News - BES Findings
Studying politics? Come play in the Data Playground
The British Election Study has now made its data collected in 2014 available to anyone who wants to know what the nation thinks about politics. Called the Data Playground, the politically interested can now get their hands on BES data, for free, without the need for specialist…
An electoral system fit for purpose?
The British Election Study is lucky enough to have a board of eminent experts in the world of politics who advise on how our data can reach a broad range of users outside academia. The group, whose members span the three main British political parties…
All Roads lead to UKIP? By Geoff Evans and Jon Mellon (University...
Do the Conservatives or Labour need to worry most about UKIP in 2015? Certainly, Labour constituencies see fairly high levels of UKIP support (notably at the recent Heywood & Middleton by-election), suggesting there is credence to the argument that Labour is losing its disaffected traditional…
Is Nigel Farage the Heineken Politician? (Is UKIP Reaching the Parts of...
It is sometimes claimed about Nigel Farage – and by Nigel Farage – that UKIP is particularly successful in winning votes from people who have become disengaged from participating in British elections. The implication is that UKIP is reaching the parts of the electorate that…
British Election Study on the Westminster Hour
Listen to Professor Jane Green and Dr Steve Fisher being interviewed for the Westminster Hour, BBC Radio Four, on 7 December, ahead of our British Election study event in Westminster on 9 December. Both will be presenting their research findings using BES data, along with…
What the BES suggests about constituency variation in party performance, by Stephen...
Where parties win votes at the next general election will matter as well as how many they win. Recent opinion polls suggest that since 2010 the Conservatives have suffered a small set back and Labour have made a correspondingly modest recovery. Much more dramatic has…
Watch the trailer for our new film
Watch the trailer for our new film ‘The British Election Study: Understanding British Democracy’, now available on YouTube ahead of its launch on December 9. Funded by the School of Social Sciences at The University of Manchester, some of Britain’s top academics and journalists in…
None of the above: the role of non-voters in General Election 2015...
Where does a party find extra votes? It’s one of those simple questions about politics and elections that sadly doesn’t have a simple answer. One place to find new supporters is among the backers of other parties. I wrote something about that here. In summary, neither…
British Election Study 2014 Expert Survey Data Released
The BES is pleased to release the first BES Expert Survey. 93 academic experts placed political parties on ideological scales and attitudinal dimensions between April-May 2014. These data can be directly compared to question responses in the BES voter surveys. The data and codebook of the…
Where, if anywhere, will Liberal Democrat votes go in the 2015 General...
The Liberal Democrat conference is in full swing. What is the scale of their challenge? Current opinion polls point to the Liberal Democrats being ‘wiped out’ in the 2015 general election. The Liberal Democrats are currently polling at around 7% (YouGov, October 2014), while in April…