Report 2: 6 – 12 June 2024

David Deacon, Jilly Kay, Brendan Lawson, Nathan Ritchie, David Smith, Dominic Wring.

Dr David Smith is Lecturer in Media and Communications, University of Leicester.

Key findings

• In contrast to week 1, the Conservatives were present in substantially more TV coverage than the Labour Party.
• The Conservatives also featured in more press coverage this week than the Labour Party. Overall, the party featured in close to half of all press coverage.
• Labour’s leader, Keir Starmer, and the party received balanced TV coverage. In contrast, the Conservative Party had 9% more coverage than its leader, Rishi Sunak, up from a 3% difference in week 1, indicating a focus on the broader party.
• The outlook is different for press coverage, where Rishi Sunak makes up half of the overall Conservative Party presence, whilst Keir Starmer features in a third of Labour’s.
• For the second week, Reform UK remains the third most present party in both TV and press coverage. Coverage is centred on Farage who appears in double the items compared to the rest of his party in overall press coverage. His presence in both press and TV coverage has remained relatively consistent with that of week 1.
• Reform UK continue to receive more TV and press coverage than the fourth largest party, the Liberal Democrats. Despite this, the Lib Dems have featured in twice as much press coverage than in week 1 and have seen a smaller increase in TV coverage.
• The Greens have made small waves on TV broadcasts appearing in 5% more items than week 1, in part because of the seven-way leader debate. However, their press coverage is again negligible.

Key findings

• Across TV and print coverage there has been a substantial gap in the speaking time accorded to the Conservatives and Labour this week, with the Conservatives gaining much more airtime than Labour. Much of this is likely due to Rishi Sunak’s difficulties in quelling the fallout of his early D-Day departure, alongside the more intentional coverage earned on the back of his party’s manifesto launch on Tuesday.
• In TV coverage, the speaking time allocated to both Keir Starmer and Reform UK leader Nigel Farage more than halved since week 1. Labour have now launched their manifesto beyond the remit of this sample (13 June), while Starmer’s lack of speaking time might well be an artefact of a strategy of refraining to interrupt one’s opponent during the difficult week Sunak has faced.
• Rishi Sunak had more speaking time than any other leader, but LibDem leader Ed Davey claimed almost as much speaking time as Sunak in broadcast media. Davey’s prominence came largely as a result of a sit-down interview with Krishnan Guru-Murphy on Channel 4 on 6 June, as well as his party’s manifesto launch on 10 June.
• Carla Denyer and Adrian Ramsay, the Green co-leaders, garnered more speaking time in TV terms than Keir Starmer, and more than all other party leaders (excluding Starmer) combined. Most of this coverage was caused by the combination of its manifesto launch on 12 June and reporting of the seven-way television debate on 7 June.
• In combination, Conservative and Labour representatives beyond the two party’s leaders took half of all speaking time in both press and TV coverage.
• In the press, Sunak’s quotation time was marginally superior to the speaking time allocated to all other party leaders combined.
• Nigel Farage was the most prominent leader beyond Sunak and Starmer here, at 5% of all speaking time in print news.
• Whereas Ed Davey gained considerable coverage in terms of quotation in broadcast news, he was much less prominent within newspaper coverage at 2% of all quotation.

Key findings

• Rishi Sunak was the single most prominent figure this week, reflecting the prominence given to him in the aftermath of his apology for having returned to the campaign before the end of the D Day commemorations.
• Keir Starmer received far less coverage this week but remained a clear second overall, with his colleague Rachel Reeves coming to prominence as she and her rival Jeremy Hunt offered their different interpretations of economic policy.
• Nigel Farage consolidated his position in third place and Ed Davey increased his profile to sixth. In a Top 20 dominated by Labour and Conservative politicians, the only other party represented were the Greens with their co-leader Carla Denyer making the list for the first time, if only just. The highest ranked SNP spokesperson was leader and Scottish First Minister John Swinney who came in at 21^st.
• Eight women made the Top 20 this week but the highest placed female politician Rachel Reeves was, at fourth, received consider less coverage than the three most prominent men
• Like the first week, some politicians who found themselves in difficulties and as a consequence in the Top 20. They include Conservative Party Chairman Richard Holden, Scottish Conservative leader Donald Ross and Labour First Minister of Wales Vaughan Gethin.

Key findings

• “Horse race coverage” continued to dominate in the second week, with both the press and TV focusing on opinion polls, strategy, spin and other issues of electoral process. We disaggregate this category in the discussion below.
• Taxation was the most prominent policy-oriented issue of the campaign during the second week. Even though its ranking remained the same as the first week, the percentage almost doubled. The prominence of taxation is associated with the release of the Conservative, Lib Dem and Green manifestos, combined with broader claims and counterclaims about tax rises by a prospective future government.
• The dominance of taxation and electoral process squeezed other issues from the coverage. Taken together, these two top issues accounted for 53% of the topics overall.
• The issue agendas of TV and the press were largely similar, with the exception of coverage of the defence/military/security/terrorism. Whilst this issue ranked joint 9th overall, TV covered this issue more than the press.

Key findings

• Around 3 in 4 articles concerning electoral process involved general process issues, such as opinion polls, PR strategies and spin. This was higher than the first week, linked directly to the fallout from Sunak leaving the D-Day ceremony early and the unveiling of party manifestos.
• 7% of articles referring to electoral process were concerned toxicity or incivility or tone of political debate. This is an increase compared to the first week. The coverage of the claim by Nigel Farage that Rishi Sunak doesn’t understand “our culture” – and the subsequent criticism by Labour and the Conservatives – partly explains the rise of this issue.
• Discussion of the role of mainstream media received more attention in the press than TV, mirroring the findings from the first week. 

Key findings

• Collectively the press has taken “a plague on both your houses” approach during this campaign, with the major two parties both receiving a considerable amount of negative coverage.
• Significantly the Conservatives, not Labour, have received the more negative press so far (-200 net).
• Reform UK remain the party that have received highest number of positive evaluations overall, although is a modest total.

Key findings

• While Labour received the most negative coverage in week (30 May-5 June), press coverage of the Conservatives has become more critical in the week (6-12 June). This is in part a result of the D-Day controversy involving the Prime Minister
• For the main parties in the election so far, increased press attention has tended to correlate with a higher likelihood of negative coverage.
• Positive evaluations of Reform UK have stalled since week (30 May-5 June), in part because this week witnessed less newsworthy events relating to Nigel Farage. 

Key findings

• The Daily Express and the Daily Mail are the only newspapers to remain loyal to the Conservatives while the Financial Times, Guardian, i and Daily Mirror have been sharply negative of the incumbent party. Interestingly, the normally sympathetic Daily Telegraph has been more critical than supportive of the party.
• The Sun and The Times (the dailies owned by News UK) have been two of the three less partisan titles, the other being the traditionally non-aligned Star. This is not to suggest that these newspapers lack opinions, more that their evaluations of both major parties are marginally more negative than positive overall. The result is that their coverage is more balanced than that of their rivals.
• Labour has received a considerable amount of negative coverage in the Daily Express, Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph. While the Daily Mirror remains staunchly loyal to the party, the only other title that has been more positive overall in its reporting of Labour has been the Financial Times.