to Theresa May being asked what was the most naughty or bad things she'd ever done, and she floundered and looked embarrassed. It was a silly question, and said it running through a cornfield. Jeremy Corbyn was a man who made jam, had an allotment, and had a curious interest in manhole covers. In other words, he was just a bit of a chat, really. Not a radical, not a terrorist, not a lefty, but a man you might converse within the pub. He came across well, to the young, he was radical, to the older voter. He was less threatening than first appeared. But Theresa May appeared controlling and above all, dull. During the campaign, events took place. When asked what he most feared in politics, the Prime Minister Harold McMillan has said to have observed events, due boy events, meaning things happen, the unexpected. The unexpected in election campaign can be quite crucial, especially if the electorate are somewhat volatile, two terrorist actions. One in London and one in Manchester led to a consideration of police numbers to Theresa May was seen to have been the home secretary who reduced the size of the police, not a good look for a conservative home secretary, even worse. Changes of direction during the campaign on policies to deal with social care, an ongoing issue in British politics at the time. And it still is. And the subject of numerous media campaigns was the cost of elderly care, was forcing people to sell their homes. They were by spending their inheritance, on the cost, the increasingly large cost, of residential care when they became too old to stay in their own homes. Under the coalition, the Dill not report suggested there should be a cap on the amount of money people were expected to pay for their social care, thereby protecting their houses. When the manifesto for the election of 2017 suggested that the limit on the amount people would be expected to contribute to their elderly care would be raised, this came into heavy criticism during the campaign. And it was described as the "demendia tax", either as people suffering without cymas, would lose their houses, those who could healthily live on in their houses, wouldn't. There was a U-turn. She promised instead to put an overall limit, but wouldn't say what it was. This was a mixture of U-turn, dither, and shooting yourself in the foot. She was also resistant to the idea of maintaining the triple lock on pensions, that is to say the pensions would be measured against three criteria in economy to deal with inflation, average wages, and prices. This was, again, not a good look for a conservative. An aged population more likely to vote conservative, you are hurting your very own supporters. Labor brought out a rather compelling manifesto. It was full of hope and optimism, public spending and protection of public services, more spending on hospitals, and for the young significantly an end to tuition fees. In 2017, the campaign was not dominated by Brexit. Labour's policy on Brexit was to "Brexit" having negotiated some kind of "amicable arrangement with the Europeans". Theresa May asserted that Brexit meant Brexit, but was going to negotiate an amicable arrangement with the Europeans. You could happily vote Labour or Conservative if you wish to leave the EU. The campaign then can be viewed as a disaster for the Conservatives. Overall though, what does this tell us about campaigns? First, rational choice voters may not be quite so rational, dislike of a leader, a gaff, a stupid remark, a change of direction during the campaign, or simply, they appeared more likeable, seems to have increased significance. In 2010, Prime Minister Gordon Brown famously called a woman he met on the streets in a walk about "bigoted" when his microphone was left on after the interview had finished, and he was heard referring to as that "that bigoted woman" when they got back in the car. If that can't explain the loss in that election, certainly his own popularity had declined. The Labour Party had been in power a long time, and people hadn't forgiven Labour for the Blair years, for the Gulf War, however, for all the Conservative failings in the campaign of 2017. It may be that the voters were more rational, unless influenced by "may's awkward personality" or "the gaff's and new turns", but instead they were thinking of one policy, which is the most rational for them to think about, and dominates most campaigns. It's the economy. It's the economy stupid observed the adviser to Bill Clinton back in 1992, telling his campaign workers if you ask what the election is about, say, "it's the economy stupid", or rather think it's the economy stupid, it's always in the end about the economy. In 2017, the thing that didn't happen in the campaign, the thing was looming over people in the campaign, was more than a decade of austerity. A policy pursued by David Cameron, George Osborne, and Theresa May, although she'd referred to looking after the just about managers and having a more inclusive society. In fact, a decade of reductions in public expenditure, flatlining of people's incomes, rising levels of inequality, were the backdrop to the blunders and stupidities of the campaign. What of 2019? 2019 represents one of the most proportional results in modern history. The campaign was dominated by one slogan "Get Brexit Done". It was a piece of political genius, opportunism, and sleight of hand. There was no clear, oven-ready deal, although it was referred to as such. The deal had yet to be finalised, whether it would be hard Brexit or something softer. Problems with Northern Ireland are still yet to be resolved. But "Get Brexit Done" seemed to neatly summarise most people's feelings about the whole Brexit issue by 2019, but above all it contrasted with Labour's policy. Labour persisted with the idea that they would continue to negotiate. Produce a better deal than the Tories and have another referendum that had very little appeal to the British people. Even Remainers were tired of Brexit at this stage. Then there was the Corbin factor. Jezeur of 2017 seemed to lack energy in 2019. Accusations of anti-Semitism suggestions of a rather more tolerant attitude to the IRA when Corbin was a backbench MP, suggest that he was sympathetic with terrorists. There was no dull and uninspiring Toriesa May to highlight his warm, cuddly, "corbonishness". Instead, there was the larger-than-life, floried character of the not particularly well-loved but certainly more charismatic Boris Johnson. The 2019 election produced a crushing defeat for the Labour Party and an unexpectedly big victory for Boris Johnson and the Conservatives. While it is perfectly possible to characterise the 2019 general election as really a referendum on Brexit, there were also other facts of play, besides the personality contrast between Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn. There was also the economy again, of course there was. The long years of austerity were coming to an end. And Boris Johnson emphasised his one nation-conservative credentials with promises to increase public spending. A public spending review shortly before the election had suggested austerity was over. Public spending would increase by £13.8 billion a year. And it was a pledge to spend another £33 billion on the health service and build 40 new hospitals. Whether a lot of this money had already been pledged, I was rather creative accounting, it didn't matter. This was an end to austerity, which had been so unpopular back in 2017. Also, during the campaign, the Conservative manifesto was one of the thinnest or emptiest manifestos that's ever been presented to the people. There were few unpopular policies because there were very few policies at all. They steered clear of any policies on health care, social care, care for the elderly, pensions, anything that might suggest a dementia tax or death tax or an attack on their natural supporters. While Labour ran a very successful social media campaign, the Tories dominated the headlines with one simple message over and over, "Get Brexit done." Was it then the economy stupid or was it a clever campaign? Was it really a referendum on Brexit? It's likely that we can conclude that these days, the volatility of the electorate means that campaigns are more significant. A gaff, a blunder, a poor campaign is likely to be much more significant than it was in the mid-20th century. However, it might also be as true as ever that elections are really about the economy stupid. You have been listening to the Politics Shared Podcast. This podcast accompanies the Politics Shared website with essay guidance, videos, more podcasts and a full free online textbook to the Politics A Level course, including the British, the American and the Global Studies.