Social Class and Politics in Greenwich.

If it were deemed expedient at this stage of the analysis of the Greenwich data to arrive at positive conclusions, the main one would probably be that social class, in one or other of its protean manifestations, is the chief determinant of political behaviour. The Hall-Jones scale, by providing us with an independent instrument for the measurement of accorded status, enables us to probe with more confidence the sometimes subtle relationships between accorded and subjective status, and to demonstrate the differential effects of such factors as age and kinship. It also enables us to assess objectively the class structure of the local political organizations. This structure conforms closely to the public image of the parties, as the electorate views them, and voting appears to be more closely related to this public image of the parties than to the detailed policies they propound. The classes vote for themselves to an unequal extent, both in fact and by admission. Data on the voting intentions of family, friends and co-workers suggest that the more politically homogeneous the individual's social environment, the more likely he is to vote according to the predispositions of his class ; and conversely, where an individual finds himself in political disharmony with his social environment, he is likely to betray the fact in his indecisions and vacillations. This survey was made possible by an initial grant from the Elmgrant Trust, supplemented by a grant from the Department of Sociological and Demographic Research, London School of Economics. It has been conducted under the guidance of a steering committee consisting of the late Prof. H. J. Laski, Prof. W. A. Robson, Prof. M. G. Kendall, Prof. D. V. Glass, Mr. Michael Young and Dr. Henry Durant of the British Institute of Public Opinion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]