General Election 2024: Commentary by Head of School Professor Caitlin Milazzo

At the height of the general election campaign in June, Head of School Professor Caitlin Milazzo provided commentary and analysis on the use of leaflets in political campaign literature, as part of her ongoing work for the OpenElections project. One of the most significant findings was that, this year, there was a substantial increase in the use of tactical messaging with nearly half of all election leaflets surveyed containing a tactical voting message. Additionally, the content-coded leaflets which form part of the OpenElections database provided insights into the range of issues covered in campaign literature, with health, the economy and the environment being the most prominent issues followed by education, Brexit and immigration.

Some of these insights featured in The Times, a BBC News article and in several podcasts including an episode of the BBC's More or Less podcast and Mark Pack's Never Mind the Bar Charts podcast series.

Professor Milazzo co-directs the Open Elections project alongside Dr Siim Trumm and Dr Alan Duggan. The project encompasses an online archive of content-coded election leaflets with the aim of increasing the transparency of the UK's general election process.