General Election 2001 : The Most Boring Election?
This has been the most boring election in living memory, with fewer of the public than ever taking any interest in it ... right? Wrong, oddly enough.
It is certainly true that in terms of the numbers who say that they are likely to vote, we seem to be heading for the lowest turnout since the War, possibly since the First World War. There are a lot of Britons who are taking no interest in the election at all. But that dies not necessarily imply that the diminished number who are intending to vote are less interested in the election than in the past.
For The Times this week we asked a bank of four questions that we also posed at similar stages of the 1992 and 1997 campaigns, measuring how many of the public say they are "very interested" or "fairly interested" in news about the election, what the polls are saying, the party election broadcasts and politicians' speeches. Surprisingly, in view of the general impression that apathy is taking over the country, more of the public said that they were interested in each of these four than was the case in 1997. In fact, more of the public are interested in politicians' speeches than in 1992, one of the highest turnout elections of modern times!
Q How interested would you say you were in each of the following?
| 160 | Apr 1992 | Apr 1997 | May 2001 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 160 | % | % | % |
| News about the election | |||
| Interested | 60 | 52 | 58 |
| Not interested | 38 | 48 | 41 |
| Net | 22 | 4 | 17 |
| 160 | |||
| What the opinion polls say about the election | |||
| Interested | 40 | 33 | 35 |
| Not interested | 58 | 66 | 64 |
| Net | -18 | -33 | -29 |
| 160 | |||
| Party election broadcasts | |||
| Interested | 36 | 32 | 35 |
| Not interested | 63 | 67 | 64 |
| Net | -27 | -34 | -29 |
| 160 | |||
| Politicians' speeches | |||
| Interested | 43 | 40 | 46 |
| Not interested | 56 | 60 | 54 |
| Net | -13 | -20 | -8 |
Why, I wonder? One noticeable feature of this election has been how early in the entire proceedings the entire media came to the unanimous conclusion that they were bored, and so must be their readers or viewers. Certainly, the broadsheet press coverage has given the impression of being very much less enthusiastic or comprehensive than in the past. Could it be that part of the public that takes an interest in politics and will vote -- still a majority, apathy notwithstanding, far from feeling sated by the sparse coverage simply find it whetting their appetites?
