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The article discusses the party policy and ideology of the Labour Party in Great Britain from 1997 to 2001. It analyzes the British party manifestos and the Five Year Plans for comprehensive social development issued by any organisation in democratic societies. It evaluates the left-right movement of the parties and the separation of Labour from Conservatives and Liberal Democrats in 1945. It compares the manifestos with campaign handling of policy issues and public opinion. It assesses the elections and the creation of a left-right scale from manifesto emphases.

Examines the correlation of British political party and government policy. Policy-based theories of coalition formation; Use of postwar party election programs and government declarations of different countries to study policy positions of parties and governments; Operationalization of policy-based models of government formation; Performance of model predictions based on the party platform data.

Looks at broad patterns linking the policy emphasis of party election programs to subsequent expenditure priorities within the British political process. Attempts to answer whether party manifestos matter to government policy. Use of content analysis to code and classify policy emphasis within the post-war election programs of the Conservative, Labour and Liberal parties; Traditional mandate theory within the context of the `Westminster model'; More.

Capital to the best-known classification of Political Arguments is a distinction between want-regarding and ideal-regarding principles, upon which this paper bases alternative representations of the dynamics of political debate. These are discussed with specific reference tot eh possibility that want-regarding goals are served less well by British planning decisions than if ideal-regarding arguments were permitted. The representations provide a limited explanation of how such a situation might come about and be maintained. Initially the draw on Down's models of voting and party competition, but explore alternatives because of: (1) the possibility that some assumptions needed for a Downsian representation cannot realistically be made about political arguments; and (2) the probability that factors other than verbal arguments enter into planning decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article provides explanation and prediction on the general election of 1979 in Great Britain. The difficult task of predicting election outcomes in advance needs to be undertaken although satisfactory explanation of voting and party competition cannot successfully be achieved through any one approach. Estimates of issue-effects, the key element in any prediction, have previously been made on the basis of survey materials, computer simulations and econometric analyses. This paper utilizes a new sources of data-records of the issues involved in election campaigns. By relating these systematically to outcomes, issue-effects can be estimated and compared with others for mutual validation. The approach used here allows for prediction of future election results from current accounts of campaign issues, and provides an explanation of why these should have the effects they do. This is illustrated with the general election of 1974 in Great Britain, when predictions of vote were made six weeks in advance of the actual result.