but actually swing voters tend to side with Libs strongly on some things like health care, white collar crime, and higher taxes on the rich and Tories strongly on some things like violent crime, anti-terrorism, and immigration
Having just read the (ridiculously long) post, his position even seemed to be that these voters are (often?) to the left of the left parties (or their leadership) on some issues, and to the right of the right parties (or their leadership) on the others.
The findings are similar in the US; the story I have pulled from it so far is that this basically boils down to tallying responses wrongly in political science research. The popular example from the US is that you might have a survey with multiple responses, and one person responds:
Q1. How do you feel about gay marriage? A1. Gay people should have civil unions rather than marriage
Q2. How involved should the government be in the economy? A2. Government should keep taxes low
But another person responds with:
A1. Gay people should not be allowed to get married, or adopt, or teach children
A2. Government should heavily tax the rich and important industries should be nationalized
Since both answers for the first person were conservative, the surveys marked that person as “very conservative.” The second person, with one extremely conservative answer and one extremely liberal answer, got marked as a moderate.
This distinction flew under the radar for a long time because in the US there are only two political parties (which can realistically hold seats in the legislature), so it the question of which way a given voter would go was a matter of salience, which in political terms means which issues are top of mind at election time.
When looking for an older article I read on the subject, I came across a better one from 538, wherein they take some of these older survey questions and graph the outputs.
Having just read the (ridiculously long) post, his position even seemed to be that these voters are (often?) to the left of the left parties (or their leadership) on some issues, and to the right of the right parties (or their leadership) on the others.
The findings are similar in the US; the story I have pulled from it so far is that this basically boils down to tallying responses wrongly in political science research. The popular example from the US is that you might have a survey with multiple responses, and one person responds:
Q1. How do you feel about gay marriage?
A1. Gay people should have civil unions rather than marriage
Q2. How involved should the government be in the economy?
A2. Government should keep taxes low
But another person responds with:
A1. Gay people should not be allowed to get married, or adopt, or teach children
A2. Government should heavily tax the rich and important industries should be nationalized
Since both answers for the first person were conservative, the surveys marked that person as “very conservative.” The second person, with one extremely conservative answer and one extremely liberal answer, got marked as a moderate.
This distinction flew under the radar for a long time because in the US there are only two political parties (which can realistically hold seats in the legislature), so it the question of which way a given voter would go was a matter of salience, which in political terms means which issues are top of mind at election time.
When looking for an older article I read on the subject, I came across a better one from 538, wherein they take some of these older survey questions and graph the outputs.