Guardian analysis of messaging in post-war Tory and Labour manifestos reveals shifting political focus
Climate change, Brexit, and Europe might have been key touchstones in previous election campaigns, but Guardian analysis shows they are given less prominence in the two main UK parties’election manifesto dating back to 1945 shows that, while both parties still dedicate column inches to the climate emergency, these issues are less prominent than in the last election cycle.
References to Brexit, Europe, the European Community and the other EU institutions made up less than one in every 1,000 words in both parties’ policy documents: the lowest level since 2010 for Labour or 1970 for the Conservatives. Labour’s new manifesto – released on Thursday and titled “It’s time for real change” – mentioned the word Brexit just once, compared with 21 times at the last election.
This year, for the first time, the Conservatives’ standout word using TFIDF was “NHS”, a word mentioned 54 times in their manifesto. The list below shows the standout words in both main parties’ manifestos since the second world war using the TFIDF analysis, each situated within a quote showing the context in which it was used. The results highlight not only how much politics has changed, but also how similar some issues are to today.
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