Analysis of the words used in the parties’ manifestos this year shows how the priorities of the main political players have shifted since the last election

If you are the kind of person who spent hours poring over the detail of the manifestos of the UK’s three largest political parties this week (and let’s face it, who among us did not) then you may have noticed some common ground among the language they use.



Analysis of the top 10 words used in the parties’ 2017 manifestos show they have six words in common. For the purposes of demonstration, here they are in a (made-up) sentence: the parties will “ensure” that in “government” they will “work” to do “new” things that “support” you, the “people”.

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Labour has become increasingly keen to “ensure” things for voters: it was the second-most used word in this year’s party manifesto, compared with 31st place in 2015, Another word that has made a massive comeback under Corbyn is “rights”, which jumped from 41st place in 2015 to joint-ninth place this year.

Of the top 10 words used in the 2017 manifesto, the word “Labour” appears most often, while the words “public” and “services” come in seventh and eighth place.

“Britain” ranks among the Conservatives’ most-used words, while “make”, “world” and “continue” are all in the top 10.

Apart from the two words that make up their title, the Liberal Democrats differ from the two larger parties in the appearance of the words “local” and “UK”.

One notable faller between the 2015 and 2017 manifestos is the word “tax”, which fell from fifth to 91st position for the Tories and from 14th to 51st place for Labour.

The highest new entry in the Labour and Liberal Democrats manifestos is the word “Brexit”. It also makes 15 appearances in the Conservative text, one less mention than another new word: “Theresa”.

Methodology: Commonly used words such as “the”, “and”, “it” and “at” have been excluded from the analysis. Headers and footers that appeared multiple times in a manifesto – for example, “The Conservative and Unionist Party Manifesto 2017” – were also excluded. Plurals and possessives are counted separately; instances of the words “work” and works” or “Britain” and “Britain’s” are counted separately.