Table Of ContentC A L O N
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Political Communication in Britain
Dominic Wring • Roger Mortimore • Simon Atkinson
Editors
Political
Communication
in Britain
Polling, Campaigning and Media in the 2015
General Election
Editors
Dominic Wring Simon Atkinson
Loughborough University Ipsos MORI
United Kingdom London, United Kingdom
Roger Mortimore
Ipsos MORI
London, United Kingdom
ISBN 978-3-319-40933-7 ISBN 978-3-319-40934-4 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-40934-4
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016956373
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of
translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on
microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval,
electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now
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The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are
exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information
in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the pub-
lisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the
material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made.
Cover illustration: David Cameron campaigning in the Cornish marginal seat of St Ives
holding a copy of the ‘I’m afraid there is no money’ memo written by a former Labour
Treasury minister government. The Prime Minister frequently used the letter in the final
stage of the General Election to question his opponent’s economic record in government.
Printed on acid-free paper
This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature
The registered company is Springer International Publishing AG Switzerland
The registered company address: is Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
P a
reface and cknowledgements
The arithmetic relating to the UK electoral system proved crucial to deter-
mining the result of the 2015 General Election. In previous contests, the
party coming first had done so by a margin comfortable enough to govern
on its own. This changed in 2010 with the formation of the Coalition
after the Conservatives had failed to win an overall majority. Approaching
this election, and with successive polls showing a very close race with no
single party in a clear lead, there was widespread anticipation of another
hung parliament being returned. Yet the Conservatives’ 2015 victory was
achieved by the margin of votes necessary to enable them to take office on
their own, albeit with a relatively small majority. This unexpected result
provided a dramatic conclusion to what had been a protracted campaign.
The surprise outcome led to intense debate over what had happened
among various commentators who had spent the previous weeks speculat-
ing over the potential make-up of another coalition government.
This book provides a contribution to understanding what happened
in the 2015 General Election and does so from the perspectives of those
who played leading roles in the campaign and in the reporting and polling
of the race. It also offers comment and analysis from researchers on vari-
ous other important aspects of the election, including the leader debates
and the contribution of social media. The editors are very grateful to all
the contributors for their prompt and always courteous responses to our
requests. We would like to sincerely thank them all for giving us their
insights into a campaign that has threatened to be overshadowed by its
largely unanticipated outcome. Some chapters provide invaluable on-the-
record accounts of what happened and in certain cases take us behind the
v
vi PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
scenes. Together, these and the other contributions offer reflective com-
ments and analysis on several of the least as well as most discussed aspects
of the campaign. This was the aim of the Political Communication series
when it was launched after the 1979 General Election and we are proud
to continue in this tradition.
The editors are very grateful to various other people for their help. We
would particularly like to thank Bob Worcester, who co-founded and co-
edited the first volume in the series, for kindly providing the Foreword for
this ninth instalment. Steve Rothberg and Anna Theaker of Loughborough
University Enterprise Office together with Charles Pattie of the UK
Political Studies Association’s Elections, Public Opinion and Parties group
provided support that helped to make this book possible; a post-election
conference held in Summer 2015 provided the springboard for many of
the chapters here. We are also grateful to Chin Guan Goh and his col-
leagues at the Emmanuel Centre London as well as Danielle Bailey, James
Ludley, Kate Mattocks and Jamie Ralph of the Political Studies Association
for their input. We would like to express our gratitude to Jo Brewin,
Jon Crannage, Suzanne Dexter, Charlotte Hester, Liz Fowkes, Graham
Herring, Dane Vincent, Denise Wade and Judy Wing of Loughborough
University. Michele Chester, Fiona O’Connor, Rahel Mebrahtu and
Duncan Struthers of Ipsos MORI provided invaluable support. Thanks
are also due to: Jay Blumler, Martin Boon, Jo Coburn, Stephen Coleman,
Tahlia Dolan, Adam Drummond, Tom Edmonds, James Endersby, Geoff
Evans, Ed Fieldhouse, Joanna Geary, Jane Green, Michael Jermey, Chris
Luffingham, Damian Lyons Lowe, Jane Martinson, Martin Moore and
Mike Smithson. Jo Sheriff and Tilly Wring have been of great help to
the project. Sara Crowley Vigneau, Ambra Finotello and Imogen Gordon
Clark of Palgrave Macmillan have been patient and very helpful from the
beginning of this process. Finally, we would also like to repay our gratitude
to our anonymous reviewers for their helpful advice and encouragement.
We hope this volume proves a fitting addition to the series.
DW, RM and SA
c
ontents
1 Foreword 1
Robert Worcester
2 Introduction 9
Dominic Wring, Roger Mortimore, and Simon Atkinson
Part I Polling 17
3 The Polls and Their Context 19
Roger Mortimore and Anthony Wells
4 The Performance of the Polls 39
Nick Moon
5 The Election in Scotland 49
Mark Diffley
vii
viii CONTENTS
6 Outside the Marginals: Constituency and Regional
Polling at the 2015 General Elections 63
Tom Mludzinski and Katharine Peacock
7 What the Polls Polled: Towards a Political Economy
of British Election Polls 77
Murray Goot
Part II Campaigns 113
8 An Interview with Jeremy Sinclair 115
Jeremy Sinclair and Simon Atkinson
9 The Conservative Campaign 123
Andrew Cooper
10 The Labour Campaign 133
Greg Cook
11 The SNP Campaign 145
Kevin Pringle
12 Chill Wind: The Liberal Democrat Campaign 151
Olly Grender
13 A Polite Insurgency: The UKIP Campaign 161
Gawain Towler
14 For the Common Good: The Green Party’s 2015
General Election Campaign 169
Judy Maciejowska
CONTENTS ix
Part III Media 181
15 The Media Campaign: The Issues and Personalities
Who Defined the Election 183
David Deacon, John Downey, James Stanyer,
and Dominic Wring
Broadcasting 197
16 The Broadcast Journalist’s View 199
Michael Crick
17 Regulating Broadcasting During the 2015
General Election: The Ofcom Perspective 209
Adam Baxter
18 Election Debates: The Less Than Smooth Path
to TV’s Big Campaign Events 221
Ric Bailey
19 The Election Debates in 2015: The View
from the Living Room 235
Claire Emes and Josh Keith
Print and Social Media 247
20 Reporting the Election 249
Joe Murphy
21 Pink Buses, Leaders’ Wives and “The Most Dangerous
Woman in Britain”: Women, the Press and Politics
in the 2015 Election 259
Emily Harmer
x CONTENTS
22 Othering Ed: Newspaper Coverage of Miliband
and the Election 273
Ivor Gaber
23 The Social Media Campaign:
Mobilisation and Persuasion 293
Darren G. Lilleker and Daniel Jackson
24 #GE2015: The General Election on Twitter 315
Steven Ginnis and Carl Miller
Index 329
