News - Representation
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…
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…
If politicians want love, they should get a spaniel, by Phil Cowley
The claim that whilst people don’t like politicians as a species they do like their own MP has now become a political truism. You hear it a lot from some MPs, for whom it has become a bit of a comfort blanket; battered by years…
“Almost 70% of people know the name of their MP”, by Professor...
Almost 70% of people know the name of their MP, according to the British Election Study. What percentage of people know the name of their MP? One recent survey by the Hansard society found the figure was down as low as 22%. That was the…
Better Together, whatever happens? Public reactions to post-‘No’ scenarios (by Dr Rob...
If Scotland votes ‘No’ on 18 September, what happens next? And might voters’ answers to that question influence how they vote in the referendum? Here, Rob Johns from the University of Essex analyses a British Election Study Internet Panel survey experiment which examined reactions to various…
British Election Study Analysis on BBC Vote 2014 with David Dimbleby
With voting in both the Local and European Elections taking place on Thursday 22nd May, Professor Jane Green of the British Election Study team provided up to date analysis of the elections for BBC Breakfast and the Vote 2014 election special program (BBC1 & BBC2)…