Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties

Vol. 16, No. 3, 265–281, October 2006

The 2005 Manifestos: A Sense of

Déjà Vu?
JUDITH L. BARA
Queen Mary, University of London
30J.L.Bara@qmul.ac.uk
16
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10.1080/13689880600950535
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Francis Ltd
Public Opinion
(online)and Parties

ABSTRACT The Manifesto Research Group, since its establishment in 1979, has analysed
the main party manifestos after every British general election, so that a clear, over time
picture of changing policy priorities has emerged. Other investigations have compared issue
saliency within manifestos, giving the parties’ “take” on the political situation in relation to
voter perceptions of what the most important issues are. This article brings these two
elements together, first in terms of mapping the most recent changes in right–left positioning
of the parties and seeing how far policy estimates concerning economic matters, welfare and
quality of life continue patterns set previously. Second, saliency rankings of “top” issues
within the manifestos are contrasted with results from three opinion polls to establish whether
the parties are using different policy agendas to attract support and how far these reflect
public concerns. Third, the paper reports on how the three main parties see the role of
manifestos. The article concludes that some changes in content have occurred since 2001 but
these are neither new nor unexpected, creating a sense of “déjà vu”.

Introduction
Party election manifestos are hardly going to be read by large numbers of voters but
they do influence media coverage, which in turn affects public opinion. They also
provide medium term priorities for government action should the party win the
election. If electors are going to vote on party policy they have little choice but to
evaluate it on the basis of the manifestos, the only comprehensive and authoritative
policy statement produced by political parties. Thus manifesto policy statements
have come to represent the basis for what might be perceived as the party’s
“mandate” to govern in a certain way.1
This explains why parties place so much emphasis on producing documents that
are now quite glossy and expensive and launched during the early stages of
campaigns amid much hoopla. Until the 1980s manifestos were generally quite
short, succinct and contained little in the way of supporting graphic or photographic
material. Certainly they never resembled the “newspaper” style adopted in recent
Liberal Democrat productions. Although striking, the differences between the
earlier and later election programme may be presentational and stylistic rather than

Correspondence Address: Dr Judith L. Bara, Department of Politics, Queen Mary, University of London,
Mile End Road, London E1 4NS, UK. Tel.: +44 (0)20 7882 5003; Email: J.L.Bara@qmul.ac.uk

ISSN 1745-7289 Print/1745-7297 Online/06/030265-17 © 2006 Elections, Public Opinion & Parties
DOI: 10.1080/13689880600950535
266 J. L. Bara

substantive and there may have actually been little change in what manifestos are
saying across recent elections.
The following discussion concentrates on changes between 2001 and 2005 and
focuses on three questions.

● Given that few people read party election manifestos, what is their current role in
election campaigns?
● Can we infer from the content of manifestos whether parties exhibit greater
“ideological” movement between 2001 and 2005 than between 1997 and 2001?
● Does the content of the 2005 manifestos indicate that the parties are concentrating
on different policy agendas as compared with 2001 and how far do their priorities
reflect public feeling about what government should prioritise?

Producing the Manifestos

During election campaigns parties publish their manifestos and introduce their key
policies at orchestrated launch events. In 2005 manifestos were made available freely
on the party websites from the moment of launch. Since manifesto production is a
process that incorporates changes at every general election and all three parties have
gradually altered the ways in which their manifestos have been drawn up it is worth
examining briefly how the most recent general election manifestos were produced.
In 2005, the main manifestos were of differing lengths and presented in very
different formats. The Labour manifesto was longer than either of its predecessors.
Comprising over 26,000 words, this represented an increase of some 4,300 words
compared with 2001. In appearance the manifesto was also very different. Entitled
Britain Forward Not Backward, it was designed as a small paperback book of 112
pages with a simple red and white cover. Apart from one black and white
photograph of Tony Blair, which accompanied his five-page preface, there was no
pictorial input. Despite its length this was a simpler and less fussy document than its
immediate predecessors.
The Conservative manifesto was dramatically shorter than in 2001. At about
8,000 words it represented a huge reduction of over 20,000 words! Entitled Are You
Thinking What We’re Thinking? It’s Time for Action, the manifesto consisted of
some 28 double column A4 pages. The text was supplemented by pictures, includ-
ing a photograph of Michael Howard. The Conservatives also published a “Timeta-
ble for Action” which set out the immediate priorities for a Conservative
government to be fulfilled within a day, a week and a month of taking office,
together with promises of deadlines for implementing further promises (senior
Conservative policy source, 2005).
The Liberal Democrat manifesto, at almost 18,000 words, had shrunk by about
20% as compared with 2001. Entitled The Real Alternative, it was, as in 2001, set
out in tabloid format, with sections on 11 separate policy areas for which the main
party spokespersons claimed authorship. In contrast with the manifestos of the other
main parties, this was a very colourful document, which contained many pictures.
 The 2005 Manifestos 267

