UK Election 2015: Finding out how voters really feel as the general election looms, UK General Election 2015, UK Election 2015, UK Parliament Election 2015

UK Election 2015: Finding out how voters really feel as the general election looms

 As 7 May gets closer and the media coverage and general noise increases you could be forgiven for wondering whether the election has anything to do with voters at all. We wade through acres of analysis about the parties and politicians but the individuals who vote for (or not) scarcely feature other than as a number in the increasingly prolific published polls.

 Small wonder then that voters have never felt more out of the loop – or been more disaffected with mainstream politics – and that is one of the most important contextual stories shaping the backdrop to the campaign. Its impact will be felt as people turn away from the two main parties. The knock-on effect on turnout, especially amongst younger voters, will be interesting too.

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I’m not sure where the years went but this will be the seventh general election that I’ve worked on. And by a long way it’s the one where the polling data seems to be revealing the least – in fact the only thing that most pollsters can agree on is that 2015 is impossible to call as the polls remain stubbornly neck and neck.

Another distinctive feature of 2015 is that there are so many different battles being played out. It’s no longer a straightforward Labour/Tory tussle, we’re also watching Labour and the SNP fight it out in Scotland, the potential demise of the Lib Dems, the impact of UKIP and the potential for ‘progressive’ voters to go Green. Arguably it’s not one election, it’s five or more.

This makes the numbers much harder to interpret, and even without these complicating factors the polls can be wrong.

In 1992 they told us that Labour would win, while in 2005 and again in 2010 the Tories looked set fair for victory, and of course that’s not how it turned out. That’s where in-depth qualitative, rather than quantitative, research can make a difference.

It helps us to understand the deeper views and perceptions that drive people’s voting behaviour. In 1992 the underlying views of the parties and the leaders revealed in focus groups told me that the polls were wrong. I was nervous about trusting anecdote over statistics but it turned out they were right.

Some politicians will argue that canvassing and other ‘voter engagement’ activity achieves the same but here’s the difference: only qualitative research tells you what people say when politicians and party members are not in the room. Activists from all parties tell tales from the doorstep of voters unwilling to make eye contact, or not even opening the door. By contrast, voters in focus groups don’t hold back, they tell it like it is, however unflattering, however rude.

That’s why the team at BritainThinks have joined with the Guardian to set up a qualitative panel of undecided voters in five constituencies that each represent one of the five ‘elections within an election’. We’ll be in Glasgow East, where shadow Scottish secretary Margaret Curran is defending the Labour seat from the SNP’s Natalie McGarry. We’ll be in Dewsbury which looks like a more traditional Labour/Tory battle.

We’ll watch who will take over after Jeremy Browne announced he was standing down in Taunton Deane. We’ll test the extent to which London really is different by looking at Labour’s pulling power in Ealing Central and Acton and who is winning the battle for the progressive vote. And where better to evaluate whether UKIP really can deliver than South Thanet where Nigel Farage is putting his career in the hands of disaffected Tory voters?

In each location our panel, made up of a cross-section of ordinary men and women who have not yet decided how they’ll vote, will participate in a series of extended focus group sessions designed to unearth their underlying views of the policies, the parties and the leaders.

We’ll also arm each of them with an app specially designed to transform their mobile phones into ethnographic data collectors. Each week our voters will send us, in real-time, their reactions to the campaign as it unfolds. We’ll also set them specific tasks: maybe watching a debate or a party election broadcast live and recording the responses of their friends and family.

This innovative programme will give us an invaluable insight into the lives of the people who will decide this election. We’ll see the election through their eyes, and will be able to explore views of politics overall (and how these change in the weeks ahead). We’ll explore views of the parties, the policies and the leaders. We’ll also get their evaluation of the campaign as it develops – and of course, finally, of the result. The unique feedback will help verify and interpret the published polling.

Most importantly, we’ll be placing the voter back where they belong – right at the centre of the election campaign.

 src:theguardian

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