The Guardian gained exclusive access to Google Trends search data to find out which search terms are most common for each UK party. With the election just a month away, people are trying to educate themselves on who they should be voting for.
One of the most asked questions was “Are Ukip racist?” followed by “Why should I not vote for Ukip?” Another firm favourite was “What will happen if Ukip win?”
Ukip also tops the list when sorted by the number of searches for the party name appended with “policies” followed by “Green party policies.” This is interesting as both are protest votes yet they both stand above Labour and the Conservatives who are most likely to form the next government.
Searches on the Liberal Democrats — who currently hold government in coalition with the Conservatives — stand at 8th place behind queries regarding parties including the far-right BNP who won’t even be registered on national polls.
The most popular question regarding the Conservatives is “Why are the Conservative party called the Tories?” For the Liberal Democrats, it is “What have the Lib Dems done in goverment?”
Other popular questions centre around the relative probabilities of each party gaining a majority of seats and forming a government as well as the key differences between the parties. Many people seem to be concerned with which party “will do more for the country” than the others.
Many of the questions indicate how much of the public are not particularly interested in the election though as they only just begin to get involved with the campaigns of the various parties. The next month will be crucial for the leaders though as we near the election and the public tries to find information on who they should be voting for and what the parties stand for.
