Left and Right: Political
Attitudes and Opinions
Dr Justin Greaves
Department of Politics and
International Studies
University of Warwick
So who am I?
• Currently teach first
and second year
students in PAIS
• Particular interest in
British politics
• Interest in working
across subject areas
(‘interdisciplinarity’)
Political views
• People have different views about political
issues
• One way of characterising such views is
the ‘left/right’ political spectrum
• Originated from the time of the French
Revolution
• The aristocracy sat on the right of the
King, and the popular movements to the
left
Do you agree?
• ‘Higher education
should be free for all
and there should be
no tuition fees’.
Do you agree?
• ‘Rich people have
worked hard to
make their money
and therefore they
should pay as little
tax as possible’
Do you agree?
• ‘Many unemployed
people spend too
much time watching
Jeremy Kyle and not
enough time looking
for work. Therefore,
we should reduce
their welfare
benefits’.
Left-right spectrum
• Right-wingers stress freedom or the
rights of individuals to do as they please
– free from interference from
government
• Left-wings believe that such freedom is
at the expense of the weak. Promoting
equality is far more important.
Therefore, a larger role for government
• Why do you think
people have
different views on
political issues?
Possible explanations
• Genes
• Upbringing (parents/friends)
• Financial situation/class/personal
circumstances
• ‘Reason’ – rationally thinking through
the issues?
The three main parties
The three party leaders
• Difficulties may
occur when people
with different
political views try to
work together
• How does this apply
to the Coalition
government?
A fair reflection or not?
Broken promises in politics
‘Public Opinion’
• You will have seen opinion polls in the
media
• These may only interview 1000 people
out of the whole population of Britain
• If the sample is ‘representative’ these
polls should be accurate
• Polls usually have a
margin of error of +
or – 3%
• 19 times out of 20 a
poll should fall
between this margin
of error
• What could cause
an opinion poll to be
biased or skewed in
some way?
A few ideas
• An unrepresentative sample
• ‘Politically-correct answers’ (people like
to come across to others as being nice!)
• Faulty memories
• Loaded (or badly worded) questions
• Key problem: polls measure attitudes
and opinions not behaviour
Getting the answer you want
• This clip from Yes
Prime Minister is
very illuminating on
opinion polls!
• I hope you have enjoyed this seminar
• More about my teaching and research
interests can be found at this link:
http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/pais/pe
ople/greaves
• Video of one of my undergraduate lectures
on YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5NJyrk
T-2w