Mark Pack

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.