MARGINAL COMMENT
By HAROLD NICOLSON
MASS-OBSERVATION have issued through Art and Technics Ltd. a bright little shilling pamphlet entitled Voters' Choice. It represents an enquiry into the reasons which induced electors to vote one way or the other at the General Election of 1950. The present pamphlet is merely a sample of a more extended survey, the results of which will be published at some future date. As such, it is admittedly provi- sional, fragmentary and inconclusive. It only represents the opinions of 600 people, chosen more or less at random, in six London constituencies ; yet I should be surprised if the more ample and methodical survey which, it seems, is in contemplation were to produce results appreciably different from those which this preliminary enquiry discloses. I fear that we must accept this sample as giving a fairly true indication of what influences the ordinary elector in casting his vote. Its conclusions will distress the professional politician and will fill those who possess a sensitive democratic conscience with uneasy doubts regarding the funda- mental wisdom of the British electorate. Admittedly these surveys of public opinion must to some extent be discounted ; they cannot possess the accuracy of a scientific machine ; between these positives of " Yes " or " No " there must always remain wide zones of uncertainty which at present are labelled under the convenient heading of " Don't Know." I should prefer to see a fourth section added to the customary three categories, a section which could include those many people who know perfectly well what they feel or 'think but who prefer not to say. This fourth section might be labelled " Deceptives " and would I am 'sure comprise a large proportion of those at present relegated among the " Don't Know " mice. I know very well that if I were accosted in the public street and asked how or why I voted in 1950, I should be tempted to invent answers so fantastic as to send spasms of bewilderment twitching across my investigator's face. I am certain that many people who share with me a belief in the sacred secrecy of the ballot-box would return equally deceptive answers.
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Let us assume none the less that these six hundred men and women of London, when interrogated suddenly on their return from their offices or shopping, did in fact disclose to the charming investigators of Mass-Observation the true reasons which at the last election induced them to vote right or left. To what conclu- sions do the stray samples gathered together in this pamphlet lead the critical mind ? They suggest in the first place that the four main factors which are regarded by Transport House and Central Office as determining the votes of the masses do not in fact exercise the influence which they are assumed to exercise. The Party Organisations take it more or less for granted that elections are affected one way or another by the efficiency of the local campaign, by the personality of the candidate, by the prestige of political leaders, and by the record of the previous Government and the questions which have been debated in the former Parliament. If these 600 Londoners are to be regarded as typical of the national electorate, it would seem doubtful whether the actual constituency
campaign produces upon the individual elector an impact commen- surate with the immense amount of effort and expense involved. Only 14 per cent. of the electors had bothered to attend a single election meeting, and only 5 per cent. had attended meetings of any party other than their own. It was discovered that those who eventually voted Liberal had taken the most trouble to hear and study the different points of view. The doubtful voter who, as the floating vote, was more warmly wooed than any other, seems to have been the laziest and most indifferent of all.
* * * * It was found that the leaflets and election addresses to which the candidates devote such care and ingenuity were left unopened and unread by as many as 44 per cent. of the voters. A few of them would cast a hasty glance at the photograph of the candidate, not realising that the camera on such occasions can be induced to lie damnably ; but the majority of them dismissed all election literature as a waste of paper and a waste of time. Even more discouraging for the prospective candidate is the revelation that only a very small proportion of the electors were able, even a few days before the poll, to give the names of those competitors who were so arduously soliciting their votes. It may seem strange that in an area which for fourteen days has been -plastered with the emphatic names and photographs of the several candidates there should remain so many voters upon whom these posters and window- cards had made no impact whatsoever. Here again the percentages of apathy are significant. It was discovered that, whereas 12 per cent. of the Conservatives and 11 per cent. of the Socialists did not know the names of any of the candidates, only 3 per cent. of the Liberals had descended to a similar abyss of ignorance. And here again the " floating voter " came off worst of all with 26 per cent. Thus whereas three-quarters of the Conservative and Labour supporters knew the names only of their own candidates, more than three-quarters of the Liberal supporters knew the names of all three candidates. The Liberals therefore have some right to claim that it is to the more intelligent sections of the community that their appeal is addressed.
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The " indifference to personalities "—the tendency to regard the several candidates, not as individuals possessing divergent virtues and defects, but as " party symbols "—does not in every case extend to the several political leaders. Mass-Observation considers„. for instance, that the personalities of Mr. Attlee and Mr. Churchill did exercise some effect upon the national elector. Moreover, although these typical electors were almost wholly ignorant of and indifferent to the personal merits and demerits of their local candi- dates, they did show some signs of having given thought to the record of the previous Government and to the political issues of the time. They were predominantly concerned with the housing problem and with the cost of living ; their attitude towards nationalisation was uncertain and confused ; whereas 80 per cent. of those questioned were aware that the mines had been nationalised„ only 8 per cent. recalled that a similar operation had been per- formed upon the Bank of England. In general Mass-Observation concludes that the Labour and the Conservative voter is mainly influenced by class feeling, whereas the vote of the Liberals is " much less inflexibly predetermined." It is therefore the Liberal vote which is the real floating vote. Only one-half of the Liberals in 1950 voted in the same way as they voted in 1945. A fifth of these_ abstained from voting, one in six voted Labour and one in eight voted Conservative. The impression , left by this limited investigation is that, apart from those whose votes go either to the right or the left owing to social environment, the uncertain voter is influenced by \the long-term effect of Government policy and scarcely at all by the wisdom and virtue of the candidate himself.
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I cannot but feel, from my own experience, that this is a some- what pessimistic conclusion. A good candidate, especially if he takes the trouble to canvass methodically, can certainly swing an important number of voters. Let him not, moreover, be deterred or discouraged by the fact that so small a proportion of the electors trouble to attend his meetings, to read his leaflets or even to know his name. It may be that the electorate to a large extent votes blind ; but the House of Commons is anything but blind. In that Assembly personality counts as much as party ; he will be assessed as an individual ; and such influence as he is able to exercise will depend upon the integrity of his character, the value of his abilities, and the forcefulness of his mind. There is nothing impersonal about the House of Commons. The good candidate in the end obtains his reward ; but he has first got to be elected.
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