David Cameron launched the Conservative party’s manifesto in Swindon on Tuesday. Overnight, it was announced that the right to buy for 1.3 million families in housing association properties would be a central part of it.
We can track the key themes and messages the party wants to get across by analysing the words used in the full manifesto document. Here are some of the most mentioned words.
Tax and spending
The most mentioned keywords in the manifesto, with tax cropping up 132 times and spending (a central theme for any political party) 112 times.
The key points from the manifesto on tax are:
- No rise in VAT, national insurance or income tax, but increasing the 40p income tax threshold to £50,000;
- Increase the inheritance tax threshold for homes to £1m.
It’s no surprise that economic terms such as tax and spending would top a list of the key themes in the Conservative manifesto. The economy is seen as the party’s strong suit. The latest results from YouGov’s tracker gives the Tories a 17-point lead on economic trust, but as Alberto Nardelli points out: “Economic matters are less of a concern for voters now than they were in 2010.”
Education
Among the key points on education in the Tory manifesto are plans to lift the cap on university places, freeze the amount of government spending per school pupil and the introduction of a national postgraduate loan system for taught masters and PhD courses. Education is mentioned 85 times in the manifesto.
The document presents plans to turn every failing and “coasting” secondary school into an academy and create free schools for parents who want them, while children will be made to resit SATs upon arrival at secondary school if they have not reached the required standards.
Europe
In common with most leaders of the Conservative party, Europe has been a difficult issue for David Cameron to manage. Voter insecurity about immigration and the rise of the Ukip have been a theme of the last five years of government and the prime minister has promised an in/out referendum if renegotiation about the terms of Britain’s EU membership fails. In the manifesto Europe has been mentioned a total of 85 times. Key points of the Tory manifesto on Europe are:
- Scrap the Human Rights Act and introduce a British bill of rights;
- Have an in-out referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU before the end of 2017.
Methodology
Our approach is limited in that we will only see how frequently the words we have chosen as keywords are used. Given the complexity of language, this could mean that some issues have been missed out or overrepresented.
However, by comparing the three main parties across the week we will be able to get a picture of how much importance they have placed on the issues of most concern to the electorate. The list of keywords we have used are as follows:
Health – health/NHS/doctors/nurses/GPs
Education – education/schools/universities
Inequality – inequality/poverty/wage/pay
Spending – spend/spends/spending/investment/invested/investing/invest
Taxes – tax/taxpayers/taxes/VAT
Crime and policing – crime/crimes/police/policing/prisons
Jobs/employment – unemployment/jobs/employment/workers
Economy – economy
Deficit/debt – deficit/debt/borrowing/cuts
Housing – housing/buyers/rent/renters/property/house/housebuilding
Immigration – immigration/immigrants/migration/migrants
Europe – Europe/European/EU/Foreign
