Importance Of Key Issues To Voting

Published:24 March 2010

Fieldwork:1995 - 2010

Theme:Politicians & Parties

Sub-Theme:Best Party on Key Issues

Keywords:Issues important to voting

(Click on keywords to find related Research)

Q Looking ahead to the next General Election, which, if any, of these issues do you think will be very important to you in helping you to decide which party to vote for?

	Animal welfare	Asylum	Asylum and immi- gration	Const- itution / devol- ution	Crime and anti-social behaviour	Defence	Education	Europe	Health care	Housing	Iraq	Law & Order	Mana- ging the economy	Northern Ireland	Pensions	Prot- ecting the natural envir-onment	Public transport	Taxation	Trade Unions	Unemp-loyment	Other	Don't know
	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%
21-24 July 1995	-	-	-	-	-	10	52	17	61	24	-	43	30	8	25	21	12	30	4	53	2	6
22-25 March 1996	-	-	-	-	-	16	66	24	68	30	-	52	38	22	34	31	19	30	9	65	1	4
23-28 July 1996	-	-	-	-	-	9	51	19	60	17	-	45	26	13	29	20	12	26	5	48	2	4
21-24 February 1997	-	-	-	-	-	8	56	26	63	19	-	45	29	10	28	22	15	28	5	47	1	4
8 April 1997	10	-	-	7	-	12	61	22	68	22	-	51	30	12	39	20	18	33	9	49	2	2
21-24 May 1998	12	-	-	8	-	12	62	26	66	23	-	45	34	15	36	22	23	32	5	50	1	5
23-26 July 1999	11	-	-	8	-	12	52	30	61	21	-	43	28	15	32	22	28	32	4	42	3	6
20-25 January 2000	9	-	-	7	-	13	55	24	71	18	-	49	28	8	31	21	26	30	4	36	1	5
20-24 July 2000	8	-	-	6	-	10	52	26	67	15	-	54	29	8	35	19	27	36	3	35	3	4
15-20 February 2001	10	-	-	5	-	13	52	29	65	16	-	47	27	7	28	18	27	31	3	25	3	6
29 March-3 April 2001	14	-	23**	6	-	10	50	18	59	19	-	41	24	6	31	21	25	28	4	26	3	6
10-14 May 2001	13	-	24**	5	-	9	53	18	61	18	-	44	29	5	35	20	23	35	3	25	2	3
5 June 2001	11	-	27**	8	-	11	62	26	73	21	-	50	31	7	40	26	31	37	6	30	3	3
11-16 September 2003	9	39	-	10	-	20	53	22	62	20	-	49	27	-	42	19	25	32	7	24	2	5
10-14 September 2004	8	37	-	5	-	24	47	21	54	19	-	45	24	-	40	18	19	33	3	22	3	5
17-21 February 2005	7	38	-	7	-	15	46	19	57	20	-	45	23	-	39	20	17	28	3	18	2	6
7-11 April 2005*	14	37	-	8	-	19	61	19	67	27	18	56	35	-	49	28	26	42	-	25	2	4
7-11 April 2005*	13	-	45	9	64	21	-	25	71	29	19	-	38	-	48	28	26	43	-	25	26	3
31 August - 6 September 2006	7	-	52	4	57	20	45	13	54	22	32	-	28	-	36	27	17	32	-	21	-	6
20-26 September 2007	7	-	46	6	56	16	39	11	47	22	26	-	24	-	27	20	14	23	-	20	1	6

* In April 2005, two slightly different lists of issues were shown to matched halves of the sample; results from each half are shown separately
**Worded "Asylum seekers/immigration" in 2001

A similar question, but without prompting respondents by showing them a list, was asked in telephone polls in 2001 and 2008-9:

Q. Looking ahead to the General Election, which, if any, issues do you think will be very important to helping you decide which party to vote for?
(In this table, a dash (-) indicates that a topic was not listed as a separate code for interviewers and would have been classified as "Other" if mentioned by a respondent, a zero that the code was included but that no responses were coded against it and an asterisk indicates a figure less than 0.5% but greater than 0.)

	Afghan- istan	Animal welfare	Asylum/ immi- gration	Benefits	Care for older and disabled people	Const-itution / devo- lution	Crime/ anti-social behaviour	Defence	Education	Europe	Foot & Mouth Disease	Health care	Housing	Iraq	Law & Order	Managing the economy	Northern Ireland	Pensions	Prot- ecting the natural envir-onment	Public transport	Taxation	Trade Unions	Unemp-loyment	Other	None/ Don't know
	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%
30 April-1 May 2001†	-	2	-			-	-	1	29	5	6	33	2	-	8	9	0	10	4	5	10	*	3	17	16
10-12 May 2001	-	1	6			-	-	1	35	7	2	40	2	-	10	7	*	16	2	5	16	*	3	14	18
31 May-2 June 2001	-	2	6			-	-	1	39	14	2	50	2	-	10	7	*	15	3	7	11	*	3	11	11
15-17 August 2008 ‡	-	1	14			1	18	4	22	3	*	22	9	6	-	35	-	9	10	4	18	-	5	9	12
25-27 September 2009 ‡	6	*	13			1	6	6	17	3	-	20	2	2	-	39	-	5	6	1	10	-	13	-	12
19-22 March 2010 ‡	5	-	14	7	7	-	8	3	23	-	-	26	3	3	-	32	-	6	5	3	12	-	11	4	15

† Question asked as "If the general election were held this Thursday, what, if any, issues would be very important to you in helping you decide which party to vote for?"
‡Question asked as "Looking ahead to the next General Election..."

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