-
Views
-
Cite
Cite
Ron Johnston, Performance Politics and the British Voter, Parliamentary Affairs, Volume 64, Issue 1, January 2011, Pages 204–215, https://doi.org/10.1093/pa/gsq046
Close - Share Icon Share
Extract
The British political landscape has changed markedly during the last seven decades. In the 1940s and 1950s two parties predominated, winning more than 90 per cent of the votes between them and virtually all of the seats in the House of Commons—the Liberals’ nadir came in 1951, 1955, 1959 and 1970, when they won only six seats. Furthermore, in the first post-war decade there was a major ideological difference between the Conservatives and Labour. The latter believed in high taxation, redistribution of income and wealth, a welfare state characterised by universal public services and benefits, and nationalisation of the country's major industries—a strongly social democratic if not socialist, programme; their opponents believed in the free market in which the state played a regulatory role, with some public services and benefits for those unable to provide for themselves. That clear difference was reflected in the sources of their electoral support: Labour's strength was in the working class, especially those elements of it that were readily mobilised by its industrial wing—the trades unions; the Conservatives’ heartlands were in the middle classes, with some support from the more deferential elements within the (mainly rural) working classes.
