UKgenelection2015

The UK General Election of May 7th 2015

And click here for the UK General Election of June 8th 2017

I have asterisked the links which I have found most useful but you may prefer some of the others!

Click here for Radio 4 Analysis ; How Voters Decide Parts  One and  Part Two Feb 20th and 27th  2017 . A must listen!!  ***

Click here   for Guardian  and here  for BBC Summaries of Labour Manifesto

Click here for Guardian  and  here for BBC Summaries of Conservative  Manifesto

Click here for Guardian  and here for BBC Summaries of Liberal Democrat Manifesto

Click here for Guardian  and  here for BBC Summaries of Green Manifesto

Click here for Guardian  and  here for BBC Summaries of UKIP Manifesto

Click here for BBC Summary of SNP Manifesto

Click here  for BBC Summary of PC Manifesto

 

 

The UK General Election of 2015: Gresham College lecture by Professor Vernon Bogdanor.  New link added January 2017

Smith Institute Report on UK General Election of 2015

Official Labour Party Report on Labour's Defeat 2015: The Beckett Report

 

Further information on the Official Labour Party Report can be found via the following links.

  1. Guardian coverage
  2. Guardian coverage
  3. BBC coverage

Why Labour Lost in 2015 : Independent Inquiry [Jon Cruddas]

 

The UK General Election 2015: The Results

  1. Click here for BBC data on the UK result and the results in England,  Scotland , Wales and Northern Ireland
  2. Click here for  a House of Commons parliamentary Brief with detailed results data
  3. Click here and follow links for Ipsos Mori data on How Britain Voted in 2015 and in all General Elections since 1974: voting and age, ethnicity, gender, social class etc  ***
  4. Click here for You Gov Publication: How Britain voted in 2015: voting and age, ethnicity, gender, social class etc  ***
  5. Click here for another You Gov Publication: contains graphics on demographics. ***
  6. Click here for BES data on class and voting behaviour [using a different class schema
  7. Click here for Parliamentary Research Briefing : General Election 2015
  8. Click here for Electoral Reform Society publication on the 2015 General Election and the case for electoral reform.
  9. Click here for BBC coverage of the above report.
  10. Click here for Andrew Rawnsley Observer article on the 2015 General Election and the electoral system
  11. Click here  and here and here for information on Ethnicity and voting behaviour in 2015 from the Runnymede Trust. [3 Part article]

Summary Data on recent UK General Elections

Percentages of UK Votes Cast and Commons Seats Gained 1997-2015 [2015 N Ireland results can be found via in the above mentioned BBC link]

 

Vote % 1997 Seat % 1997 Vote % 2001 Seat % 2001 Vote% 2005 Seat % 2005 Vote % 2010 Seat % 2010 Vote%

2015

 Seat % 2015 Seat No 2015 Seat Change 2010-2015
Cons 30.7 25.0 31.7 25.2 32.3 30.5 36.1 47.0 36.9 50.9 331 +24
Lab 43.4 63.4 40.7 62.7 35.2 55.1 29.0 39.8 30.4 33.7 232 -26
LibDem 16.8 7.0 18.3 7.9 22.0 9.6 23.0 8.8 7.9 1.2 8 -49
UKIP                 12.6 0.2 1 +1
Greens                 3.8 0.2   1   0
SNP                 4.7 8.6   56 +50
PC                 0.6 0.5   3   0

Explaining the Result

1 Labour's Poor performance

General

Click here for a brief BBC summary of the above report

Click here for very detailed analysis from Renewal: A Journal of Social Democracy

Click here for Independent Summary of above report

Ed Miliband's Leadership

Ipsos Mori publishes a monthly Political Monitor which among other things tracks trends in the relative popularity of the party leaders.  Click here and scroll down to charts for the April 2015 Political Monitor and look at charts 7-20 to see the relative popularity of the party leaders.

 

Party Policies

Ipsos Mori also publishes data tracking the Best Party on Key Issues. Click here for April data on key political issues. Note that The Conservatives were perceived as having greater economic competence than Labour although Labour were ahead of the Conservatives on several other key political issues.

Trends in Party Identification

Ipsos Mori publish data tracking long term trends in party identification.  Click here for these data according to which more people  identified with Labour than with the Conservatives by May 2014

The British Social Attitudes Survey often includes information on trends in party identification. The following data is taken from  a recent BSA survey. What conclusions can be drawn from the data. Although not shown here it is important to try to analyse the relationships between the rise of UKIP and the SNP and the trends in party identification.

Trends in Strength of party Identification 1987-2015

1987 1997 2001 2005 2010 2015
Strength of Party Identification
Very strong 11 10 7 7 7 9
Fairly strong 35 27 29 28 29 32
Not very strong 40 46 49 46 41 38
None 8 10 12 13 16 15
Unweighted Base 2847 1355 3282 4268 3297 4328

 

Mass Media

Click here for You Gov Publication: How Britain voted in 2015: voting and age, ethnicity, gender, social class etc. Slide 3 has estimates of  newspaper readership and voting behaviour

 

Polls

    1. UK Polling Report
    2. Click here and follow links for Ipsos Mori data on How Britain Voted in 2015 and in all General Elections since 1974 Click Here  and Here   for the  most recently monthly Political Monitor and Issue Index respectively.
    3. Click  here for  long term trends in the relative importance of different political issues.
    4. Click here  and scroll down for Ipsos Mori April 2015 Issues Index and Election Special. The latter has good information on Best Party on Key Issues at the time of 2015 General Election and previous General Elections. ****
    5. Click here for Observer/Opinium Poll data
    6. Click here for Guardian/ICM opinion poll
    7. Click here for Guardian article on explanations for polls' inaccuracy  January 2016

 

Election Blogs

 

  1. LSE General Election2015
  2. Nottingham University : Ballots and Bullets
  3. Institute for Fiscal studies General Election Coverage

 

UKIP: and the Greens  Some Useful Links

I have not considered the rise of UKIP and Green support in any of my documents on voting behaviour but here, at least are a  few useful inks.

 

  1. Mapping UKIP's Polling Strength [BBC]
  2. UKIP: the Story of the rise of UKIP [BBC]
  3. Guardian coverage of UKIP [1500+ articles]
  4. Click here for BBC coverage and here for Guardian coverage  of Rochester and Strood By-election and here for resignation of Emily Thornberry from Labour Shadow Cabinet.
  5. Click Here for Guardian Article on UKIP and the Stoke Central By-election  February 2016
  6. Click here for an article on UKIP from the BBC   October 2020
  7. Click here for BBC coverage of Stoke Central By-election  February 2016