General Election Special
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Being a particularly hot topic this year, we've created a dedicated General Election section on the 2005 Urban Life surveys, monitoring Metro readers' perspectives on all the stories surrounding the election.
Party votes:
| 2001 actual | 2005 plan | |
|---|---|---|
| Liberal Democrats | 24% | 25% |
| Labour | 48% | 24% |
| Conservative | 19% | 18% |
| Green Party | 3% | 5% |
| UKIP | N/A | 1% |
| Other | 4% | 4% |
| Don't know | 17% | |
| Don't plan to vote | 6% |
Despite an overwhelming belief that Labour will win the next General Election (78%), your actual voting intentions looks somewhat less sure. The key will be in winning the hearts and minds of the significant number of you (17%) currently saying you don't know who to vote for.
We gave you a set of potential scenarios for election day that might lead you to decide not to bother voting. Only 45% said you would try your utmost in any situation to get your vote made. For the rest of you, a bad day at work, a drink with a good friend or a favourite TV programme could easily get in the way of a visit to the polling station!
How to win your votes?
Over and above not knowing who to vote for, the top three reasons given by those of you who didn't vote in 2001 but were eligible to do so, were 1) not being registered on the electoral role (20%), 2) being abroad (18%) and 3) just not being bothered or caring about the election (17%).Urban Lifers are busy people, so the 9% of you who said you didn't have time and the 8% who said you couldn't get to the polling station is hardly a surprising finding. However 8% of you said you didn't vote because you didn't think your vote would make any difference in the constituency where you are registered.
Some of the more individual, and sometimes very honest, excuses included:
"Disillusioned with all parties concerned, it would be the same as choosing which limb to cut off"
"Didn't want to leave the house as my fake tan application was developing"
"Lazy"
"I don't kow enough about politics to vote"
"Don't vote for the bastards, it just encourages them!"
The changes that non-voters thought might encourage them to use their vote focused quite heavily on the actual action of getting a vote placed. You wanted online voting (58%), to be able to vote at any polling station (39%), telephone / text voting (21%) or postal voting (21%). For some though, it is changes in political parties that is needed, such as having better political leaders to vote for (35%) or better party policies (29%).
In your own words, things which might make a difference...
"A fine if I didn't vote"
"Better coverage of the key differences"
"Changing polling day to a Sunday"
"Honesty & Delivery not HYPE"
"If I could vote for the 'main man' not who will get in where I live"
"More focus on party policies rather than party bickering"
"Proportional representation"
Yet 27% of all Urban Lifers said they were very bothered about which party ends up in power, and nearly half are quite bothered. We wanted to know what issues mattered most to you in politics:
| KEY ISSUES | Total | Plan to vote for in 2005 | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Labour | Cons | LibDem | ||
| Health | 71% | (1) 76% |
(2) 67% |
(1) 70% |
| Crime | 60% | (3) 59% |
(1) 69% |
56% |
| Education | 60% | (2) 65% |
54% | (2) 62% |
| Transport | 54% | 57% | 51% | 59% |
| Environment | 54% | 56% | 43% | (3) 60% |
| Anti-social behaviour | 49% | 50% | 53% | 46% |
| Tax | 46% | 39% | 60% | 41% |
| Immigration | 45% | 42% | (3) 67% |
30% |
| Iraq | 13% | 12% | 7% | 14% |
Urbanite v Chav
We asked all you Urbanites what you thought about the growth of the so-called "Chav" culture and just 8% didn't know what we were talking about. 26% of you think that Chavs are pretty sad individuals and a fifth said you loathed them. And 23% of you are just sick of hearing about Chavs, so sorry to mention them again!!
Just in case you're in the 8% who don't know what a Chav is, according to Campaign magazine, they are "young, white, under-educated, underclass obsessed with brands and unsubtle jewellery"DENIM
60% of you said you would feel lost without your jeans
On average, each Urbanite owns and wears 3.8 pairs of jeans (3.9 pairs for men, 3.7 pairs for women) The 18-24 age group wear the highest number of jeans - 4.3%Top 5 Brands Men |
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| 1. | Levi's | 35% |
| 2. | Diesel | 18% |
| 3. | GAP | 17% |
| 4. | Topman | 9% |
| 5. | Wrangler | 9% |
Top 5 Brands Women |
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| 1. | Topshop | 27% |
| 2. | Levi's | 21% |
| 3. | GAP | 19% |
| 4. | Diesel | 14% |
| 5. | Miss Sixty | 11% |
Top 5 Brands 18-24s |
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| 1. | Levi's | 25% |
| 2. | Topshop | 24% |
| 3. | GAP | 19% |
| 4. | Diesel | 18% |
| 5. | H&M | 14% |
Every single day, 4 in 10 Urbanite men and a quarter of women put their jeans on at some point in the day. A quarter of you can wear jeans to work, but it's certainly not "anything goes", as two thirds own different styles of jeans for different levels of dressing up or dressing down. It seems denim is an Urbanites second skin...
