The ‘Cult of Personality’- Does it sway the voter when it comes to their MP?
Voting a certain way because of a party leaders’ personality has often been thought of as an American export due to their presidential system, and as something that is relatively new in UK politics. However, it can be argued that personalities swaying votes has been around in the UK even as far back as 1951 when Churchill was elected for his second stint as Prime minister. Does this idea of an individual’s personality affecting voting behaviour stretch to ordinary MPs? Well, the voters say no, it doesn’t.
The most famous example of personality in UK politics is Margaret Thatcher, who became Conservative Party leader in 1975, then became Britain’s first female Prime Minister in 1979 and remained in power until 1990, when she resigned in the November of that year. She managed her party and the country with an iron fist, hence the moniker ‘The Iron Lady’, and this approach gained her plaudits, respect, enemies, and vehement hatred of her, depending on who you ask. When she died in 2013, Channel 4 interviewed a woman in Glasgow who said “I’d put a stake through her heart and garlic round her neck to make sure she never comes back” (Channel 4 News, 2013), but on the other hand, many mourned her loss, seeing it as a loss of a great politician and patriot. Tony Blair was another party leader to Prime Minister who owed a lot of his original popularity to his personality. In 1997 his Labour Party were elected in a landslide, winning a majority of 179 seats (BBC, 2019) and no small part of that is owed to Blair’s youthfulness and charisma that he exuded in his time in opposition and on the campaign. It was so apparent that The Telegraph asked him about it in 2001 to which he responded it was “silly” (Brogan, 2001), but to be fair it may have been a political misstep to talk about how amazing his own personality is.
So, we know that a leader’s personality can help get parties into government, but to what extent does an MPs personality help them, or is it just the party they’re affiliated with and their ability to speak full sentences that gets them over the finish line? The distinction between incumbent MPs running for re-election and people attempting to get a seat in Parliament for the first time is important to make, as it has an impact on the political personality, they’re able to get across, and therefore how much voting behaviour is swayed by it. According to research (François and Navarro, 2019) we can determine that having a hardworking personality gets rewarded by the voters come election time, as the case study of the French National Assembly duly showed. Clearly then to some extent personality makes a difference on an individual level, but does it really significantly affect a voter’s decision? A key example is that of Change UK, a group of 11 MPs from various parties left theirs respectively and created Change UK in 2019, a pro-European, centrist party. Those that founded and joined it showed great bravery and entrepreneurship, traits that perhaps would appeal to voters in their constituencies, but considering that every single one of those who stood for Change UK lost their seats in the General Election in December of that year (Adams, 2020), it is clear that party affiliations and party leaders have more of an impact on voting behaviour than the personality of the person on the ballot.
An individual does little to affect voting behaviour when it comes to incentive to vote for someone, but the other side of the coin, the negative, whether that’s voting someone out or even going as far as recalling an MP, the negatives of an individual can be important. For example, Peter Boone was recalled by his constituency of Wellingborough in 2023 after allegations of bullying and sexual misconduct were made, triggering a by-election. This was nothing to do with party or party leaders, it was his own personality and actions that caused him to lose his seat. Another interesting negative affect on voting behaviour is those MPs who vote against their parties. Often, they’re voting against party to benefit their constituency but in some cases, they simply disagree with the party line and voting either way has no major effects on the people they represent. When that’s the case, the MP is straying from the ‘mandate model’ of representation, where they’re simply a suit for the party they are a part of, and straying into the Burkean model, where they go by their own judgement and ask their constituents to trust them. Exercising a portion of individualism can backfire if the voters want a candidate who will vote with the party they’re a member of.
The days of Burkean model of representation are over, and voting behaviour is not swayed by the personalities of the MPs on a constituency basis.
Bibliography
Adams, T. (2020). A year on, did Change UK change anything? The Guardian. [online] 19 Apr. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/apr/19/a-year-on-did-change-uk-change-anything.
BBC (2019). BBC Politics 97. [online] Bbc.co.uk. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/special/politics97/news/05/0505/stats.shtml.
