In what ways did the nature of party support, and the attitudes of the electorate to the parties, change in the 1970s? How volatile was the British electorate? Was the two-party system breaking down? What were the causes of the Conservative triumph in 1979? Basing their work on national surveys conducted by the British Election Study at the University of Essex after the elections of February and October 1974 and May 1979, Bo Sarlvik and Ivor Crewe examine the whole range of issues which formed the British political climate in this period. This 1983 book's focus is on the election of May 1979, but the analysis is placed in the context of changes in British politics that were signalled by the elections of 1974 as well as longer-term trends. This work provides a wealth of information for all who are interested in the recent history of British party politics and the ways in which people vote.

Over the past thirty years a wealth of statistical information about British voters and British elections has been collected by the British Election Studies research teams. The British Electorate, 1963-1992 makes these data available in a standard, easy-to-read format accessible to the non-technical user. Tables display the same data for each election, allowing the reader to compare any two elections between 1964 and 1992, or to trace trends across the whole period. The information presented covers a wide range of topics in voting and public opinion, including the vote, turnout, party membership, partisanship, and attitudes on issues such as abortion, capital punishment and nationalisation. Data on sub-groups of the electorate (men and women, young and old, trade unionists, the unemployed, Conservative and Labour voters etc) are also presented. This book will be an important reference for political and sociological researchers, both within academia and outside.

Why do some people involve themselves in politics and others not? Which issues are they concerned with? What do they get out of it? Answering such questions is fundamental to understanding political life and the workings of liberal democracies. This book presents the results of one of the most extensive surveys ever undertaken on the levels and patterns of political involvement in Britain. It is based on the findings of a sample survey of nearly 1,600 people across England, Scotland and Wales as well as a further 1,600 men and women and nearly 300 leaders in six specially selected and contrasting communities. These people were asked about the extent to which they had taken political action, particularly at a local level, and the authors found higher levels of participation than previous research has revealed. They analyse these findings in terms of age, gender, social class and education and look at the reactions of local leaders to the efforts people make to influence them.