ABSTRACT
There are survey data from a variety of sources, including the British Election Survey (BES) and other attempts to survey the public's response to the election campaign and to document the impact of party political activity on voters. There are academic sources documenting political scientists' assessment of the election and its significance. Newspapers reported daily on the campaign, most broadsheet newspapers are accessible via CD-ROM and thus amenable to qualitative textual analysis. What is clear in the General Election campaign of 1997 is that no major political party, nor their leaders or campaign strategists, nor major academic or journalistic commentators on the election considered that the votes of older people had any strategic significance to its outcome. Older people did not figure as a significant group whose vote the parties identified as key to the election. The most important group of voters by age were 30-50-year-olds.
