Why did voting behaviour change in the 1990’s?

... Why did voting behaviour change in the 1990's? Various psephologists studying general election results have found a strong predictable pattern of voting between 1950-70, which has been named the period of alignment. Throughout this period, between 87% and 96% of the votes were for either Labour or conservatives, that's 9/10 people voting for the two parties. Also elections within this period were won and lost by small swings, unlike the recent 97 and 2001 elections when Labour won by huge majorities. During this time the old Liberal party was unable to attract more than a small % of the votes, although in 1964 they produced their best result in decades with 3.75m votes. Psephologists point to class and partisan voting on a scale not seen since this period. In recent years both these have declined for a variety of reasons, so strong identification with a party is now less than half of

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