Uneven development and political behaviour: An analysis of regional variations in British political opinion in the mid-1990s

Uneven development provides a spatial template within which political parties can mobilise support based on voters' feelings of relative well-being. In Great Britain, the two main political parties have traditionally based their appeals around the country's class cleavage, with Labour support concentrated among the relatively deprived groups and areas - the two 'two nations' pattern. Recent decades have seen a weakening of this class alignment, with voters' choices increasingly reflecting their perceived economic situations, plus those of their local areas and the country as a whole. Nevertheless, as the analyses reported here for 1995-96 show, the traditional two 'two nations' cleavages remain strong elements of the country's electoral geography.