For there to have been a realignment of voting behaviour in Britain there must first have been a dealignment. According to Butler and Stokes there was a predictable pattern of voting up until the 1970's which was characterised by strong partisan alignment and the fact that Britain was a two party system. Partisan alignment is linked to class alignment. The majority of the electorate identified with one party; typically, working class with Labour and middle class with Conservative. Because there were two main classes then it was inevitable that there would be two dominant parties which represent them. This rigid alliance with either one party or the other depending on your class was supported by Crewe. He found that, in the 1964 election, 62% of non-manual workers voted Conservative while 64% of manual workers voted Labour. This shows that there was not much dealignment in voting behaviour before the 1970's.

From 1974 onwards there were changes in the pattern of voting. The influence of class on voting behaviour seemed to be declining, there was a rise in the amount of deviant voters, Bri

tain changed from a two party to a three party system and the Labour party appeared to be declining. These changes all lead to the assumption that dealignment was taking place. Crewe and Sarlvik said that there was a decline in partisan voting which in turn led to a decline in class based voting. They said that this was due to the class system becoming blurred. There were fewer working class people with manual jobs and more with mortgages, there were also fewer middle class people with non-manual jobs and more of them who were unionised. Because of these changes to the class system more people were becoming deviant voters. Working class homeowners were becoming more likely to vote Conservative, going some way to explaining the four consecutive victories for the Conservative party.

If Heath's studies are correct then there has not been any dealignment in voting behaviour. However, he has been criticised by Crewe saying that he did not take account of the fact that there had been a growth of a third party and also that the salariat and working class combined only made up 45% of the electorate. The idea of party image being important is similar to the comments of Curtice on the 1997 election. Curtice said that voters look for the party which gives the impression of being able to look after the nations interests as a whole, rather than just benefiting them as individuals. In particular, the economy was a major issue. The slump in Conservative ratings after Black Wednesday was never recovered, and as a result Labour were able to boost their own image. This enabled them to appear more competent to the electorate, helping them to win the 1997 election. Another factor that helped them

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