2017 General Election Flashcards
why did Theresa May call the election? what happened as a result?
Theresa May called the election, confident of a decisive victory over labour under Jeremy Corbyn
but she lost her overall majority and was left with a minority government
how many seats and votes did the other parties win?
Labour won 262 seats with 40% of the vote
Conservatives won 318 seats with 42% of the vote, lost 13 seats, resulting in a hung parliament
UKIP fell from 13% to 2% of the vote, so the leader Paul Nuttal resigned
social and economic factors in voting patterns
Geography — Rural England remained Conservative, although Labour gained support in some areas in the south-east
Class — Labour gained votes in A B and C1 categories
Gender — male vote lent towards the Conservatives by 6%
Age — young voters showed clear loyalty to labour (the Corbyn effect)
Education became quite a big factor with people with degrees and higher education voting labour and people with GCSEs or below voting Conservative
Labour policies
Scrap university tuition fees (this particularly appealed to younger voters)
Increase income tax rates on the top 5% of earners
Income tax rate on 45p on £80,000 and above
end zero hour contracts
Nationalise railways And England’s nine water companies
Extra £30 billion for NHS funding
An increasing amount of free childcare
”For the many, not the few”
Conservative policies
Increase NHS funding to £8 billion a year by 2022
cut Net migration to below 100,000
Increase national living wage To 60% of median earnings
Corporation tax to fall to 17% by 2020
Pump an extra £4 billion into schools by 2020
Scrap free school lunches for infants in England
Raise tax-free personal allowance
“Forward, together, strong and stable”
how did people perceive Corbyn and May?
Many criticised Corbyn for lacking experience As he was a backbencher for most of his political career and had no experience on the front bench or as a minister
but others especially the young believed he would be the leader to bring about change and greater equality
Although Theresa May had experience she was perceived to be uninspiring and out of touch with the people as seen in her absence at the leaders debate
overview of results
Conservatives won 318 seats and 42.2% of the vote
Labour won 262 seats with 40% of the vote
UKIP fell from 12.6% to 1.8% of the vote so the leader Paul Nuttall resigned
Theresa May lost 13 seats resulting in a hung parliament
analysis of social factors of how people voted
Geography — Rural England remained Conservative but labour gained in some areas in the south-east such as Canterbury and they still remained strong in the urban centres and London
Class — the Conservatives made rapid gains with the C2 and DE categories, while labour gained votes with the AB and C1 groups
Gender — female voters were seen to vote evenly for the Conservatives and Labour, but the male vote lent towards the Conservatives by 6%
Age — in this election the young came out in greater force, although they were still the lowest group turnout, their increase of turnout was significant and predominantly went to labour
Labour’s social media campaign
Labours social media campaign was extremely successful in gaining more voters, especially with their target demographic of young people
they particularly aimed at under 25’s with their tuition fee promise and were the most active and trending party of the election
whereas the Conservatives stuck to traditional campaigning methods, in some ways they failed to expand their over 50s demographic
key issues
Brexit — voters opinion on leave and remain
a recent survey found that voters in the 2017 election said that Brexit was one of the most important issues facing the country amongst terrorism and the NHS
how did different age groups vote?
18 to 19 — 66% labour 19% Conservative
20 to 24 — 62% labour 22% Conservative
60 to 69 — 58% Conservative 27% labour
70+ — 69% Conservative 19% labour
