ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how parties present their policies – in terms of priorities more than specific proposals for action. Electors and voters tend to think in terms of what are the important issues to confront rather than of opposing courses of action on them. One or more measured lines or ‘dimensions’ which allow governments, parties and electors to be located in terms of their policy preferences. It is instructive to see how the parties themselves become more or less ideological over time and how far they agree or disagree at any one time about what the general policy targets should be. The situation for parties fighting an election campaign is different. A slight complication in measuring the median voter position as one indicator of majority preference is having an even rather than uneven number of voters overall, so a gap exists between 50% of voters on one side and 50% on the other.
