General Election 2001 - Election Commentary: Grey Votes
Older voters play a crucial role in the result of any British General Election. Not only are there a good many of them, but they are more likely to vote than younger voters -- becoming of increasing significance as turnouts fall. Furthermore, of course, their election agenda is in many respects distinctive, forcing those who hope for their votes to give them separate consideration.
In 1997 the third of the adult population aged 55 and over swung 8% to Labour -- a substantial shift but less than the overall swing of 10.5% -- giving Labour a narrow lead among the age group, by 40% to 36% with the Lib Dems on 17%. It was the first election since MORI started detailed election polling in 1974 when the "grey vote" had not favoured the Tories.
Voting by electors aged 55+
| Oct 1974 | 1979 | 1983 | 1987 | 1992 | 1997 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| % | % | % | % | % | % | |
| Conservative | 42 | 47 | 47 | 46 | 46 | 36 |
| Labour | 40 | 38 | 27 | 31 | 34 | 40 |
| Liberal Democrat | 14 | 13 | 24 | 21 | 17 | 17 |
| Other | 4 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 7 |
| Conservative lead | +2 | +9 | +20 | +15 | +12 | -4 |
While many of the concerns of older voters are the same as those of the rest of the electorate, they have some distinctive interests. When we asked in our poll for the Sunday Telegraph (10-12 May) which issues would be very important to the public in helping decide how to vote, the issues most frequently named by those under 55 were health care (39%), education (38%) and taxation (17%); for the 55+ group the order was health care (42%), pensions (33%), education (27%) and taxation (14%). Further down the list, law and order scores more highly with the older group (12% against 8%), but is nevertheless not one of the top of the mind concerns for any age group.
The second table shows how stable the level of Tory support among the 55+ group has been during the current Parliament; only in the third quarter last year, with the effect both of anger over the derisory 75p increase that had been announced in pensions and, towards the end of the quarter, the general anti-government swing cased by the petrol crisis, was there a brief lift in the Tory share putting them fractionally ahead; but by the start of this year the figures had returned to normal. Indeed, the final column, taking the aggregate of our first three election polls for The Times, shows Labour gaining slightly from the Liberal Democrats.
Voting intentions of electors aged 55+
| 1998 Q1 | 1999 Q1 | 2000 Q1 | 2000 Q3 | 2001 Q1 | 8-22 May 2001 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| % | % | % | % | % | % | |
| Conservative | 35 | 37 | 37 | 41 | 36 | 37 |
| Labour | 48 | 46 | 42 | 40 | 46 | 49 |
| Liberal Democrat | 14 | 14 | 16 | 15 | 13 | 10 |
| Other | 3 | 3 | 5 | 4 | 5 | 4 |
| Conservative lead | -13 | -9 | -5 | +1 | -10 | -12 |
Labour's improvement may reflect a good reception for their manifesto pledges. An NOP poll in last week's Sunday People interviewed 500 pensioners and found their voting intentions to be Labour 50% (although they were at 40% in the graphic!), Conservative 31% and Liberal Democrats 12%. It also found, perhaps unsurprisingly, that 92% support the new winter fuel payments, and 86% the provision of free television licences to the over 75s.
Older voters are much more likely to turn out than the rest of the population: two-thirds (67%) of the 55+ group said they were certain to vote in this morning's Times/MORI poll, compared to 55% of those aged 35-54 and just 32% of those aged 34 or under. Hence winning the "grey vote" is the key to profiting from a low turnout and in past elections has been of considerable value to the Tories. Not this time, it seems.
Dr. Roger Mortimore
