UK Politics - Key Elections

Question 1

1983 election of Margaret Thatcher - Context, background and results

Answer 1

• Economic recession and unemployment
• Falklands War saved her political career, allowed character to flourish
• Won a landslide victory of 144 seats in 1983, giving Thatcher a much stronger majority than the Conservative majority of 43 in 1979
• Another factor was the divide of the Labour party, with Labour moderates such as the Gang of Four setting up the Social Democratic Party which threatened Labour by forming alliances with the Liberals - many Labour MPs criticised their manifesto

Question 2

1983 election of Thatcher - Role of the media

Answer 2

• TV channels were apolitical, bulk of political influence was from the newspapers, and the Sun encouraged voting for Thatcher
• She had a strong media presence in comparison to Michael Foot, and publicity was key to the Conservative win - superbus used by Thatcher, and her advisors pushed her into TV appearances

Question 3

1983 election of Thatcher - Significance of party policies and manifestos

Answer 3

• Major part
• Labour manifesto was too far left, deeply split, and controversial, and their campaign is an example of how not to run a campaign
• Labour party had too extreme of a manifesto to win - withdraw from Europe, unilateral nuclear disarmament, abolition of the Lords; they lost the election
  Conservative manifesto showed a more radical side, with Thatcher promising trade union reform, expansion of privatisation (British Gas etc), more in control of party, used Falklands win, policies were a continuation of what Thatcher was doing, support of NATO, against USSR and retained nuclear weapons, and used patriotism

Question 4

1983 election of Thatcher - Impact of leadership and the election campaign

Answer 4

• Thatcher had more of a media presence than Foot and much more party control
• Labour’s campaign was an example of how to lose an election with the campaign and manifesto

Question 5

1983 election of Thatcher - How the election shaped policy making

Answer 5

Huge commons majority allowed further privatisation, emboldened government to take on powerful miners unions and for Labour it created a wilderness period until 1997

Question 6

1983 election of Thatcher - The significance of the electoral system

Answer 6

• Clearest example of FPTP penalising third parties, as 23% of seats in Parliament were held by MPs who would not have been elected with a proportional system
• Alliance got over 25% of the vote, but won only 23 seats, showing a huge mismatch between vote share and seats won
• Polarisation caused by Thatcher’s policies caused resentment over ability of the Conservatives to command an overwhelming majority of seats

Question 7

1983 election of Thatcher - Key conclusions

Answer 7

• Landslide results
• More confidence and radical phase for Thatcherites
• Proved leadership, unity and relevant, well-packaged, patriotic policies can greatly affect electoral outcomes
• Elections can be lost, rather than won

Question 8

1997 election of Tony Blair - Context, background and results

Answer 8

• The 1997 general election was a landslide victory and it was waiting to happen and it resulted in a change of governing party.
• Blair’s Labour Party completed its political comeback by beating John Major’s government. This had been completed by winning seats in both the 1987 and 1992 elections.
• This victory ended an 18 year period of Conservative rule and an unprecedented four general election victories in a row.
• John Major had won an unexpected victory in 1992; in 1997, he was leading a minority government as well as facing reinvigorated Labour Opposition.
• The Labour Party decided to ditch many of its old ways. Out went the controversial commitment to unilateral nuclear disarmament and to wholesale renationalisation, with Clause IV rewritten.
• In summary, under Blair, Labour moved from being a party with a traditional socialist ideology towards the much wanted ‘third way’. It now embraced elements of both left wing values, such as social justice, and more right wing principles, such as free market economic liberalism.
• The outcome, while dramatic in its results, was not unpredicted.
  Labour had a huge lead in the polls enjoying a consistent double-digit lead almost constantly since 1992. It was a question not of who would win the election but how large Labour’s majority would be.
  Unlike 1983, there was no question of Major using his power to call an early general election. Instead, he limped on as prime minister hoping and he was to be disappointed.
• Won 418 seats and 43.2% of the vote
• The Tories lost over half their seats, doing particularly badly in London where their share of the vote fell by 14.1%, and their southeast heartland where it fell by 13.1%.
• The Lib Dems picked up 8 seats off the Conservatives in the southwest, while in Scotland all 11 Tory seats were lost.
• A large number of Tory ministers lost their seats.
• A record number of 120 women were elected as MPs, 101 represented Labour.
• For the first time, Labour won the same percentage of votes as the Tories among the C1 social class, further proof of the ongoing process of class dealignment.
• Labour defeated the Conservatives in every age group.
• There was evidence of tactical voting by anti-Conservative voters.
• E.g. Sheffield Hallam, the Labour vote fell as voters switched to the Liberal Democrats.

