The following figures show (approximately – see notes below) the number of Liberal Democrat voters from May 2010 who read different newspaper titles:
The Sun: 796,000
Daily Mail: 576,000
Daily Mirror: 396,000
The Times: 340,000
The Guardian: 331,000
Daily Telegraph: 278,000
The Independent: 233,000
Daily Express: 190,000
Daily Star: 136,000
These figures have been calculated from the data provided in The British General Election of 2010 and are based on survey data for newspaper readership, party support and turnout. The newspaper readership figures include people from age of 15 and also adults who are not eligible to vote. Therefore all the figures for individual titles are a little on the high side.
Thank you to Philip Cowley for promptly answering my queries about the data in the book. (The data in the Table 14.1 is correct even though it is apparently contradicted by the text on p.281.)
As the calculations take into account different turnout levels amongst readers of different newspapers they are therefore not directly comparable with otherwise similar calculations that were circulated after the 2005 election but which did not adjust for turnout.
Some Liberal Democrat voters are readers of more than one newspaper, so – in addition to the readership data point noted above – the total of the figures above cannot be compared to the total number of Liberal Democrat votes at the general election.
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15 Comments
It would be interesting to see these as percentages compared to the national average and even those from other parties.
Compared to the circulation for each paper for January of this year, the Independent is the most Lib Demmy with the above figure representing 125% of circulation. The Guardian is next at 109%. Then comes the Times at 67%, the Telegraph at c. 40%, the Mirror at 32%, the Daily Mail at 27%, The Sun at 26% and the Daily Express at 19%. The Daily Star probably has the lowest proportion of Lib Dem readers at 17%.
Surprisingly high placing for the Telegraph, in my opinion. I’ve always found it a bit stuffy.
@Andrew – yes stuffy – but it’s the broadsheet with the easiest cryptic crossword!
@Alex M – Ah, that explains it! “Lib Dems more interested in crosswords than boobs” would be my headline for this article.
I feel sorry for…..no, I really despise anyone who reads the Sun. As a Business English head teacher once told me, “it’s a baby’s paper.”
In my own opinion, the Express and ,very often, the Daily Mail just spoon feed opinion and they editorialise rather than report our politics. The standard of journalism on the former as well as on the Daily Star is too dreadful for words that matter and is best suited to duds rather than LibDems.
Sean, I used to teach Adult Literacy & the Sun was overwhelmingly the Paper of choice among my students. Lots of Adults have been barely or completely unable to read & for them the Sun is a godsend. We should be careful who we despise.
@ Sean
Totally agree with your comments about the sun, but then I would seeing that I was raised in Liverpool.
@ paul barker
“…….for them the Sun is a godsend. We should be careful who we despise.”
Whoops! I thought you used to teach adult literacy.
@ Andrew “Surprisingly high placing for the Telegraph, in my opinion. I’ve always found it a bit stuffy.”
Good sports coverage mind.
Interesting given the public image of Lib Dems as middle class public sector employees/students/hippies. The Sun and the Daily mail are the most popular papers among lib dems, reflecting their larger national share of the newspaper market.
In fact these figures pretty much follow the national rankings for number of readers for these papers. Evidence that lib dems are a pretty representative bunch of the population.
The daily mail gives you cancer.
Surprised the bile rag (I mean The Mail) is up there. But then anyone who can read The Fail and still vote Lib Dem obviously has a strong immunity to it. Perhaps some scientist should find out what it is, and inject The Fail’s more rabid readers with it!
@Rosalind – a lot of women read it as they’ve targetted women through their `femail` pages so it might be down to that.
So Lembit’s efforts weren’t enough to propel the Daily Sport into your rankings then 😉
Have you read Lembit Opik’s column?! It’s enough to put a chap off reading the Daily Sport. 🙁