In order to gain additional insight into how the three main parties drew up their
2005 manifestos, interviews were conducted with a representative of each party who
was neither an MP nor a candidate, had been involved in producing their party’s
manifesto for 2005 and had knowledge and/or experience of the process of
constructing manifestos from 1997 onward.2
Labour has historically been much more pedantic and legalistic about its internal
procedures than the other parties, and this remains evident despite attempts to
streamline the production of the manifesto. The present process incorporates some
old Labour practices, being governed by clause V of the party’s constitution. This
traditionally conferred equal weight in drawing up the document to the Cabinet/
Shadow Cabinet, the National Executive Committee and the Parliamentary
Committee (based on the Parliamentary Labour Party); with the proviso that certain
policies approved by the Annual Conference had to be included. The main change to
the process lies in the creation of the National Policy Forum, which reflects all
sections of the party and was charged with developing the major statements of
policy. These, after approval from the Party Conference, form the basis of the
manifesto. Despite the semblance of consultation, most of the key decisions were
taken by the leadership.
This was evident in the detailed development of the 2005 manifesto, a process
that began early in 2004. The key actors were Matthew Taylor who moved from the
Institute for Public Policy Research to work on “core pledges” and was given a clear
brief to provide the basic framework of the manifesto (Kavanagh & Butler, 2005:
25); David Miliband, relieved of his ministerial responsibilities for schools; and
Alan Milburn, the campaign coordinator, who acted as the main “front man” dealing
with the public and the media (Kavanagh & Butler, 2005: 55). Others, such as
Alistair Campbell, played key background roles and Tony Blair had the final word
on style and presentation (Hayter, 2005).
The main differences between 2005 and the manifestos of the previous two elec-
tions were that the “consultation” period was much longer, more people were
involved in reviewing the document and the policy content was known in advance
since spokespeople had presented their wares before the public in the “long”
campaign period. Thus, there were few surprises when the manifesto was unveiled.
The Conservatives adopt a more robust and centrally directed strategy to produc-
ing manifestos, which has never involved the grassroots membership to any large
extent, and in which the Leader has considerable influence. The Conservative Policy
Forum, a reincarnation of the former Conservative Political Centre, was re-estab-
lished in 2001 and produced briefs on different policy areas, which are also reflected
in the work of the party’s Research Department.
The approach taken by the party leadership to the last three manifestos had been
very different. In 1997, little strategic forethought or research took place either in
relation to what the manifesto’s main message was, or on how to communicate it. In
2001, the manifesto was simply seen as part of a process of bringing out the core
vote, especially in terms of identifying key policy areas that would mobilise
supporters. 2005 was very different and almost the reverse of 1997.
268 J. L. Bara

