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Poll analysis: Sunday April 17
Dr Paul Baines of Middlesex University and Tom Huskinson of MORI, standing in for Sir Robert Worcester this weekend, analyse the opinion polls.
Students are slightly more important in deciding the outcomes of British general elections than they have been in the past.
There are many more of them now than there was 40 years ago. Students numbered around 400,000 in 1964 in an electorate of just over 36 million (1.1 per cent) but around two million in 2001 in an electorate of 43.8 million (4.6 per cent).
The key question is whether or not students will turn up to vote. Given the UK's secret ballot, there is no definitive data on turnout among different age and sub-groups but MORI's estimates, based on aggregates of all 18,657 of its election polls for the 2001 election, suggest that turnout fell to 39 per cent among 18 to 24-year-olds, even worse than the 59 per cent figure recorded by the general public.
MORI's first quarter aggregate of 12,100 showed only 23 per cent of 18 to 24-year-olds were certain to vote.
And MORI's most recent survey, conducted on April 7 to 11 for London's Evening Standard and based on a sample of 1,973 respondents, found that only 24 per cent of 18 to 24-year-olds were absolutely certain to vote on May 5. Not much change there then.
Turnout of the young to some extent depends on how meaningful they find the election. Previous research for the Electoral Commission conducted by MORI in 2004 indicated that young people's interest in politics depends to some extent on the 'political pulse' of the nation. In other words, what’s happening out there and what the issues are.
The key issue for 18to 24-year-old students between January 2004 and March 2005 when asked the question 'what is the most important issue facing Britain today?' was defence/terrorism (49 per cent naming this issue), but conversely more mature students, aged 25 to 34, regarded the NHS (48 per cent) as the most important.
The idea put forward by many commentators that students form a cohesive target group for the Lib Dems is debatable since Labour is regarded by most voters generally as the best party on the NHS, although Liberal Democrats are regarded by most people as the best party on Iraq, as the data shows.
What does all this mean for the Lib Dems? That they are unlikely to win those seats where there are a large proportion of students, and where they are in a close contest with Labour, even assuming students vote in their university constituencies. They probably will, since many of them will be doing their end of semester exams. So much for a big win in Cardiff Central, and Oldham East and Saddleworth, although Canterbury might just go Labour from Conservative if the students turn out to vote in their university constituency.
Technical Note: Data taken from MORI's aggregated fortnightly face-to-face political omnibus study with representative samples of around 2,000 adults aged 18 and over, including a total of 1,276 full-time students aged 18 and over per survey January 2004 to March 2005. Data is weighted to the national population profile.
Dr Paul Baines is principal lecturer in marketing at Middlesex University and is on secondment to MORI. Tom Huskinson is a researcher at MORI.
Sir Robert is in the USA, delivering a lecture at the University of Kansas, but is back on Tuesday.
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