It seems I was right...

[juliet]

Compare this from the Guardian with my MPhil thesis. I was *right*.

[Note: MPhil thesis is 643K of PDF, and probably actually of interest only to, er, pretty much no one, in fact. However, it was entitled 'Exit, Voice, & Loyalty: behaviour of dissatisfied Labour party members', and it said, broadly, that a) a significant number of members were dissatisfied (this was written in 2000), b) they were going to start leaving the party soon, & c) this mattered, because grassroots activism is important in winning elections (this has not, recently, been the standard view of elections). Comparing that with the above article will demonstrate why I feel slightly smug, albeit concerned about the future of Labour...]

Comments

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

I shall read your thesis at some point.

I will also note that in the mid- to late-1990s, Labour was passionately touting its youth movement with statistics that showed that the average Labour party member was about 10 years younger than the average Conservative Party member. I can't remember the exact figures, and my (Labour, in case anyone didn't know) Party membership lapsed some years ago, but it might be interesting to compare that with current figures. Is politics generally aging, or more on some fronts than others?

[d-floorlandmine.livejournal.com]

It's not just the young who are quitting the labour party ...

[hieroglyphe.livejournal.com]

And you don't even need a crystal ball :-)

[vampwillow]

am currently reading your thesis; interesting stuff, although I was surprised you don't (yet, anyway) appear to make the connection of average age of respondents '97 -v- '99 being an equivalent two years and thus indicating that new (ie. younger) members weren't joining.

The Guardian articles table of membership numbers is very suspect imho from information I've had from various sources. While I was taking my MBA another student worked at the labour HQ (I was working at LD HQ at the time) and we compared notes on the policy of 'when to delete a member' ...

[juliet]

I thought I did make that connection somewhere - mind you, I wrote the damn thing 2 years ago now so my memory of it is not 100% any more! I certainly noted that in my *head*, anyway...

Membership numbers for political parties are all dodgy as hell anyway, this is well known.