UK voters give party leaders mixed marks on television performances

Published On Fri 1 May 2015 by Grant Hill

Not much separated the performances of the leaders of the three major parties in yesterday’s Question Time with David Dimbleby, according to focus groups held in Essex by the University of Dundee.

While Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg were marked either a B or a C, David Cameron polarised voters with marks that were either on the very low or very high end of the scale.

Those were the impressions of voters who took part in focus groups conducted as part of the Qualitative Election Study at the University of Essex in Colchester last night.  Eight people took part in the research which involved watching the Question Time performance of the leaders and reacting to them in real time.

"This was the final chance for the voters to see the three major party leaders consecutively defend their policies and record," said Dr Edzia Carvalho, from the University of Dundee, who is the principle investigator on the study. "Our participants were quite vocal about the performance of these leaders and their impressions on the general public."

This was the last of three groups who were asked to watch the leaders’ televised joint appearance. Participants were asked to write down their impressions of each leader as the event unfolded. They also gave each leader a final overall mark from A to F.

"One trend we found nationwide is that participants wanted to see more policy discussions rather than personality clashes. The Question Time format was the closest in putting real people in contact with politicians," said Dr. Kristi Winters, the study’s international co-investigator from GESIS, Cologne. "Rather than modelling the appearances on US presidential style debates, voters seem to prefer the British tradition of a local hustings or the Question Time format."

The research is funded by the British Academy and the Leverhulme Trust. More information on the project can be found at http://wintersresearch.wordpress.com and @qualesb on Twitter.

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