Latent liberalism? Sympathy and support for the liberal democrats at the 1997 British General Election

Taking evidence from the 1997 British General Election Study, we investigat e the popularity of Liberal Democrat policies - how successful the party wa s in converting sympathy into votes - and examine reasons behind the failur e to build on its popularity. The Liberal Democrats are shown to have had p opular policies and popular leadership in the 1997 election but this failed to translate into votes. A model of Liberal Democrat voting shows that est ablished predictors of voting behaviour such as social class and age have l ittle influence. Attitudinally, voters who hold the party leadership in hig h regard and who are in agreement with Liberal Democrat policies are much m ore likely to vote for the party. The model also shows that the Liberal Dem ocrats performed best where they were best placed to defeat a Conservative candidate. It is argued that natural 'liberals' make up only a minority of voters and only a small proportion of these actually vote for the party. On ly in areas where they have a clear chance of success are they able to mobi lize their latent support.