Prepared by AMSR using the Archive
These General Election and Referendum case studies have been prepared for AQA A-Level Students from AMSR NOP and MORI reports on the Elections, produced at the time, plus 2 detailed analyses of the AMSR Archive Content produced by AMSR Volunteers: “Polling in UK Elections Since 1945” (focussed on Voting Behaviour and the Media) & “Why Polls Go Wrong”.
1964 General Election — Narrow Labour Win (1)
Wider Context
- Modernisation vs tradition.
- Liberal revival.
Campaign Techniques
- Multiple polling organisations active.
Issue Salience
- Economy, modernisation.
Polling & Media
- 4 of 5 polls correctly predicted Labour.
Outcome
- Labour won by 1.9%.
AMSR Link: NOP Political Bulletin 1964 October – Page 1 – NOP Reports – The AMSR Online Archive
1966 General Election — Labour Landslide (1)
Wider Context
- Wilson sought larger mandate.
- Polls widely published.
Campaign Techniques
- Heavy media use of polls.
Issue Salience
- Economic planning.
Polling & Media
- Polls showed 10%+ Labour lead; “took the steam out of the contest.”
Outcome
- Labour won comfortably.
AMSR LINK : NOP Bulletin 1966 April – Page 1 – NOP Reports – The AMSR Online Archive
Technical Appendix
About the Archive (AMSR)
The Archive of Market and Social Research (AMSR) preserves the original reports, surveys, and polling data produced by Britain’s major research organisations from the 1940s onwards, offering an unparalleled record of how public opinion was measured, reported, and understood at the time. Because the Archive contains the contemporarydocuments — Gallup, NOP, MORI, and others — it shows elections, referendums, and polling debates exactly as they were experienced, without hindsight or reinterpretation. This makes AMSR uniquely valuable for A-Level Politics: students can see how campaigns unfolded, how issues rose and fell in importance, how voters behaved, and how polls influenced expectations. The Archive also reveals why polls sometimes go wrong, how methods evolved, and how media reporting shaped political understanding. In short, AMSR provides the evidence base that allows students to evaluate elections, referendums, voting behaviour, and the reliability of political information using authentic historical sources.
Why AMSR does not cover all Elections
This AMSR teaching resource draws on two archive documents: Polling in UK Elections Since 1945 (which isfocussed on Voting Behaviour and the Media) and Why Polls Go Wrong. These sources provide detailed historical context, polling evidence, and campaign analysis for UK General Elections from 1945 to 2015. Since these documents were produced the Archive does have a complete summary of the 2024 Election prepared by Ipsos especially for the Archive. To maintain academic accuracy and ensure all content is grounded in verifiable AMSR evidence, this resource therefore covers uses AMSR sources for elections where we have them and uses publicly available Ipsos, BES, BBC/ITV exit-poll findings, and ONS turnout statistics in other cases This is always clearly stated in the introduction to the particular Election/Referendum