Saliency of Political Issues

We have already noted one headline finding from the online Cpanel survey of 422 practising Christians conducted by ComRes for Premier Christian Radio between 30 March and 12 April 2010 (‘Christians and the general election’, 19 April).

Hot off the press, ComRes has now released the full findings, running to 84 pages of data tables, for this poll. They cover the attitudes of Christians to political issues, political party leaders and the prospects of a hung Parliament following the general election.

The tables will be found at:

http://www.comres.co.uk/premierchristiansapril2010.aspx

Space does not permit a complete analysis of the results, but it is useful to highlight here the saliency of particular political issues among practising Christians and the electorate as a whole (the latter data are taken from an Ipsos MORI poll of 1,503 adult Britons aged 18 and over interviewed by telephone on 19-22 March 2010).

The percentages of each of these two groups saying that a specific political issue was likely to be very important to them in helping to decide which party to vote for at the forthcoming general election were as follows:

What is interesting from the above table is that, while the economy, healthcare and education are key priorities for both groups, practising Christians appear to be much more exercised about every issue than do electors in general.

When asked a different question, to choose from a list of issues which is the most important one facing Britain today, practising Christians gave the following answers: economy (42%), family and societal breakdown (13%), secularism (11%), immigration (7%), moral disintegration (7%), faults in the political system (5%), crime (3%), unemployment (2%) and religious freedom (2%).

The poll thus suggests that politicians courting votes would be well-advised to remember that practising Christians appear to be informed and concerned voters, often with specific political preoccupations.