British Politics For Dummies, 2nd Edition

Chapter 7

Voting Behaviour and Trends

In This Chapter

Sorting out who votes, and why

Paying attention to what motivates voters

Persuading people to vote

Win or lose, we go shopping after the election.

—Imelda Marcos, former presidential First Lady of the Philippines

Shopaholic Imelda Marcos’s husband was famously overthrown in the late 1980s; perhaps she should have paid more attention at election time!

In the UK and the other great democracies of the world, election time is a huge deal. Tens of millions of Britons each year take the time and trouble to vote. They elect the UK parliament, the European parliament in Strasbourg and the local council down the road. Elections in the UK are varied and colourful, with lots of different candidates and parties.

People often see an election as a major staging post in their lives – as with Margaret Thatcher’s election in 1979, Tony Blair’s in 1997 or the coming of the coalition in 2010. Elections are part of a country’s shared experience, and yet also highly personal because each individual plays an essential part by voting.

In this chapter, I explore everything you need to know about what influences people to choose to vote (or not vote) ...