For 2005 the focus of the manifesto was on what Michael Howard sought to
achieve in terms of policy redirection, and this was clearly based on the idea of
“what works” – as long as it was in keeping with the values and beliefs of the party.
Besides engaging Lynton Crosby as Campaign Director, Howard set up a small
team, led by David Cameron and George Bridges, which was given effective
command of the “war room” (Kavanagh & Butler, 2005: 46).
A key part of the manifesto-building process was to carry out extensive research
to discover “what matters to the public and how this could be presented in a realistic
and accessible way”. For example, the slogan “clean hospitals” came directly from
public concerns, as did the other issues upon which the manifesto was built.
Eventually, these solidified into the six themes of “more police, cleaner hospitals,
lower taxes, school discipline, controlled immigration and accountability”. The
actual manifesto thus represented a digest, which people could read easily and
quickly and get a good idea of what policies the party would adopt if elected to
government. The policies were fleshed out in detail in a series of seven detailed
“mini manifestos” on the specific policy areas that were announced during the pre-
election campaign period.
The serious process of manifesto-building by the Liberal Democrats began at
their autumn conference in September 2004 where a “pre-manifesto” setting out
general principles and a policy context was ratified. This had been drawn up by the
policy unit in consultation with the Federal Policy Committee. Chaired by Charles
Kennedy this was an elected body comprising the main party spokespeople and
representatives of the membership. A series of drafts followed under the steward-
ship of (another) Matthew Taylor, MP for Truro and St Austell, and the party’s
spring conference in 2005 allowed a brief opportunity for consultation with rank and
file members.
Since few people read manifestos, the Liberal Democrats decided to keep the
document as accessible and interesting as possible. They too published a series of
mini manifestos in the pre-election period and these were used extensively during
the campaign. However, there was some disagreement within the party over the
main thrust of the manifesto. Some believed that “credibility” should be the main
message and thus all policies had to be extensively costed. Others favoured a focus
on innovation and a more inspirational, value-based approach to agenda setting.
Overall, the “credibility” camp triumphed. Although this was depicted as a compro-
mise, the conflict was not resolved by the time the election was called (Sladowsky,
2005).

Role of Manifestos in Election Campaigns

There are two broad views within the Labour Party concerning the general function
of the manifesto. The membership tends to see the manifesto as the culmination of a
consultation process, which represents a mandate from the party to the government
to fulfil certain obligations. Elected representatives, on the other hand, view the
manifesto as a mandate from the electorate to the government to carry out a
 The 2005 Manifestos 269

designated policy agenda. In short, the manifesto is a synopsis of the party’s legisla-
tive programme, but it cannot be all encompassing. Indeed, it is sometimes seen as
better to omit contentious or sensitive items, such as reform of the House of Lords
(Hayter, 2005). The manifesto is regarded by the Labour Party as an integral
element in its ongoing policy development process. A report of July 2005, in its
section on manifestos, indeed states, “the Party should celebrate the huge success of
Partnership in Power in providing a viable programme for government” (Labour
Party, 2005: 5, author’s emphasis).
As far as the Conservatives are concerned, the manifesto is seen as representing a
clear exposition of the party’s policy statements, core values and intended action.
This also provides a means of holding the government accountable for its actions if
the party gets elected (senior Conservative policy source, 2005).
The Liberal Democrats see the manifesto as a major campaign tool, representing
a summary of the party’s key policies. In particular it provides an accessible
national platform for candidates and the media, as well as giving the electorate a
clear impression of the Liberal Democrat agenda. However, its importance
diminishes over the period of the short campaign and the timing of its release is
crucial as it could fall flat if introduced at the wrong juncture (Sladowsky, 2005).
With regard to the role of the manifesto in the “short” election campaign, Labour
sees it as playing a minimal role, because its content is already largely known and
campaigns are in any case now seen as almost “permanent” (Needham, 2005). The
launch is a major media event where key points are taken up by the press allowing
for broad, public debate.
The Conservatives too see the manifesto as having a diminishing role in the
“short” campaign and agree that campaigns are now much longer, although span-
ning a period of six months or so rather than being “permanent”. It is nonetheless a
“milestone” in that key manifesto elements are reinforced by repetition in inter-
views, press conferences and election meetings. The manifesto also sets out what
the party would do in government (senior Conservative policy source, 2005).
Overall this suggests that the three parties agree broadly that campaigns are in
reality longer than they used to be and that this has implications for the role of the
manifesto. Overall, manifestos are seen as playing a lesser role in the “short”
campaign than in the past. The manifesto launch is simply one event among many,
and within the “short” campaign, the manifesto’s already diminished role becomes
less the closer we get to election day itself. Yet, the manifesto is still seen as crucial
(if used properly) not only for campaigning, but as a basis for measuring government
accountability. By implication also, the content of the manifesto is no longer novel
by the time the short campaign arrives. In this sense alone it is essentially “déjà vu”.
This echoes points made by Wlezien and Norris (2005), who conclude that over-
all, election campaigns are now much longer than in the past and can be utilised by
the voters to update their views on the parties. As summaries of policy, manifestos
contribute here. They also provide a stimulus for media comment. From the view-
point of election analysts, therefore, they remain an extremely valuable source of
research data about the policies and issues that have dominated each election.
270 J. L. Bara

