Link Between Social Class and Voting Behaviour

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Government and Politics 14/9/14 Joe Miller ‘A link still exists between class and voting patterns’ discuss the extent to which social class still influences voting behaviour. This statement is still true to a certain extent. The pattern is nowhere near as clear as it was 70 years ago but there is still a definable link between who you vote for and your social class in most cases. In 2005 the conservatives were more popular in the South of England, full of traditionally richer areas such as London, than Labour who were more popular in the traditionally poorer north. If you look at the percentages of votes for the three major parties (Labour, Conservative and Lib Dem) in each social class for the 2010 election it can be seen that a pattern does still exist. In classes A and B the Conservatives received 44% of votes compared to Labour’s 26% and the Lib Dem’s 29% whereas in classes D and E Labour received 40% of the votes in comparison to the Conservatives 31% and the Lib Dem’s 19%. However these figures do not tell the whole story as there are some members of the population who believe those running the country should be of a higher class as they are the best educated to do so, this is called differential voting and takes place amongst the lower classes. It also works the other way though with some members of the lower middle class deciding to vote labour as the high taxes mean they are given benefits such as a free health care, this is called Proletarianisation. These two occurrences show that your social class doesn’t always define who you vote for. Also the figures from the general election show that there is still quite a large amount of popularity for the Conservatives within the working classes. This occurrence is called Embourgeiosement and is when members of the working class who are better off than others aspire to have a middle class lifestyle so can
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