Voting Behavior

Long term factors that may influence voting behavior over a long period of time include:
Social class
Gender
Age
Religion
Ethnicity

Social Class

“Class is the basis of British party politics: all else is embellishment and detail” (Pulzer)

Social class is one of the fundamental divisions that define post war British electoral politics.
Some would suggest that the social class of a person might explain their voting behavior.
Social groups will vote for political parties that serve their group interests best e.g. people that belong to the working class will vote for a political party that serves working class interests.
This is called ‘socio-political alignment’ and gave rise to strong class based …show more content…

Labour support declined across all the social classes

The Scottish Factor- General Election for the whole of the UK

In 2010, Scottish voters, perhaps seeing the General Election as a two horse race between Labour and Conservatives, returned Labour MPs with increased majorities. Labour won in even the most affluent areas, e.g. East Renfrewshire.

The Conservatives won just 1 seat in the whole of Scotland. Conservative MPS Murdo Fraser has suggests that the party has to change its name and its whole organisation as the Scottish Conservatives, as a party, is ‘toxic’ in Scotland.

2011 Scottish Parliament Elections

A feature of the 2011 Scottish Parliament elections was the scale of Labour’s defeat in its traditional working class heartlands.
Labour’s votes fell most heavily in areas of social deprivation (surprising).
Labour won the Inverclyde by-election in June 2011, despite losing the same seat in the Scottish elections a month earlier. This may be further evidence of a “twin track” approach by some traditional Scottish Labour voters; voting labour in UK elections where a labour/conservative contest is most likely to be switching to the SNP for Scottish elections. Traditional working class voters switched to the SNP for Scottish elections.

Gender and Voting

Traditionally men tended to support the Labour Party more whilst women voters tended to favour the conservative party. However