Question 9

1997 election of Tony Blair - Role of the media

Answer 9

• The most significant example of this was in 1997, when The Sun switched allegiances.
• Having backed Major in 1992, and butchered then Labour leader Neil Kinnock, it did an about-turn and decided to back Blair for prime minister in 1997. In part, this was also the result of a deliberate and strategic ploy by Blair and his political aides. Blair had flown out to Australia in 1995 to meet The Sun’s owner, Rupert Murdoch.
• The contrast between The
  Sun’s headlines on the eve of the 1992 and 1997 elections could not be clearer.
• In 1992, the Sun carried the headline, ‘If Kinnock wins today, will the last person to leave Britain please turn out the lights’ — a highly personal attack on Labour and its leader. By the 1997 election, as the photo opposite shows, the paper had changed its political stance and opinion about Labour’s capacity to govern.
• In addition, even though the traditionally pro-Tory Daily Mail, Express and Telegraph remained loyal, their support for Major’s re-election was more muted than that of Thatcher.
• On occasion, they ran critical stories on the Conservatives. But, while it is never clear quite how much influence newspapers have over their readership, pro-Labour newspapers counted for 62% of the overall readership — another nail in the coffin for the Conservative campaign.

Question 10

1997 election of Tony Blair - Party policies and manifestos

Answer 10

• In this election, voters were not presented with polarised pledges, with personalities and party perception in the public mattering more than policy
• Labour - Pragmatic not ideological
• Helped by recent processes of policy modernisation and change, Labour moved away from public ownership, wealth redistribution and trade union power to broaden its appeal away from its working class, blue-collar base

Policies:
1) Welfare - personal responsibility is emphasised over a powerful centralised state; commitment to a welfare state remained, but the rights to benefits ‘came with responsibilities’
2) Law and order - promised to be tough on crime and its causes and a zero tolerance policy on anti-social behaviour and petty crime
3) Reform and rights - actively committed to constitutional reform and human rights, including Lords reform, devolution and incorporation of the ECHR
4) Education - took a ‘middle way’ approach, rejecting a return to the 11+ and the monolithic comprehensive school but instead wanted to favour all in schooling that identified the distinct abilities of individual pupils and organisation into classes that maximise their progress in individual subjects to modernise comprehensive systems
5) Healthcare - pledged to cut waiting lists and the NHS bureaucracy
6) The economy - committed to balancing the books with government spending; income tax would not be raised and a national minimum wage would be introduced to help low-wage workers - Labour sought to ditch its image as a ‘tax and spend’ party

Question 11

1997 election of Tony Blair - party policies and manifestos cont.

Answer 11

Conservative manifesto -
- After 18 years in power and inevitable accumulation of policy failures and accusations of sleaze, it would be easy for the Tories to portray themselves or their policies as new and fresh
- Focus on free market liberalism and involvement of the private sector in public services; facing a dilemma of how to appear dynamic and innovative to avoid the charge of ‘same old, same old’, which Labour faced in 2010 after 13 years of office

Policies -
1) Education - Conservatives pledge to publish school exam results and encourage a more academic selection at secondary level
2) Privatisation - would continue and be extended to Royal Mail
3) Reform - there would be no major constitutional changes e.g. devolution
4) Law and order - tough on law and order with a use of CCTV cameras
5) The economy - reduce income tax by 20% and lower business taxes, highlighting its economic track record such as rising levels of home and share ownership
6) Welfare - crackdown on benefit fraud