Brogan, B. (2001). Personality cult is silly, Blair tells the camera. [online] The Telegraph. Available at: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1331907/Personality-cult-is-silly-Blair-tells-the-camera.html
Channel 4 News (2013). View from Scotland on Thatcher’s funeral. YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGyDMRKDaSc.
François, A. and Navarro, J. (2019). Voters reward hard-working MPs: empirical evidence from the French legislative elections. European Political Science Review, 11(4), pp.469–483. doi:https://doi.org/10.1017/s1755773919000274.
Nevett, J. (2023). Peter Bone MP loses seat as recall petition triggers by-election. BBC News. [online] 19 Dec. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-67767890.
Images
Image 1- The Guardian
Image 2- Vice
Image 3- Laphams Quarterly
This blog post is extremely informative and interesting on whether personality plays a role in the election of MPs. the range of examples from more historical figures such as Peter Boone to Tony Blair reasonably justifies the author’s conclusion on why they think personality no longer plays an important role in elections as it once did. As well as this the images used to illustrate the piece add extra detail to the figures analysed and therefore creating a more cohesive overall piece. However, in the introduction, the initial referral to the ’cult of personality’ being an American export could have been analysed in greater detail and looked further into that newer phenomenon in the UK and its origins. Even with this considered, the blog post is extremely interesting and answers the question coherently and effectively. In terms of the content and conclusion of the blog post, I would disagree the personality doesn’t play an important role, as shown with politicians such as Boris Johnson and Tony Blair, as people like the charisma both men displayed during their tenure. However, a societal shift could be moving away from this due to economic and social issues, and personality is seen to be less important. Overall, this blog post is on an extremely interesting subject and creates an insightful debate about it.
This piece provides both incredibly informative writing but a humorous edge that makes it a very easy read, the retrospective look at previous leaders to modern day adds to this intriguing read. The author provides a consistent argument throughout that party politics has overtaken the need for a personable local MP. I would like to see how the author feels about past leader Boris Johnson used personality to evade responsibility playing into the ‘bumbling idiot’ trope. Overall the post is intriguing and shows a strong argument that they have backed up well with strong writing.
This is a very informative blog post. I found it very interesting that the author pointed out the historical importance of the personalities of leaders, such as Churchill. Further, the examples of Blair and Thatcher were well utilised to deepen the reader’s understanding of the role personality plays in voters’ minds. There is also a very fascinating examination of the difference in the effect of perceived negative personality traits in contrast to positive ones.
Overall this is a brilliantly written blog post, and the importance of conversation regarding the subject matter is emphasised today, especially with the perceived blandness of Rishi Sunak and his reliance on rhetoric leading some to question his personality: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/aug/21/rishi-sunak-britain-crisis-self-pitying-era
This is a well written blog which is approachable to a broad audience through its humour and examples while also being very informative and well read on the issue. The idea of a country’s leader being a strong individual and and personality is well established but a similar analysis of individual MPs is rare and so the line that this blog takes in analysing this is very interesting particularly as we are at a time where Wales is moving towards a closed party list system for the Senedd which moves politics away from the personalities of MSs and politicians. The analysis of the blog particularly on Change and the losses that their MPs faced in 2019 was a good example and allowed for a well proven point by the author. Overall this blog post was a good read which is extremely prevalent, especially as both current major party leaders have been criticised for being boring and lacking the cult of personality to build a campaign behind. (https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/jan/18/low-general-election-turnout-likely-with-dull-as-dishwater-sunak-and-starmer)
This is a well-constructed blog that raises some interesting points. The inclusion of scandalised MP Peter Boone to show the two sides to the “cult of personality” lends to the blog’s compelling nature. The author has engaged with the news in an accessible fashion that lends to creating a more interesting argument. Perhaps the author could have compared the charisma of Tony Blair to his successor Gordon Brown to further prove if charisma matters more than policies. Overall, a balanced take explained in a succinct and engaging way.