{"id":323,"date":"2014-04-02T08:50:49","date_gmt":"2014-04-02T08:50:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/?p=323"},"modified":"2014-04-23T14:47:16","modified_gmt":"2014-04-23T14:47:16","slug":"uk-politics-and-values-beyond-class","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/?p=323","title":{"rendered":"UK Politics and Values &#8211; Beyond Class"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>With European Elections due to take place within weeks, and a UK General Election looming on the political horizon, British politicians and press talk a lot about &#8216;values&#8217; but they rarely have any measurements of values to inform the &#8216;conversation&#8217;.\u00a0\u00a0 A question on political affinity, asked as part of the 2000-person British Values Survey, is reported for the first time here, and may help put some facts and figures alongside the rhetoric and guesswork.<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<h4>Supporters of the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives are massively divided over their most powerful (and unconscious) values, even though the parties are in a governing coalition.<\/h4>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<h4>The very narrow values bases of UKIP and the Libdems will make it hard for them to break out.<\/h4>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<h4>Support for the Conservatives is low amongst Pioneers and the young<\/h4>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<h4>The key battlegrounds between Labour and Conservative include the younger, especially female voters, and most of all Prospectors.<\/h4>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>British political parties have traditionally looked at voters in terms of age, sex and class (Socio Economic Group or SEG), and at themselves in terms of left-right political ideology, or \u2018managerialism\u2019 v ideology.\u00a0 A huge amount of commentary and analysis proceeds from these starting points, and a lot of time is then spent trying to explain public opinions, aspirations and voting behaviour in these terms.\u00a0 For example puzzling over who the \u2018Middle Class\u2019 are, and arguing about what \u2018working class\u2019 now means.<\/h3>\n<h3>Analysis of motivational values provides an alternative or additional insight into the politics of the \u2018public\u2019, which goes beyond class.\u00a0 This report <a href=\"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/Beyond-Class-C-Rose-Final-April-20141.pdf\">Beyond Class C Rose Final April 2014<\/a> details a December 2013 British survey by CDSM (Cultural Dynamics Strategy and Marketing <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cultdyn.co.uk\">www.cultdyn.co.uk<\/a>), involving 2,000 representative British adults over 16.<\/h3>\n<h3>This asked hundreds of questions about attitudes and beliefs, and the question <b>\u201cAt heart, which political party do you identify with most strongly?\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 <\/b>This is not a question about voting intention but about feelings of support.<\/h3>\n<h3>The options given were:\u00a0 Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrat, Scottish National Party, Plaid Cymru, UK Independence Party, British National Party, Green Party and \u2018Other\u2019, together with \u2018don\u2019t know\u2019.\u00a0\u00a0 Respondents were also asked a set of questions developed over decades of running the BVS which segment them by values, into the three main \u2018Maslow Groups\u2019 (MGs) of Settler, Prospector and Pioneer, and the twelve more distinct Values Modes (VMs), which lie four within each of the MGs.\u00a0 They were also surveyed for age, sex and SEG.<\/h3>\n<h3>The same question \u201cAt heart, which political party do you identify with most strongly?\u201d has been asked in a number of previous surveys.\u00a0\u00a0 Reports of a 2005 British \u2018Values and Voters\u2019 survey can be found <a href=\"http:\/\/www.campaignstrategy.org\/valuesvoters\/index.html\">here<\/a>, a 2009 article in <i>Total Politics<\/i> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.totalpolitics.com\/campaigns\/1328\/speak-to-the-value-not-to-class.thtml\">here<\/a> and a 2013 report by Nic Pecorelli at IPPR \u2018<i>The New Electorate: Why Understanding Values is the Key to Electoral Success<\/i>\u2019 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cultdyn.co.uk\/ART067736u\/new-electorate-voter-values_Oct2013_11359.pdf\">here<\/a>, while there are several blogs with values and UK political data at CDSM\u2019s website (see links in main report).<\/h3>\n<h2>Results<\/h2>\n<h3>The most popular choice was Labour, followed by Conservative, UKIP and Liberal Democrat.\u00a0\u00a0 There is a large 19.9% \u2018don\u2019t know\u2019 which is of course of interest to politicians.\u00a0\u00a0 Below: actual numbers from the survey by MG and political affinity.