Executive approval in Britain: Continuity and change

The British political system is widely supposed to produce strong and responsible government. As a result, the electorate is widely expected to hold the executive to account for conditions, particularly the economy. This chapter shows that these expectations are fulfilled: approval is driven by economic optimism. Governments are rewarded for making people feel good about the economy and punished for making them feel bad. Executive performance is also influenced by evaluations of the government’s ability to manage ‘events’, the electoral cycle, the cost of ruling, and policy advantage. The chapter examines whether two recent developments—the independence of the Bank of England in 1997 and coalition government from 2010 to 2015 changed these relationships. Both changing contexts should have made it more difficult for the public to evaluate government responsibility for economic performance. We find that Bank of England independence moderated the relationship between interest rates and approval, while coalition government did little to alter the fundamental dynamics of monthly approval.