The Statistics of the UK General election of 2005, who voted

Scott2006

Opinion Polling Organizations from Gallup, YouGov, Populous and others including MORI take snapshots of public opinion almost every month, sometimes for more than one media outlet at a time.

The most intensive interest in opinion polls, not unnaturally, occurs in the run up to a General Election. Looking at the figures mentioned in Mori (now ipsos-mori) web report MORI Final Aggregate Analysis - which on a UK basis seeks to break the population up along the lines of gender, age, social class and housing tenure to explain out of those that would definately vote at the general election on May 5th 2005.

The wording of survey questions can be loaded to appear to favour a certain outcome - but the standard questions, as seen below, employed by MORI have no bias and favour no social group over another in the simplicity of the format.
Q1 "How would you vote if there were a General Election tomorrow?"
(Ask those undecided / refused)

Q2 "Which party are you most inclined to support?"

The General Election 2005 result to the nearest percentage gave
Con 33% Lab 36% LibDem 22%

the Opinion Poll of 28-29 April 2005 gave a view of the mood of the electorate
Con 33% Lab36% LibDem22% SNP/PC 3% Green 2% UKIP 2% Others 2%
seemingly close enough to adequately reflect the mood a few days later.

(for comparison March 2008 - Con 40%, Lab 35%, LD 18%, SNP/PC 2%, Green 1%, UKIP 1%, Others 3%)

The Scottish portion of the UK picture from these numerous polls didn't always have the same or very similar number of respondents, so to aid an accurate picture to be obtained various weightings would need to be calculated to represent the larger social groupings from the less affluent sectors of Scotland compared to richer parts of England. Nevertheless certain traits and political allegiances are more obviously demonstrated by social class and housing category from outright ownership to social or private renting.

The social classification system used based on job title
A - professionals doctors, solicitors, architects, senior civil servants, senior business executives, high ranking in armed forces, dentists, chartered
B - university lecturers, retired & widows (of formally grade A), middle management, police inspectors, bank managers, head of local government departments, upper grades in armed forces
C1 - non-manual jobs not previously specified, includes technicians, nurses, salesmen, publicans, pharmacists, police sergeants, middle rank armed forces, clerical workers
C2 - skilled manual workers, foremen, lorry drivers, security officers, lower grades armed forces, manual workers with special qualifications
D - semi-skilled and unskilled manual workers, farm labourers, postmen, lab assistants, serving apprenticeships
E - lowest levels of subsistence, dependent on the state long-term, casual workers, without a regular income

Social characteristics based on a turnout of 61% at the 2005 election gave
AB Social class 71% turnout = 10% above base and more likely to be absolutely certain to vote
C1 62% only 1% above the overall turnout
C2 58% for manual workers assessed to be of this class
DE 54% turnout estimated

On the old 2 party scale of Conservative v Labour (which doesn't fully reflect reality in the 4 or 5 party system found in Scotland)
the top social class of upper and upper-middle class AB favoured Conservatives by 9% more than Labour
C1 class only favoured the Conservatives by 5% over Labour

C2 class swung more behind Labour by 7% over Conservatives
the DE social class as expected only gave a quarter of their support to the Conservatives - the Labour lead stood at 23%

ICM another polling organization uses weighting of the UK population in the following proportions
Social Class: AB 26%, C1 29%, C2 21%, DE 24%

Translating social class into vote estimates gives
AB 18.46, C1 17.98, C2 12.18, DE 12.96 if turnout approximated to 61.58 , or relative votes in percentage terms
AB 30%, C1 29.2%, C2 19.8%, DE 21%

The more affluent AB class make about 26% of the population but account for 30% of the votes!

ICM population weighting
Age: 18-24 12%, 25-34 16%, 35-44 20%, 45-54 17%, 55-64 15%, 65+ 21%

In the 6 standard age categories for voting by age the results are by turnout
18-24 = 37%, 25-34 = 49%, 35-44 = 61%, 45-54 = 65%, 55-64 = 71%, 65+ = 75%.

Translating age into vote estimates gives
18-24 7.1%, 25-34 12.7%, 35-44 19.7%, 45-54 17.9%, 55-64 17.2%, 65+ 25.4%.

The youngest voters make up approx. 12% of the electorate but only just over 7% of the actual votes, unlike the over 65s who make up about 21% of the electorate but account for almost 25.4% of the votes cast - seemingly the older you are the more inclined you feel towards taking part in the democratic voting process.

The political preference of younger people seen the Conservatives lag behind Labour by 10% (18-24), 13% (25-34), 14% (35-44), and 4% (45-54)
yet the Conservatives led in 55-64 year olds by 8% and in the 65+ age range Conservatives led by 6%.

ICM housing weighting
Housing Tenure: Own outright 33%, Own with mortgage 39%, Council rent/ housing association 13%, Private rentier 10%, Other 5%

Housing status as it affected vote turnout
Own Outright 71%, Own with mortgage 60%, Social rent/housing association 51%, Private renter 51%, Other unspecified

Translating housing status into vote estimates gives
Own Outright 38.6%, Own with mortgage 38.6%, Social rent/housing association 10.9%, Private renter 8.4%,

In the UK it seems the more likely you are to own your own home - the greater the likelihood you would look favourably on the conservatives.
Own outright 44% Tory to 29% for Labour - a lead of 15%.
Every other category has a lead between these two parties for Labour - with a mortgage Labour 36% to the Conservatives 31%,
Social renter 55% for Labour only 16% for the Conservatives, a Labour lead of 39%!
Private renter favoured Labour by 9% with 36% against the Conservative 27%.

Of course this is only scratching the surface of what political party machines can extrapolate where they can find their bedrock support and how to woo waverers away from voting for other parties.
As both Conservative and Labour continue to wrestle for the votes of middle England - the less they seek to engage with the different political dynamics in Scotland.
The property owning classes in England will decide Gordon Brown's fate - whether he has to find £50billion or £300billion he will prop up the housing market - as more voters have a mortgage than actually voted Labour at the last election.

Reluctant Hero

The Statistics of the UK General election of 2005, who voted

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