Policy Movement in Left–Right Terms

Given this it is clearly worthwhile to ask how far party policy changed between
2001 and 2005. We can answer the question more precisely than before because of
the standardised data which the Comparative Manifestos Project (CMP) has
published on post-war election programmes in over 50 countries, including Britain
(Budge et al., 2001; Klingemann et al., 2006). A summary indicator of the extent of
change in party policy is movement on a standardised left–right scale (Budge et al.,
2001: 21–24; see also Appendix 1). This contrasts emphases on welfare, interven-
tion and peace on the left with security, freedom and traditional morality on the
right. Actual scores run from −50 on the left to +40 on the right.
A general glance at the overall map of party left–right movement over the post-
war period shows that by 1997 Labour had become the most centrist party and that
the Liberal Democrats were the party furthest to the left (Bara & Budge, 2001). The
Conservatives continued to retain a position well to the right, albeit less so than was
the case during the height of the Thatcher era.
In 2001 Labour continued its very cautious move leftwards and leapfrogged the
Liberal Democrats’ equally cautious move rightwards. Labour is now the party
“just” to the left of centre and the Liberal Democrats have taken its place as the
party “just” to the right of centre. The Conservatives are entrenched solidly at
almost exactly the same point they occupied in 2001. Bearing in mind that these are

Figure 1. British parties’ ideological movements along a left–right scale.

 The 2005 Manifestos 271

estimates and that the moves are still quite small, one can see some trend towards all
the parties taking up their traditional ideological positions.
Much of the campaign of 2005 was played out in the media as relating to Iraq, with
Figure 1. British parties’ ideological movements along a left–right scale.

the Liberal Democrats basing themselves on an anti-war platform. An anti-war posi-

tion is arguably seen as being “leftist”, so how is it that the manifesto content
suggests a Liberal democrat move in the opposite direction? This is explained, first,
by the fact that issues like Iraq were played down in the content of the respective
manifestos; and second, by the fact that none of the parties ever take up an entirely
“leftist” or “rightist” position. In order to compete against the Conservatives, Liberal
Democrats needed to contest on traditional economic and social issues. Hence they
prioritised cuts in taxes and subsidies (The Real Alternative, 2005: 10). Labour, on
the other hand, had no such qualms and indicated that having established a “stable,
growing economy with the lowest inflation since the 1960s” they could concentrate
on improving public services (Britain Forward Not Backward, 2005: 11).
However, emphases on “economic” elements in the manifestos remain at quite
low levels – as in 2001. It is the “social” elements of the right–left scale that
predominate, especially in the Labour and Liberal Democrat documents. As Table 1
shows, the traditional emphasis on pro-market economics by the Conservatives
revived slightly in 2005 as compared with 2001. However, the manifesto comes
nowhere near the 1980s in this regard, and indeed, the combination of variables
concerned accounts for barely 3% of manifesto content. The Conservatives’
economic priorities focus on “value for money and lower taxes” (Are You Thinking
What We’re Thinking?, 2005: 3). For the other two parties, pro-market economics
accounts for negligible and decreasing proportions of their recent manifestos.
As expected, almost exactly the opposite happens with government economic
intervention. Labour and, especially, Liberal Democrats emphasise this rise whilst
the Conservatives sideline it even further than in 2001. Although we are looking at
low levels of magnitude here, Labour and Liberal Democrat references appear to be
on the increase, despite calls for lower taxes by the latter. This suggests that the
Liberal Democrats are trying to fight their major rivals using different and possibly
contradictory positions.

