The “Hollowed-Out Election,” or Where Did All the Policy Go?

Figures & data

TABLE 1 Comparison of Subject Categories Covered by Party Press Releases 2005 and 2010 (Based on Those Subjects Covered Twice or More by Each Party; See Gaber 2006)

	Labour 2010	Labour 2005	Conservative 2010	Conservative 2005	Liberal democrat 2010	Liberal democrat 2005
1	Attacking Con/LD	Attacking	Pro Cons	Attacking	Economy	Attacking
2	Pro Labour	Pro Labour	Economy	Crime	Attacking	Economy
3	Economy	Economy	Attacking	Tax	Health	Iraq
4	Crime	Health	Civil Liberties	Pro Cons	Pro Lib Dem	Health
5	Social Security	Education	Crime	Health	Trident	Education
6	Equality	Immigration	TV debates	Economy	Green	Pro Lib Dem
7	Health	Crime	Schools	Immigration	Crime	Pensions
8	Education	Housing	Soc. Security	Education	Scotland	Tax
9		Women	Sport/youth	Pensions	Rural Affairs	Environment
10			Health	Voting irregs.		Ethnic issues
11			Rural Affairs	Iraq		Voting irregs.
12			Pol. Reform
13			Hung Parl.
14			Volcanic ash

TABLE 2 Comparison of References to Own and Other Party Leaders in 2010 Press Releases (See Gaber 2006)

References to:	2010			2005
	Brown	Cameron	Clegg	Blair	Howard	Kennedy
By Labour	65	74	5	19	25	3
By Conservative	37	44	3	32	28	1
By Liberal Democrats	19	24	55	13	7	30

TABLE 3 Comparison of Party Policy Priorities With Those of the Public and the Press (Sources: Clarke et al. 2010; Labour Party 2010; Conservative Party 2010; Liberal Democrats 2010; Scammell and Becket 2010)

Ranking	Public Opinion (British election study)	Labour	Conservative	Liberal democrat	Press
1	Economy	Economy	Economy	Economy	Economy
2	Immigration	Crime	Civil liberties/ Equality	Health	Hung Parliament
3	Afghanistan	Social Security	Crime	Defence (Trident)	Immigration
4	Crime	Equality	Education	Environment	Health
5	Health	Health	Social Security	Crime	Defense

TABLE 4 Analysis of Front Page and Editorials in All National Newspapers During the 2010 Campaign (Scammell and Beckett 2010)

Topic	Number of front pages and editorials
TV Debates and leaders	150
Economy/deficit	58
Hung parliament	33
Manifestos	26
Exhortation/advice to vote	25
Immigration	19
Health	12
Defense	3
Political reform	2
Crime	1
Other	11
Total	111

TABLE 5 Ipsos MORI “Political Triangle”: Responses to Question Asking, “Out of 10, How Much Would Respondents Attribute to Leaders' Parties' and Policies' in Making Their Voting Decisions, 1987–2010 (Ipsos MORI 2010; Figures in Table Are Mean Average Scores Given by Respondents)

All mean		Conservative mean	Labour mean	Liberal democrat mean
1987
Leaders	3.5	n/a	n/a	n/a
Policies	4.4	n/a	n/a	n/a
Parties	2.1	n/a	n/a	n/a
1992
Leaders	3.2	3.5	2.9	3.4
Policies	4.4	4.3	4.5	4.2
Parties	2.0	2.0	2.4	2.2
1997
Leaders	3.4	3.6	3.6	3.3
Policies	4.1	4.2	3.8	4.3
Parties	2.3	2.2	2.5	2.3
2001
Leaders	3.2	2.9	3.4	3.2
Policies	4.2	4.4	3.9	4.4
Parties	2.4	2.5	2.3	2.3
2005
Leaders	3.0	3.0	3.4	2.9
Policies	4.7	4.8	4.4	5.1
Parties	2.1	2.2	2.3	2.0
2010
Leaders	3.8	3.9	4.0	3.6
Policies	3.8	3.8	3.5	4.0
Parties	2.2	2.1	2.2	2.2

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