<\/h3>\n<h3><a href=\"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/Pols-bar-chart-2013.gif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-325\" alt=\"Pols bar chart 2013\" src=\"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/Pols-bar-chart-2013.gif\" width=\"960\" height=\"720\" \/><\/a><\/h3>\n<p>The data on political choices by values group (MG):<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/Pols-uk-sig-and-skews-2013.gif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-331\" alt=\"Pols uk sig and skews 2013\" src=\"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/Pols-uk-sig-and-skews-2013.gif\" width=\"960\" height=\"720\" \/><\/a> <em>The warm colours indicate significant over agreement (over indexing), the cool colours the opposite.\u00a0 (For further explanation see main report).<\/em><\/p>\n<h3>Individual values maps\u00a0 of party support show a large overlap between Conservative and Labour support in the Prospectors but that the Conservatives have more support in the Settlers.\u00a0\u00a0 To gain more support here, Labour would need to resonate with Settler values such as safety, identity, security and belonging.\u00a0 The attempts to win support on the issue of immigration are perhaps one such example but Labour is in a three way fight with UKIP and Conservative for the core Settler vote.\u00a0 UKIP has little support outside the Settler values area but eroding it would be difficult without a long bottom-up process because the UKIP vote is a result of sustained neglect by other parties.\u00a0 Finding another Settler-resonant battleground might be more fruitful for Labour but its main gains can probably be made in the Prospectors.\u00a0 Labour currently has more support in the GD Golden Dreamers and the Conservatives more amongst the NP Now People.<\/h3>\n<h3><a href=\"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/uk-pols-terrain-landsc-2013.gif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-328\" alt=\"uk pols terrain landsc 2013\" src=\"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/uk-pols-terrain-landsc-2013.gif\" width=\"960\" height=\"720\" \/><\/a><\/h3>\n<h3><em>Above: &#8216;terrain maps&#8217; of values for some political choices in the British Values Survey. Warm colours indicate higher agreement. \u00a0 For further explanation and key to VMs see <a href=\"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/Beyond-Class-C-Rose-Final-April-20141.pdf\">main report<\/a>.<\/em><\/h3>\n<h3>The main deficit for the Conservatives is support amongst the Pioneers.\u00a0 The more it tries to play to the issues that excite UKIP voters (eg against onshore wind turbines), the more acute this problem may become because there is a huge divide on many attitudes between VMs such as RT and BNW (Settlers) and TX and CE (Pioneers).<\/h3>\n<h3>Liberal Democrat support is concentrated in just two VMs, the TX\u00a0 Transcender and CE Concerned Ethical Pioneers.\u00a0 Values of LibDem supporters are almost the diametric opposite of the main Conservative supporter values, indicating the uneasy nature of their \u2018marriage of convenience\u2019 in the governing coalition.\u00a0\u00a0 Any government politicians who have convinced themselves that they really share a common cause are deluding themselves: their supporters do not feel it.<\/h3>\n<h3>The LibDem support base really shares more values with the Greens but they have an even smaller base centred in the TX, and they heavily overlap with Labour.<\/h3>\n<h3>[It should be remembered in looking at these values maps that the attitudes and beliefs involved are not mainly political-ideological but about the importance of things like tradition, benevolence, justice, ethics, hedonism, conformity, respect and success, power and universalism (see main report for the 2012Values Map showing the CDSM Attributes , and for an explanation of the current Attributes see <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cultdyn.co.uk\/alphabet\/index.php\">here<\/a>).]<\/h3>\n<h3>The BNP\u2019s tiny base is centred in the RT Roots VM, which is the one with least sense of self-agency.\u00a0 These people are those least likely to go out and proselytize.\u00a0\u00a0 The SNP has an interesting map which may be analysed in a future post at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cultdyn.co.uk\">www.cultdyn.co.uk<\/a> by Pat Dade.<\/h3>\n<h3>The parties with the most distinct values profile \u2013 UKIP and the Liberal Democrats \u2013 face the most difficult task in breaking out of their \u2018natural\u2019 base and attracting wider support.\u00a0\u00a0 Realistically this would involve the Liberal Democrats appealing to <i>more<\/i> Pioneers but for that they are in direct competition with both the Green Party and Labour, as well as to more Prospectors, especially Now People (NPs).\u00a0 The shortest answer for the LibDems to appeal to NP Prospectors is that they need to look more fun, and less earnest and ethical but that in turn might upset the CE Concerned Ethicals in their base.