Sex, Lies and the Ballot Box by Cowley Philip;Ford Robert Anthony;Finkelstein Daniel;

Author:Cowley, Philip;Ford, Robert Anthony;Finkelstein, Daniel; [Philip Cowley and Robert Ford]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 1824617
Publisher: Biteback Publishing
Published: 2014-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

VOTES FOR PARTY CANDIDATES AS DISTANCE BETWEEN CANDIDATE ADDRESS AND VOTER ADDRESS CHANGES (%)

CONSERVATIVE LIBERAL DEMOCRAT LABOUR

Distance (km) 25.42 29.46 19.27

Real 53.40 24.57 22.03

Same 53.52 25.31 21.17

Far Tory 37.62 33.97 28.40

Far LD 60.86 15.08 24.07

Far Labour 59.52 28.15 12.33

These findings don’t mean that parties and candidates should start including Zoopla in their campaign toolkit. In the end, the location of candidates is often out of the parties’ control, and indeed visible parachuting of formerly ‘foreign’ candidates into new homes in alien constituencies can backfire spectacularly. But it does demonstrate the importance that voters attach to local presence, an attribute often belittled in Britain in the past, and still underestimated by many commentators.

We still don’t know for sure exactly why voters like local candidates. Is it that they think a local candidate is more likely to have an investment in their area? Or that a local candidate will be more accessible? Or just that a local candidate is ‘one of us’? But we can be sure that the effect exists. Local connections are often seen as vital for local government (incidentally, the distance test works there too). We should recognise that the same applies more than we thought to our Westminster representatives.

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