How Voters Decide: Part Two
Analysis
BBC
4.6 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 27 February 2017
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
What makes us change our mind when it comes to elections? We are all swingers now. More voters than ever before are switching party from one election to the next. Tribal loyalties are weakening. The electorate is now willing to vote for the other side.
Professor Rosie Campbell from Birkbeck University finds out what prompts voters to shift from one party to another. Quentin Davies had been a Tory MP for decades when he crossed the floor of the house. He believes his views stayed the same - but the world changed around him. Journalist Janet Daley was once too left wing for the Labour Party - until Margaret Thatcher came along. Meanwhile Daryll Pitcher felt as though no party wanted his vote. Today he is a UKIP campaign manager.
Does age make us become more right wing? Have the main political parties alienated their core vote? And what does this mean for democracy?
Producer: Hannah Sander.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | This is the BBC. |
| 0:02.0 | Thanks for downloading analysis. |
| 0:05.0 | A few days ago British politics saw a stunning result with a massive swing in the Copeland by-election. |
| 0:11.0 | In her second program looking at how we vote, Professor Rosie Campbell |
| 0:14.8 | asks, why do voters switch parties? |
| 0:17.0 | We have become a nation of swingers. |
| 0:22.0 | I had a terrible moment at that sort of We have become a nation of swingers. |
| 0:22.6 | I had a terrible moment and that sort of shattered the mirror for me. |
| 0:26.4 | I should have left before I wish I had now. |
| 0:29.2 | A huge number of voters of abandoned political loyalties that they had nurtured for decades. |
| 0:35.0 | Although it didn't change my mind overnight, it really worried me. |
| 0:39.4 | It planted a real doubt. |
| 0:41.8 | It wasn't just my generation that was disenchanted by Iraq, it was a whole |
| 0:45.4 | sway of people across the generations. |
| 0:47.8 | Why are so many voters changing their minds from one election to the next. Are the political parties facing |
| 0:54.4 | disaster or is this a brave new world? As voters move rapidly from one party to |
| 1:02.4 | another they bring about startling political |
| 1:05.2 | upheavals. |
| 1:06.2 | Labour has suffered a stunning by-election defeat to the Conservatives in the Cumbrian seat of Copeland, |
| 1:11.2 | one of its northern heartlands. The seat had been represented by labor since |
| 1:14.8 | 1935. In the last program we found out how voters decide what to do. |
| 1:21.3 | Age-old allegiances based on class, religion, and issues such |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.