News - BES Findings
UKIP: Picking up lumps of old labour support?
Written by Professor Geoffrey Evans & Dr Jon Mellon At the final stages of the EU election campaign the leaders put their cases forward to promote their parties. The latest and final interview on The Today Programme on Wednesday 21st May saw Nigel Farage…
British Election Study in the News
On the 7th May 2014, Professor Jane Green of the British Election Study team took part in a Political Studies Association media briefing in Westminster, London. Professor Green’s briefing focused upon whether UKIP’s success at the European Parliament elections in May this year would continue…
Room for switching: European Parliament Vote Intentions
According to a Telegraph/ICM poll published on 19 April, the upcoming European Parliament elections lead to a dismal result for the Conservative party, which is predicted to finish third, after Labour and UKIP. We take no aim with the findings of this poll and the…
Thatcher’s Legacy Still Looms Large: The North-South divide in Britain’s electoral support
During the 1980s Britain witnessed an unprecedented geographical polarisation of voting behaviour and political attitudes. The term North-South divide became popular parlance, not just in the field of economics but also in British politics, as ‘the North’ – defined approximately by an imaginary line from…
Turnout in the European Parliament election: Why do so many people abstain?
Evidence from British Election Study Internet Panel Wave One conducted in Feb/March 2014 There is a bit of a clash between different explanations of the particularly low level of participation in European Parliament elections. Some say it’s all due to Euro-Scepticism: those who are critical about…
New BES data available
New data from the British Election Study are now available. The data are based on an online sample of over 20,000 people surveyed between 20th February and 9th March 2014. More information about the first survey can be found here. The BES is one of the longest…
UKIP support in the European Parliament election set to translate to the...
The UK Independence Party tends to poll significantly better in European Parliament elections than it does in Westminster general elections. A good result for UKIP in the European Parliament elections is a blow for the three major parties, but the major parties traditionally take comfort…
British Election Study on BBC Breakfast News
Professor Jane Green, Co-Investigator on the British Election Study, was interviewed by Charlie Stayt and Louise Minchin on BBC Breakfast News following the second leadership debate between Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg and UK Independence Party leader Nigel Farage. Asked whether she was surprised that…
Analysing the Effects of Individual Level Registration: BES Partnership with the Electoral...
The British Election Study is partnering with the Electoral Commission to analyse the impact of the switch to individual electoral registration (IER) which is being rolled out from Summer 2014. The partnership will involve two streams of work. (i) Individual level analyses explaining the determinants…