P P R R O O O O F F O O N N L L Y Y WHY PARTIES FAIL TO LEARN Electoral Defeat, Selective Perception and British Party Politics Pippa Norris and Joni Lovenduski ABSTRACT Multiple factors can be offered to explain the Labour victory, and Conservative defeat, in the 2001 British general election. Here we pursue an explanation based on the idea that rational vote-seeking poli- ticians may fail to learn from electoral defeat due to selective percep- tion. In Part I we outline the theoretical premises and in Part II consider how this framework can be applied to the context of British elections. Evidence is drawn from the 2001 British Representation Study* (BRS) involving 1000 parliamentary candidates and MPs. Comparisons are made with the British Election Studies (BES). We focus on two measures of ideological change in British politics, namely tax cuts versus spending and European integration versus independence. The evidence is laid out in Part III. The analysis supports three main conclusions: (i) on the key issues of public spending and Europe, Labour politicians remained close to the centre ground of Westminster party politics, along with the Liberal Democrats, with the Nationalist parties further towards the left, while the Conservatives remained on the far right; (ii) as a result of this pattern the Conservatives were the party furthest away from the median British voter; and (iii) one important reason for this pattern was ‘selective perception’, so that more Conservative politicians ‘missed the target’. In concluding, we discuss the reasons for this phenomenon and the broader lessons explaining why parties fail to learn and adapt in the face of repeated massive electoral defeats. KEY WORDS  elections  parties  public opinion For the British Conservative Party to lose one election may be regarded as misfortune, to lose two seems like carelessness. Given Tony Blair’s record- breaking majority in the 1997 British general election, many expected the pendulum to swing back to the Conservatives four years later. Instead, in PARTY POLITICS VOL 10. No.1 pp. 83–102 Copyright © 2004 SAGE Publications London Thousand Oaks New Delhi www.sagepublications.com 1354-0688(200401)10:1;83–102;039122