Quality | 2010.03.29
Who is winning the gay vote? | Simon Jeffery
A survey by the social networking site Gaydar puts the Tories ahead of Labour
If there\'s one demographic that Labour should hope to count on even when others are deserting in droves, it\'s the gay vote. From the equalisation of the age of consent, to workplace equality legislation and the rules preventing discrimination by adoption agencies, Labour\'s record on gay issues is impeccable. But an interesting survey out today suggests that David Cameron\'s attempts to shake off the demons of Section 28 appear to have paid off.
It\'s particularly interesting as the end of the survey period, 18-24 March, coincided with the screening of Cameron\'s awkward Gay Times interview , where he was asked why his MEPs refused to support a motion condemning a homophobic law in Lithuania.
The survey was carried out among 1,500 users of the gay social networking site Gaydar , which means it\'s self-selecting and we must inject lots of caveats. But helpfully it asked how Gaydar users had voted in 2005, and how they planned to vote in 2010, which gives us a useful comparison.
This is how members of the Gaydar survey panel said they had voted in 2005:
Labour: 39.9%
Conservative: 22.1%
Liberal Democrat: 19.8%
Did not vote: 6%
Other: 4.1%
Green: 3.7%
Scottish National party: 3.5%
Plaid Cymru: 0.9%
Unsurprisingly, a big lead for Labour. Compare that with the voting intentions for 2010:
Conservative: 28.9%
Labour: 27.5%
Liberal Democrat: 27%
Green: 4.5%
Other: 4.3%
Don\'t know: 3.7%
Scottish National party: 3.4%
Plaid Cymru: 0.7%
Is that good for the Tories? Well, this swing is pretty much in line with opinion polls generally. But given that the Tories\' gay rights conversion is unproven, and Labour\'s record is solid, at first glance this appears to be quite an achievement for Cameron.
While all polls should be taken with a pinch of salt, this applies double to these figures because this is not a statistically-weighted opinion poll (of the kind ICM carries out for the Guardian). However, compare the figures to the population as a whole, and some interesting patterns start to emerge.
The overall share of the vote taken by the major parties at the 2005 general election was 35.3% for Labour, 32.3% for the Conservatives and 22.1% for the Liberal Democrats. So you can see quite clearly that while Labour and the Lib Dems overperformed among gay men (according to the Gaydar survey), the Tories underperformed by about a third.
The current polling average from UK Polling Report puts the Conservatives on 37%, Labour on 31% and the Lib Dems on 19%, so the Tories are still underperforming by about a third. Despite Cameron\'s attempts to make it a more inclusive party, its level of gay male support as a proportion of its overall support has not increased.
Labour has indeed lost the charmed view that gay men appeared to take of the party: it is now underperforming by around a fifth. While gay men have disproportionately swung away from Labour, the main beneficiaries appear to be the Liberal Democrats.
For more information, please visit
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/blog/2010/mar/29/general-election-2010