Question 12

1997 election of Tony Blair - Impact of the leadership and campaign

Answer 12

• The election was Labour’s to lose - they simply had to stay united in their message and not become complacent in their strong poll lead
• Tightly managed and run campaign from Labour which mimicked the 1983 Conservative campaign - Alistair Campbell and Peter Mandelson were key figures for Blair, being committed to New Labour and very media-savvy
• Blair was considered to be young, charismatic and energetic, gift to political marketeers, and the campaign even had its own theme tune
• He had a strong appeal to young, middle-class voters, with Labour’s core voters being guaranteed by deputy leader John Prescott; Blair appealed with his public school, Oxford attendance and lawyer credentials and Prescott appealed with a working class background, 11+ failure and going straight from secondary education into working as a ship’s steward
• In contrast, John Major had an image problem - he was mocked in political cartoons and on TV satirical shows as lacking charisma and being grey; his party was deeply divided, notably over Europe, and Major therefore had to use a ‘put up or shut up’ challenge to his MPs in 1995 when he called a party leadership election to consolidate control
• Blair once said at PMQs that he led his party, whereas Major just followed his
• The campaign revealed this, showing how hard it was for Major to shake off the image of a weak leader who had a split and corrupt party
• The Tory campaign compensated by leading with a negative outlook and relied on attacking Blair, often in personal ways - the most infamous of these was the ‘demon eyes poster’
• Whilst being memorable and creative, it aimed to cause doubt over Blair’s honesty by portraying him as sinister, but it was eventually withdrawn after 150 complaints to the Advertising Standards Authority, an example of political advertising backfiring
  64% of the public disapproved of the poster campaign as it appeared desperate and confirmed the impression that the Conservatives lacked positive ideas or images of their own

Question 13

1997 election of Tony Blair - How did the election affect policy making?

Answer 13

• Due to the landslide election victory, Labour was able to use its huge majority to deliver on the vast bulk of his policies, including constitutional change, the minimum wage and increases on public services without a major tax rise.
• Due to the fact that his majority was so strong, it felt that he had the position in certain areas to be able to alienate certain members of his own party (for example surrounding university tuition fees and the invasion of Iraq).
• For the conservatives, there was a swift overhaul in the focuses they took to try and combat the view of them being considered the ‘nasty party’. Opposition to policies such as devolution and the minimum wage were dropped, and the conservatives took up a more liberal stance on the environment and gay rights.

Question 14

1997 election of Tony Blair - The impact of the electoral system

Answer 14

• Once again the electoral system considerably over-rewarded the victors, whilst under-rewarding the principal opposition party, and the Lib-Dems were punished.
• Labour received 43.2% of the vote share, however received 63.4% of the MPs in Parliament. Gaining a discrepancy margin of +20.2%
• The Conservatives received 30.7% of the vote, yet only received 25% of the MPs. The had a discrepancy margin on -5.7%
• The Lib-Dems received 16.8% of the vote, but only received 7% of the MPs. This was the worst margin of discrepancy with -9.8%.
• Other parties received 9.3% of the vote combined. However only gained 4.6% of the MPs, giving a discrepancy margin of -4.7%

Question 15

1997 election of Tony Blair - Key conclusions

Answer 15

• The 1997 election provided the greatest post-war majority for a single party in the twentieth century.
• It is credited due to a combination of youthful personality; a set of relevant yet non-revolutionary policies and facing an opposition that appeared tired and old.
• Strong Labour support in the media also helped.
• The outcome wasn’t unexpected, nonetheless significantly impacted the government of the UK, as well as the Constitution.
• Ironically, it marked a level of continuity with some of the most sacred cows of Thatcherism, not least a strong belief in and attachment to the free market, personal responsibility and support for entrepreneurship, albeit in combination with social justice and constitutional reform

Question 16

2019 election of Boris Johnson - Context, background and results

Answer 16

• Conservative party failed to obtain a majority in 2017, due to a parliamentary deadlock over Brexit leading to the resignation of May and the selection of Johnson as leader and Prime Minister
• They won a landslide majority of 80 seats

Question 17

2019 election of Boris Johnson - Role of media

Answer 17

• Labour engaged more in social media than the conservatives, and outspent the conservatives by £500,000 and Labour used Facebook in contrast to bus advertising by the Conservatives
• Younger voters were more pro-labour, as younger people tended to engage more with social media they would be influenced more by social
• However, there is no control or limit on political advertising and so fake news is an issue
• 2019 election saw a range of debates and the two main party leaders collaborated to exclude the LibDems and SNP from debates, and Johnson also turned down an interview with Andrew Neil; it was a two-party race and media decisions looked to protect an image rather than promote one
• There was positive media surrounding Johnson, with portrayal of him being able to get Brexit done, whereas Corbyn was facing anti-semitism views, and he declined to apologise multiple time
• Conservative advert was very popular, humanised Johnson and promoted key policies

Question 18

2019 election of Boris Johnson - Party policies and manifestos

Answer 18

• Conservatives - Brexit overshadowed other pledges, including 50,000 new nurses and no rises in income tax, VAT or National Insurance.
  Promise that no one would have to sell their house to pay for adult social care. After so-called ‘dementia tax’ that damaged May’s 2017 campaign.
• Labour - Increases in health spending (4.3% annually) and a rise in national minimum wage to £10/hour and socialist policies such as ending the charitable status of private schools in England and nationalisation of key businesses, including the Big Six energy companies and Royal Mail.
• Liberal Democrats - disregarded Brexit referendum, and many other policies did not attract large amounts of voters Stance implied a disregard for the popular vote in the 2016 referendum. This meant other policies did not attract large amounts of voters.