<\/h3>\n<h3>Pioneers are the most universalist, global minded and civic minded of the MG values groups.\u00a0 Prospectors are the most transactional, assessing political offers more as a deal \u2013 \u201cwhat\u2019s on offer for me ?\u201d \u2013 but are also on an active search to be entertained, so they are most attracted to celebrity and \u2018star quality\u2019.\u00a0 Part of Tony Blair\u2019s appeal to Prospectors, which was a key component of the \u2018New Labour\u2019 brand,\u00a0 was his charisma, youthful energy and \u2018modern-ness\u2019 compared to both the Conservatives of the time and to Old Labour.\u00a0 Indeed the fact that New Labour seemed to be more a \u2018brand\u2019 in the commercial sense, and less an ideology (not about ideas \u2013 Pioneer, and not a dogmatic creed \u2013 Settler), was attractive to Prospectors in itself.<\/h3>\n<h3>The extent to which people then declare a right or left affinity for parties depends not just on their values but the offer being made by the parties.\u00a0 In the past, UK politics was dominated by Settlers (who formed the majority of the population) and both the Conservatives and Labour had identity based (in the UK \u2018class based\u2019) followings who voted \u2018instinctively\u2019 or \u2018traditionally\u2019.\u00a0 Those certainties have broken down since the mid C20th, and few &#8216;progressive&#8217; parties have any &#8216;identity&#8217; offer, often leaving the right wing as the only identity-based option for Settlers.\u00a0 This is discussed further in main report, which also gives demographics showing that UKIP and Conservative over-index amongst the over 65s but Labour has an advantage over the Conservatives in appealing to the under 34s.<\/h3>\n<h3>Don&#8217;t Knows<\/h3>\n<h3>The large 20% who say &#8216;don&#8217;t know&#8217; tend more to be younger and female.\u00a0 This profile, together with the Prospectors in general who are fairly equally divided between supporting Conservative and Labour, looks to be the key values-demographic battle ground.<\/h3>\n<h3>The report also gives data on occupation and class (Socio Economic Group).\u00a0 Although there are skews in relation to values, the political affinities divide more clearly over values, than age, sex or class.<\/h3>\n<h3>Note<\/h3>\n<h3>Thanks to CDSM for permission to publish parts of the 2013-14 BVS results in this paper.<\/h3>\n<h3>CDSM is continuing to develop its current British Values Survey in 2014 and plans to conduct several waves with different sets of questions.\u00a0\u00a0 Enquiries should be addressed to Pat Dade at CDSM <a href=\"mailto:pat@cultdyn.co.uk\">pat@cultdyn.co.uk<\/a><\/h3>\n<h3>You can contact me at chris@campaignstrategy.co.uk<\/h3>\n<h3><\/h3>\n<h3><\/h3>\n<h3><\/h3>\n<h3><\/h3>\n<h3><\/h3>\n<h2><\/h2>\n<hr align=\"left\" size=\"1\" width=\"33%\" \/>\n<div>\n<p><a title=\"\" href=\"#_ftnref1\">[1]<\/a> Explanations of the \u2018Values Modes\u2019 system can be found at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cultdyn.co.uk\">www.cultdyn.co.uk<\/a> where you can also take an online survey to identify your own values.\u00a0 An introductory explanation is <a href=\"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/Summary-of-Values-Based-Segmentation-CR-CSL-March-2013.pdf\">here<\/a>, and The differences between the four Pioneer Values Modes (VMs) in each of the three MGs, are explained here: <a href=\"http:\/\/documents.campaignstrategy.org\/uploads\/12vm_1_settlers.pdf\">Settler<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/documents.campaignstrategy.org\/uploads\/12vm_2_prospectors.pdf\">Prospector<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/documents.campaignstrategy.org\/uploads\/12valuesmodes_3_pioneers.pdf\">Pioneer<\/a>.\u00a0 The book <em>What Makes People Tick: The Three Hidden Worlds of Settlers,\u00a0Prospectors, and Pioneers<\/em><em> provides many examples of how the system works and is available<\/em><em> <\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.campaignstrategy.org\/threeworlds\/\">here<\/a><em>.<\/em> There are numerous blogs and articles at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cultdyn.co.uk\">www.cultdyn.co.uk<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.campaignstrategy.org\">www.campaignstrategy.org<\/a> (including \u2018<a href=\"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\">three worlds<\/a>\u2019 blog).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>With European Elections due to take place within weeks, and a UK General Election looming on the political horizon, British politicians and press talk a lot about &#8216;values&#8217; but they rarely have any measurements of values to inform the &#8216;conversation&#8217;.\u00a0\u00a0 &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/?p=323\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=323"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":356,"href":"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323\/revisions\/356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}