Table 1. British parties’ programmatic emphasis on selected issue areas

Market Planned
economy economy Welfare Quality of life

Party 2001 2005 2001 2005 2001 2005 2001 2005

Labour 1.71 0.80 0.57 3.50 12.06 11.50 5.96 9.80

Liberal 1.91 1.00 2.52 4.30 7.40 8.10 10.40 9.60
Democrat
Conservative 1.93 2.90 2.07 1.50 8.98 6.10 6.08 3.20

Source: Klingemann et al. (2006).

272 J. L. Bara

Welfare is heavily stressed in the manifestos even though there is a reduction in

emphasis by Labour and Conservatives as compared with 2001. It is worth noting
that the decline of almost 3% in welfare references is more substantial in the
Conservative case and that Labour’s reduction is quite negligible. Indeed the Labour
figure reflects its position of 1997, when, compared with the early 1990s, its empha-
sis diminished.
The policy area mainly benefiting by the reduction of emphasis on traditional
“ideological” issues is for both Labour and the Liberal Democrats “quality of life”,
especially in the Labour case. Here there are considerable differences between the
parties, with nearly 10% of Labour and Liberal Democrat programmes taken up
with this issue area, compared with the Conservatives, where the figure drops to
well below 5% of manifesto content.

“Top 10” Issues: Are Parties Concentrating on Different Policy Agendas?

If we examine the manifestos in even greater detail and look at the 10 highest-scor-
ing issues in terms of salience in the 2005 manifestos, we find that these are broadly
the same across the three parties (13 in all as compared with 15 in 2001). The top
five are also quite similar to 2001, although they appear in different positions in the
rankings for some parties. This suggests that the parties are concentrating on a
narrower and more similar range of policies compared with earlier elections.
Government effectiveness, incorporating public service delivery, continues to
rank highest for Conservatives and Liberal Democrats (as indeed it did in 2001 for
all parties) but falls to third place for Labour. “Demographic groups” – a category

Table 2. Top 10 manifesto issues, 2005

Labour LibDem Conservative

Rank % Rank % Rank %

706 Demographic groups 1 10.2 2 10.7 4 7.3

504 Health and welfare positive 2 9.9 4 6.0 6 6.1
305 Government effectiveness 3 9.2 1 15.8 1 18.3
506 Education positive 4 9.0 – – 2 11.0
605 Law and order 4 9.0 7 4.5 3 7.6
502 Culture 6 6.4 – – – –
107 Internationalism positive 7 4.5 4 7.7 8 3.5
301 Decentralisation positive 7 4.5 8 4.4 4 7.3
411 Technology 9 4.2 10 3.8 – –
402 Incentives 10 3.6 6 5.5 7 4.1
501 Environmental protection – – 3 9.4 – –
403 Market regulation – – 9 4.2 9 3.1
703 Agriculture – – – – 10 2.9
 The 2005 Manifestos 273

Table 3. Top 10 manifesto issues, 2001

Labour LibDem Conservative

Rank % Rank % Rank %

305 Government effectiveness 1 14.0 1 11.4 1 17.3

504 Health and welfare 2 10.2 3 7.3 2 9.0
605 Law and order 3 8.7 4 6.9 4 6.4
506 Education 4 7.2 5 5.7 8 3.3
706 Demographic groups 5 6.1 7 5.6 3 7.0
411 Technology 6 5.9 6 5.7 – –
107 Internationalism positive 7 3.6 8 4.2 – –
501 Environmental protection 7 3.6 2 7.4 – –
301 Decentralisation positive 9 3.0 – – 5 4.6
408 Economic goals 10 2.8 – – – –
108 European Union positive – – 8 4.2 – –
303 Government efficiency – – 10 4.1 10 2.8
110 European Union negative – – – – 6 4.0
502 Culture – – – – 7 3.6
703 Agriculture – – – – 10 2.8
402 Incentives – – – – 9 3.0

comprising women, youth, elderly and other special interests – ranks top for Labour
and second for the Conservatives. Law and order remains important for Labour and
the Liberal Democrats, but less so for the Conservatives.
The environment also continues to figure prominently for the Liberal and indeed
just missed being included for Labour, ranking 11th at 3.4%. This, together with
culture, a new entry into the “top 10” for 2005, provides the basis for the “quality of
life” dimension, so its increased prominence is not as surprising as it might be. In
the coding scheme, “culture” incorporates emphases on sport and media, which is
well represented by the discussion of Labour’s plans for the 2012 Olympic Games.
Striking differences between 2005 and 2001 are the (expected) near-absence of
economic factors and also the complete absence of European integration, whether
viewed positively or negatively, among the top ranking issues for any of the parties.
Hence, overall, there is no great difference between the 2001 and 2005 manifesto
emphases. The range of issue areas prioritised by one party continues to be reflected
by all three, with only a limited number of party specific emphases.