Overall: Brexit was the topic which dominated the election and voters ideas, other policy pledges were not taken into account. Links to previous leadership (May) and a desire to see the end of lengthy Brexit talks.

Question 19

2019 election of Boris Johnson - Impact of leadership and campaign

Answer 19

• Corbyn - could not lead the working class out of a paper bag, and saw a switch in the vote to Conservatives
• Johnson pulled off many publicity stunts such as the political adverts, JCB digger through a wall and flying over London

Question 20

2019 election of Boris Johnson - How did the election affect policy making?

Answer 20

• A strong majority allowed Johnson to enhance negotiations to get his Brexit deal through, and his main issue was backbencher loyalties over an Internal Markets Bill but policy making priority changed due to the pandemic despite political stability, and Brexit was shifted, showing how emergency events can derail manifestos
• The Conservatives won 365 seats in the election in 2019. This enabled him to embark on Boris Johnson’s negotiations on his preferred Brexit deal. It was not an option here for a nuclear ‘no deal’ Brexit. The loyalty of backbenchers, unlike for his predecessor May, was not a concern of his due to the nature of the election results.
• The only exception of this was in 2020 over the Internal Markets Bill. This measure left open the potential for the government to pass regulations that would break a few specific terms of the EU Withdrawal Agreement, infringing international law.
• Although this was to be a time of political stability, it was thrown into disarray with the unparalleled challenges and magnitude of the COVID-19 pandemic as policy making became determined by crisis management.
• The government was forced onto an unprecedented borrowing spree, this including a job retention programme. Hence Brexit was shifted. This proves that even governments with strong majorities and a clear agenda can be forced to improvise policies as a reaction to unforeseeable events.

Question 21

2019 election of Boris Johnson - Significance of the electoral system

Answer 21

• Across the UK, over 22 million votes (70.8%) were ignored because they went to non-elected candidates or were surplus to what the elected candidate needed. In total, 14.5 million people (45.3% of all voters) cast their vote for a non-elected candidate.
• Tactical voting and electoral pacts loomed large over the election, with YouGov polling for this report revealing that one in every three voters (32%) opted for a tactical vote, instead of choosing their preferred party or candidate.
• England: The two party squeeze is most evident in England with both leading parties taking up 98% of the seats and 81% of the vote. In this election over 5 million votes went to parties other than Labour and Conservatives in England (nearly 18.9% of the vote)
• Scotland: The SNP party delivered an unproportional result with an 8 point increase in votes. The SNP now hold 81% of the seats on 45% of the votes
• The results show how FPTP struggles to translate votes into seats in multi-party contests but also how precarious victory can be under this system. Scottish constituencies feature prominently among the top 10 smallest winning margins and smallest winning majorities UK-wide. These small majorities are typical when FPTP is used in seats where more than two parties have a significant amount of support.
• Wales: Wales returned one of the more proportional results for most parties except Labour, which received a majority of seats for only 41 percent of the votes. Though – as is often the case with FPTP – a decline in support gave the party a disproportionate drop in seats, with an eight percentage point decrease in votes leading to a 15 percentage point decrease in seats.
• A large number of votes went unrepresented – with no seats for the Liberal Democrats, Brexit Party or Green Party despite all these parties increasing their vote share.
• NI: Northern Ireland’s multi-party politics was again, as in 2017, squeezed into a warped two-party shape with 83 percent of the seats going to just two parties despite 47 percent of votes going to others.
  Northern Irish seats feature quite prominently in seats with the lowest winning vote shares, with two of the three lowest, including the lowest (32.4% in South Down) coming from Northern Ireland.

Question 22

2019 election of Boris Johnson - Key conclusions

Answer 22

• Produced a clear victory for a single party
• Brexit, policy and personality dominated
• Campaigned played out in a range of ways such as battle buses, televised debates and social media
• Age dominated, rather than class
• FPTP over exaggerated victory and a victory for policy clarity and campaign discipline