Crime as an issue during the 2005 UK general election

Politicians are fond of telling interviewers that their focus should be on the ‘real issues’ or ‘what matters most to the people’. This research note considers the place of crime as a ‘real issue’, specifically during the national general election held in the UK in May 2005. According to research by Ipsos MORI (May 2005), at the time of the election the issues that mattered most to people were crime (40 per cent), the health service (36 per cent), race relations/immigration (27 per cent) and education (26 per cent). Crime was clearly important to the public, but how was this reflected in the policies of the main parties and the media coverage of the campaign?