Reflecting Public Opinion?

According to Downsian logic, parties are expected to tailor their programmes to
attract the majority of votes necessary to form a viable government. In other words,
campaign imperatives push election programmes into reflecting what the electorate
274 J. L. Bara

wants – or more specifically, what the “median voter” wants. This is an aim that the
Conservatives were clearly following in 2005 in terms of picking up popular
concerns. In order to see how far parties reflect public perceptions of salient issues,
we need to examine polling data and compare the concerns revealed there with the
issues emphasised in the manifestos. Two opinion polls carried out close to Election
Day were selected for this comparison – the YouGov poll of 2–3 May and the ICM
poll of 1–3 May.
In order to carry through this comparison, a computerised content analysis of the
2005 manifestos was made, based on words used by respondents in the British
Election Study (BES) 2005 pre-election survey. As it uses words actually employed
by electors to describe their own preoccupations, this approach appears more
sensitive to similarities and differences than one that simply uses the percentages of
manifesto content allotted in terms of the Manifesto Research Group (MRG) coding
scheme as a basis for comparison. Table 4 summarises the results.
The conclusion is that the parties do reflect public concerns but in their entirety.
There is also evidence to suggest considerable agreement among the parties as to
what constitute the “most important issues”. With a few exceptions, they are clearly
the traditional domestic issues relating to public spending and service delivery.
Health emerges as the second most important issue for electors across all sources,
and, with the exception of the BES, the economy is ranked first in the various sets of
results reflecting both party and electors.
The problem with this type of saliency analysis is that little to no account is taken
of “direction” – are people saying “the economy” because they are worried about
the future or because they are broadly satisfied with the past but worried about a
possible economic downturn or because they want to castigate the government in
some way for an unpopular policy, such as inheritance tax?
Of course another view on how electors’ perceptions of important issues are
arrived at might suggest that they are influenced by the media. If something appears
in the press or on television often enough, then of course it might come to be

Table 4. Most important issues: comparing rankings across polls and manifestos

Lab Con LibDem BES YouGov ICM ICM

Issue Comp Comp Comp Pre 2–3 May 1–3 May

Health 2 6 4 2 2 2
Tax/economy 1 1 1 4 1 1
Education 2 3 3 6 6 3
Law & order 4 4 4 3 4 4
Immigration 7 6 8 1 3 5
Terrorism 6 8 7 5 – 6
Europe 5 5 5 7 8 6
Iraq 7 7 6 8 10 8

“Comp” = computerised analysis based on eight categories.

 The 2005 Manifestos 275

regarded as important. In the last week of the campaign, which relates to the period
covered by the ICM and YouGov polls cited above, research carried out by Factiva
suggests that the issues mentioned most in the press were health, education and Iraq,
despite attempts by the parties to prioritise campaign discussion on other issues,
such as the economy (Labour) or immigration (Conservatives) (www.guard-
ian.co.uk; www.factiva.com).

