It’s Lonely in the Middle: Perception of Political Alignment and Likely Voting Behaviour

Figure 1  Example of voter self-perception of polticial alignment 

An analysis of voter perception in the British Electoral Survey throws up some key poitns for liberals. Voters were asked to assess how left ro right wing thet thought they were - their self-perceived left/right alignment. On an individual’s self-perceived political left/right alignment there are three clear peaks (Figure 1) – one for people who define their political views as occupying the centre ground, and two slightly smaller peaks where people seem to identify themselves as slightly left or right of centre.

Figures 2-4  Perception of self right/left alignment and right/left alignment of political parties. Contours are percentage of voters. 

Voters were then asked to to assess the left/right alingemnt of the polticial parties. Cross tabulating self-perception of political alignment with an individual’s perception of alignment of the Conservatives, Labour and Liberal Democrat parties the Conservatives are perceived to align with the right of UK politics but with a small peak of individuals believing that the Conservatives represent the centre ground as well (Figure 2). The Labour party are clearly perceived to align with the left of UK politics (Figure 3). The Liberal Democrats are perceived to occupy a very narrow central ground of UK politics and exhibit none of the spread to the right or left that the Conservatives and Labour party show (Figure 4). Trying to align the party to occupy the centre ground is a pointless exercise – the public believe that hte LibDems already  occupy this position. 

When the likelihood of voting for a particular party is crosstabulated with the perceived left/right alignment of that party  there is a clear and strong distinction in the respondents mind concerning their likelihood to vote for Conservatives or Labour parties based on the individual’s perception of their left/right alignments. For the Liberal Democrats there is a lack of strong likelihood to vote for the Liberal Democrats even amongst those who perceive the party as aligned with the centre of UK politics. In addition those who perceive the Liberal Democrats as representing a more left-wing alignment, there is a low likelihood that they would vote for the party. 

(The full report is available if you email me privately)