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Did Labour's landslide victory in 1997 mark a critical watershed in British party politics? Did the radical break with 18 years of Conservative rule reflect a fundamental change in the social and ideological basis of British voting behaviour? Critical Elections brings together leading scholars of parties, elections and voting behaviour to provide the first systematic overview of long-term change in British electoral politics.
Dynamic Representation in Britain
Dynamic Representation in Britain
Was the election of 1997 a critical election? The size of the Labour landslide was certainly surprising, but surprise has to do with poor prediction, not with underlying changes in the basis of voting choice. If there has been a critical election in Britain since 1945 we suggest that it was the election of October 1974, not that of 1997.
Yet the major change that has occurred in British politics in recent years is very hard to date because processes of change took several elections to work themselves out. From one perspective, the change can be dated to as early as 1970, the first general election in which class voting broke down to any substantial degree, yielding a great ...
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