Conclusion
The various analyses reported here conclude, on the basis of manifesto content, that
the three main parties have retained a similar set of policy priorities from 2001 to
2005, albeit with some variation in terms of the amount of salience attached to each.
There is also evidence that they are competing broadly on the same range of issues
and that these reflect public concerns. In terms of left–right movement, the proposi-
tion that Labour would move to the left and the Liberal democrats would move to
the right has been substantiated. There was little change in terms of Conservative
left–right movement between 2001 and 2005.
In 2005 the Liberal Democrats launched a two-pronged attack on both Labour
and Conservatives. The Conservatives campaigned vigorously to win back seats
they had lost to both Labour and the Liberal Democrats. Their manifestos – espe-
cially that of the Liberal Democrats – reflected these tactics. The Labour campaign
and manifesto prioritised fighting the Conservatives.
The general role of the manifestos in the campaign was however diminished
because much of their content had been announced in advance. More electronic
information was available in 2005 than in previous campaigns, but in the event the
parties regarded it as having only a minimal effect (Kavanagh & Butler, 2005: 173).
Manifestos are still clearly considered as being important for providing information
about policy ideas, a programme for government and a basis for holding govern-
ments accountable in the future although their contents are only communicated
indirectly to the public through the media.
Whilst 2001 could legitimately be seen as a “holding” election with few conten-
tious issues, the same cannot be said of 2005. Even though “bread and butter”
domestic factors of concern to electors’ day to day lives dominated their percep-
tions of what was important, there were clearly other matters that cut across priori-
ties and loyalties, most especially Iraq and immigration, which were taken up by
the opposition parties. Neither of these issues represented major elements in the
party manifestos, however.
The manifestos’ emphasis on “government effectiveness” (Table 2) possibly
engaged with public concerns about lack of trust in politicians, exhaustion with spin
and a general distaste for “sleazy” politics (Bara, 2005; Bartle, 2005). Future research
using other categories may prove more informative about this. On the whole, “bread
and butter” issues were shown by the opinion polls to have been more important to
the electorate overall in 2005 and Labour was able to exploit this in their manifesto
to promote their successful stewardship of the economy and development of public
276 J. L. Bara

services. In short, at least as far as the government was concerned and as James
Carville averred some years ago, it was still “the economy stupid”!

Acknowledgements
A previous version of this article was presented as a paper at EPOP Annual Confer-
ence, September 2005. I am grateful to participants for their useful suggestions as
well as to Ian Budge, the editors and three anonymous readers for their comments
relating earlier drafts of this work. I would also like to thank Carol Ward for her
prompt and reliable manual coding of the 2005 manifesto texts and Eric Tanenbaum
for technical advice and support.

Notes
1. Of course not all issues dealt with by governments are necessarily reflected in manifestos and during
the course of a government’s term of office matters may require major decisions to be made which
are outside the scope of a programme set out at the previous election, as exemplified by the decision
to go to war in Iraq in 2003. Sometimes circumstances dictate that a party’s manifesto positions have
to be revised quite radically, as was the case with the economic policy of the Wilson/Callaghan
governments of 1974–1979.
2. The Conservative source who wishes to remain anonymous was a senior figure in the construction of
both the campaign and the manifesto; the Labour source is Dr Dianne Hayter, member of Labour’s
National Executive and of the National Policy Forum; the Liberal Democrat source is Marianne
Sladowsky, a full time Policy Officer. They were questioned on how “their” 2005 manifesto was
drawn up and how this differed in any significant way from past practice, what they considered the
main function of the manifesto to be and what role it played in the short campaign.

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 The 2005 Manifestos 277

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278 J. L. Bara

Appendix 1
The Creation of a Left–Right Scale from Manifesto Emphases
This has been well documented in a number of sources, particularly Budge et al.
(2001: 21–24). Here we summarise its construction as a simple additive scale.
Essentially the scale groups emphases on government intervention, welfare and
peace, which left–right parties put together to make the basis of their appeal, and
contrasts these with the emphases on freedom, traditional morality and military alli-
ances which right-wing parties put together. As Table 5 below shows, percentage
references in the manifesto to “left” issues are added up and subtracted from the sum
of percentage references to “right” issues. Each manifesto thus generates a unique
left–right score which enables positions estimated for British parties to be compared
across time. Although validated by factor analysis as well as its fit to accepted
historical interpretations of British and other national politics, the left–right scale
used here is not based on factor scores which vary sharply with the cases taken into
analysis. Instead it is based on simple addition and subtraction of percentages, as
described in Table 5. Tables 6 and 7 show the categories used in the full manual
coding scheme and the groupings of variables for the four policy stands discussed in
the text.

