Questionnaire

Over the Christmas holidays I researched all the different party manifestos from the key dates 1979, when Thatcher came into power and 1997, when Tony Blair came into power. I am aware that John Smith was expected to win the election previous to 1997 in 1992. Due to him not winning the election Blair made changes to the Labour manifesto in order to appeal to more people. Therefore, this will be an important date to compare. However, I will leave that to the first bit of my research plan and for this questionairre focus on the two dates or I will end up with it being too long.

The policies I went for were :

A1/C1/A5/C5 Controlling inflation

A1/A5 Privatisation

B5 Stronger regulation of business and industry

C5 National minimum wage

C1 Improve industrial relations

A1 Increase pay differentials

C5/B5 Reduce homelessness

C1 Return to full employment

A5/C5 Reform business rates to help small businesses

A1/A5 Increase home ownership

C5 Increase spending on patient care in the NHS

C5 End the internal market in the NHS

C5 Tough quality targets for hospitals

C1/C5 Training for the young and long term unemployed

A1 Raising the standards of children's education

B5 Support special needs education

C5/B5 Cut class sizes to 30 or under for 5, 6 and 7 year olds

B5 Improve adult education

A5 More freedom to schools to develop their own character

C5/B5 Increase spending on education

A5/B5/C5 Greater measures on school achievement

C1 Legislation to protect individual rights

C1/A5 Equality for men/women

C1 Equality for minority groups

A1/A5 Reduce the number of people on benefits

A1 Control the powers of trade unions

C1 Sustain democracy in the workplace

B1 Parliamentary reform for an open, accountable Government

C5 End the hereditary principle in the House of Lords

A1 To uphold Parliament and the rule of law

C5 Ban all handguns

B5 More police officers

A5 Further punishment for juvenile offenders

C5 Half the time it takes for juvenile offenders to get to court

B1/C1/C5 Devolution of powers in the UK to a local level

C5 Devolved powers to Scotland and Wales

B1 Electoral reform for representive Government

A1 To strengthen Britain's defences

C1 Disarmament of the UK

C5 Strong defence through NATO

C1 Foreign aid to alleviate poverty

A5 Argue for a more flexible Europe

C1 Closer EU unity

A5 Tighter standards on vehicle emissions

C5 Environmental sustainability

B5 Tackle media power concentration

A = Conservatives 1 = 1979 elections
B = Liberal Democrats 2 = 1997 elections
C = Labour

I have put these on the side so that when I come to looking at the response from people when I come to looking at part 1 of my research plan: proving that their policies have changed, I can use this as some evidence towards whether it has or not.

However, for this part of my research the questionnaire will be purely to see what people regard as left and right so that my own political ideas don't sway it and it is fair. When putting together the questionnairre for people I will take away the numbers and letters so that they do not try and analyse them and guess what they mean, as this may affect how they answer it. I will put a scale at the top asking them where they would mark themselves on the left and right scale politically. Then, when they have filled out the questionnairre, for example if they thought themselves to be left, I would put a line down the middle of their responses and that would be what was central to them. Next to each policy there will be a scale will 15 points on. A scale with 10 means they may lean towards a specific number a lot and so a 15 point scale will mean they don't pay so much attention to that either.

Further, the top of the questionnairre will explain what the questionnaire is and what it is for, that it is confidential and instructions on how to fill it out.