General Election 2001 - Election Digest

Election Commentary - How Shy Are The Tories (And Labour And The Lib Dems?)

At the 1997 election, one of the most powerful forces behind Tony Blair's victory was "word of mouth" among ordinary voters. We asked the public the same questions again, in our poll for The Times this week.

Scottish Socialist Party Survey Election Advertising

Scottish Socialist Party Survey

The Scotsman reports a System Three survey for the Scottish Socialist Party showing the number of Scottish voters saying they are likely to vote for the party in the General Election has increased to 15%, compared to 9% in 1999. 4% said they were "very likely" to vote for the SSP; 9% said they were "quite likely".

More than seven in ten (71%) respondents agreed that council tax is unfair and should be replaced by an ability-to-pay based system, and 64% agreed that railways, gas and electricity services should be renationalised; two policies that the SSP says it would implement if in power.

Source: The Scotsman, 11 May 2001 Details: Survey by System Three. Sample: 1,028 adults were interviewed face-to-face across 39 Scottish constituencies on 26 April-2 May 2001.

Election Advertising

A new survey from The Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) focuses on electioneering strategies and their effect on the voting public.

Findings showed that for every voter persuaded by a negative campaigning advert to vote for the ad issuing party, five more said they were irritated into voting against that party. Only 8% admitted that advertising helps them decide which party to vote for. Nevertheless, recall of political advertising campaigns from past elections was high. 44% of those questioned remembered the party political slogan 'It's time to get Britain working again' (1992), while 31% could recall 'Britain deserves better' (1997) and 30% recalled 'New Labour, new danger' (1996). By comparison, a recent NOP poll testing recall of consumer advertising found that within the top 20 ads recalled in a recent poll were campaigns for Lockets, Volkswagen Passat and Learn Direct which were remembered by 39%.

Source: Chartered Institute of Marketing Technical details not reported.