Computerised Analysis of “Most Important Issues”

The advantages and shortcomings of using computerised content analysis to identify
trends in party manifestos have been well documented elsewhere (Bara, 2001,
2006). In terms of identifying straightforward saliency and occurrences of words

Table 5. The left–right scale

Right emphases (sum of %s for) Left emphases (sum of %s for)

Pro-military (104) Decolonisation (103)

Freedom, human rights (201) Anti-military (105)
Constitutionalism (203) Peace (106)
Effective authority (305) Internationalism (107)
Free enterprise (401) Democracy (202)
Economic incentives (402) Regulate capitalism (403)
Anti-protectionism (407) Minus Economic planning (404)
Economic orthodoxy (414) Pro-protectionism (406)
Social services limitation (505) Controlled economy (412)
National way of life (601) Nationalisation (413)
Traditional morality (603) Social services expansion (504)
Law and order (605) Education expansion (506)
Social harmony (606) Pro-labour (701)

Source: Budge et al. (2001: 22).

 The 2005 Manifestos 279

Table 6. Policy/issue areas in election manifestos 1945–2005

101 Foreign special relationships: positive

102 Foreign special relationships: negative
103 Decolonisation
104 Military: positive
105 Military: negative
106 Peace
107 Internationalism: positive
108 European Community: positive
109 Internationalism: negative
110 European Community: negative
201 Freedom and domestic human rights
202 Democracy
203 Constitutionalism: positive
204 Constitutionalism: negative
301 Decentralisation
302 Centralisation
303 Government efficiency
304 Government corruption
305 Government effectiveness and authority
401 Free enterprise
402 Incentives
403 Regulation of capitalism
404 Economic planning
405 Corporatism
406 Protectionism: positive
407 Protectionism: negative
408 Economic goals
409 Keynesian demand management
410 Productivity
411 Technology and infrastructure
412 Controlled economy
413 Nationalisation
414 Economic orthodoxy
415 Marxist analysis
416 Anti-growth economy
501 Environmental protection
502 Arts, sports, leisure, media
503 Social justice
504 Social services expansion
505 Social services limitation
506 Education expansion
280 J. L. Bara

Table 6. Continued

507 Education limitation

601 National way of life: positive
602 National way of life: negative
603 Traditional morality: positive
604 Traditional morality: negative
605 Law and order
606 National effort and social harmony
607 Multiculturalism: positive
608 Multiculturalism: negative
701 Labour groups: positive
702 Labour groups: negative
703 Agriculture
705 Minority groups
706 Non-economic demographic groups

and phrases, the method has been shown to be extremely reliable. In the case of this
study, the manifesto texts have been analysed to see how far they reflect the
concerns of voters directly, rather than simply rely on “best fit” categories drawn
from the CMP data set – useful as these may be.
The basis for the coding categories or dictionary used in this exercise is
represented by the series of categories common across the three sets of polling data
selected for comparison, and especially the pre-election survey of the British
Election Study, 2005, since this provides exact responses to the “most important
issue” questions, in the respondents’ own words. This is supplemented by use of
reputable thesauri (Oxford Popular Thesaurus, 1992; Collins English Thesaurus,
1995). Word strings, often designating names such as “European Union”, were also

Table 7. Combination of full policy-coding categories into relevant policy stands

Policy stand Old categories

Planned economy 403 Regulation of capitalism

404 Economic planning
412 Controlled economy
Quality of life 501 Environmental protection
502 Art, sport, leisure and media
Market economy 401 Enterprise
414 Economic orthodoxy
Welfare 503 Social justice
504 Social services expansion
 The 2005 Manifestos 281

included, and where a series of words are drawn from a common root, word stems
are used, for example, “responsib” to allow for identification and counting of words
such as responsibility, responsibilities, responsible, etc.
Eight basic categories were utilised to facilitate direct comparisons between poll
results and manifesto content as shown in the discussion above. As far as possible,
variables included in the CMP (manual) coding frame were also reflected by
inclusion of terms used in the coding handbook which is reproduced in Klingemann
et al. (2006).
The analysis was carried out using TEXTPACK 7.5, which allows for simple
construction of dedicated dictionaries (Mohler & Zuell, 2002).