Base Support For UK Political Parties

[ChrisDR68]

I've been thinking recently about what the base support for each of the main political parties are in the UK. Looking at the results of every British General Election since 1979 (which was the first one I can remember being 10 years old at the time) here is my guess of what they are:

Conservative           30%
Labour                     25%
Liberal Democrats   10%
Others                      5%

If those figures are anywhere near correct then the next election will be about the 30% of the electorate that are thought of as "floating" voters.

The Conservatives have never gone below 30%. The lowest was John Major's 30.7% in 1997 when everything pointed to the public wanting the Tories out.

Labour has fallen below 30% twice since 1979 so I put their base as being smaller than that of the Conservatives.

The Liberal Democrats support has always been a bit flaky and highly dependent on one or other of the two main parties being unpopular at any given election.

The "others" have been around 9% or more since 1997 but before then they were only around 5-6% so the two main parties' support has been fragmenting and going to the nationalists, greens, Northern Irish parties and more recently UKIP. It's a recent trend and is therefore likely to not be deeply rooted.

Are these base support figures about right?

[minionofmidas]

You are aware of the concept of "turnout"? Just checking.

[ChrisDR68]

In so far as turnout affects my estimates on the parties base support, conventional wisdom is that the lower the turnout the more it favours the Conservatives.

Tory voters tend to be older and older voters tend to be more likely to vote.

Overall though, concentrating on those that actually do vote, 70% of people in the UK generally vote one way and one way only regardless of the economic or political situation at the time in the country.

Just like surveys showing that people in the UK tend not to change bank accounts or their energy suppliers, people vote either through deep conviction, or more likely out of habit.