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Guest Blog by Matthew Goodwin and Caitlin Milazzo: Who will stay loyal...
At the 2014 European Parliament elections the UK Independence Party (UKIP) fulfilled its promise to deliver an electoral earthquake. UKIP finished in first place, with 4.3 million votes and 27.5% of the vote. Since the election, attention has quickly turned to the 2015 general election,…
Professor Hermann Schmitt gives election keynote address in Iceland
Similar to Britain, Iceland has conducted an uninterrupted series of National Election Studies (ICENES) since 1984. The ICENES is an extensive study of the electoral and political behaviour of voters in Iceland. To mark the 30th anniversary of the ICENES a symposium was held at…
British Election Study Analysis on BBC Vote 2014 with David Dimbleby
With voting in both the Local and European Elections taking place on Thursday 22nd May, Professor Jane Green of the British Election Study team provided up to date analysis of the elections for BBC Breakfast and the Vote 2014 election special program (BBC1 & BBC2)…
UKIP: Picking up lumps of old labour support?
Written by Professor Geoffrey Evans & Dr Jon Mellon At the final stages of the EU election campaign the leaders put their cases forward to promote their parties. The latest and final interview on The Today Programme on Wednesday 21st May saw Nigel Farage…
British Election Study in the News
On the 7th May 2014, Professor Jane Green of the British Election Study team took part in a Political Studies Association media briefing in Westminster, London. Professor Green’s briefing focused upon whether UKIP’s success at the European Parliament elections in May this year would continue…
How can I analyse the British Election Study data on my computer...
Our data releases are currently in SPSS and Stata format. We will also be releasing an online analysis platform that will allow easy access to the data. If you prefer to work with the data directly but don’t have a copy of SPSS or Stata,…
Room for switching: European Parliament Vote Intentions
According to a Telegraph/ICM poll published on 19 April, the upcoming European Parliament elections lead to a dismal result for the Conservative party, which is predicted to finish third, after Labour and UKIP. We take no aim with the findings of this poll and the…
2015 British Election Internet Panel Study Wave 1
The British Election Study is pleased to announce the release of the first wave of the Internet Panel. 20,881 respondents were interviewed by YouGov between 20th February 2014 and 9th March 2014. Download the data here. The study design aimed at sampling 12500 English, 5000…
Thatcher’s Legacy Still Looms Large: The North-South divide in Britain’s electoral support
During the 1980s Britain witnessed an unprecedented geographical polarisation of voting behaviour and political attitudes. The term North-South divide became popular parlance, not just in the field of economics but also in British politics, as ‘the North’ – defined approximately by an imaginary line from…
Turnout in the European Parliament election: Why do so many people abstain?
Evidence from British Election Study Internet Panel Wave One conducted in Feb/March 2014 There is a bit of a clash between different explanations of the particularly low level of participation in European Parliament elections. Some say it’s all due to Euro-Scepticism: those who are critical about…