Class and Party in Britain, 1964-83

Abstract

This paper analyzes changes in class voting in Britain by applying models for the analysis of ordered categories to data from the British General Election Surveys. The findings support Heath, Jowell and Curtice's (1985) claim that there has been no general class dealignment. In addition, changes in class voting are unrelated to changes in the overall performance of Labour relative to Conservatives, although the Liberals do appear to benefit when class voting declines. The analysis also reveals distinctive behaviour in one class (`foremen and technicians') which had not been previously noticed.