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⁵² We thank Ian Budge for advice on interpreting and bridging the categories and Judith Bara for supplying the data.

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⁶² Unemployment is measured by the number of claimants in the United Kingdom as a percentage of the sum of employees, self-employed individuals, members of the armed forces, and government training programme enrolees and the claimant total. This measure is available from the Global Financial Data Series.

⁶³ The daily FT 30 index was obtained from Global Financial Data and is based on an equally weighted sum of values for 30 constituent stocks chosen by editors of the Financial Times. Monthly averages for the index are employed in our analysis.

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⁶⁷ We performed an orthogonal varimax rotation of the factor loadings and noted correlations between the indicators and loadings. The macro-economic factor was highly positively correlated with inflation (0.9), oil prices (0.3), the FT 30 (0.9). The foreign policy factor was positively correlated with interstate crises (0.7) and the cost of living factor positively correlated with inflation (0.4) and oil prices (0.7). The factor we call government personnel displayed a positive correlation with ministerial resignations (0.3). ‘Ministerial resignations’ is the measured indicator with the highest degree of uniqueness, also correlating positively with the macro-economic factor (0.3). Unemployment also had high uniqueness in correlating negatively with the foreign policy factor (−0.6). Our labels were based on our own best interpretation of these correlations.

⁶⁸ The mixed factor analysis is appropriate because of the varying distributions of the observed indicators. Inflation, unemployment, and FT30 measures are continuous whilst interstate crises and ministerial resignations are categorical. We use a polychoric routine in combination with the principal factors routine to form a correlation matrix (factormat) for the STATA software package to do the estimation (see Stas Kolenikov and Gustavo Angeles, ‘The Use of Discrete Data in Principal Component Analysis: Theory, Simulations, and Applications to Socioeconomic Indices’, Working Paper, No. WP-04-85, Carolina Population Center, University of North Carolina, 2004). Four positive eigenvalues were recovered. Because Equation 1 defines asset values conditional on the factors, but does not define them substantively, our approach is to use all factors that positively explain variance in the factor indicators (e.g., interstate crises). An eigenvalue describes the variance explained by the factor across all indicators. As a result, we include four factors in our analysis, which taken together fully explain the shared variance in the indicators. A likelihood-ratio test suggests that the four-factor model fits the data better than a model with no factors, χ² (15 d.f.) = 1349.18.

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⁷⁹ Two sample t-tests for mean differences support the claim. For risk, the manifesto mean of 9.953 is significantly less than the rebalanced mean of 11.161 (|t| = 2.902, p = 0.003). For return, the manifesto mean of 9.532 is less than the rebalanced mean of 10.162 (|t| = 1.290, p = 0.101), though at a lower level of statistical significance.

⁸⁰ Standard errors on the portfolio return show it is not possible to rule out the hypothesis that the return is zero in most years. This means that policy capital is largely unchanged, a very good result for a government as it maintains capital after winning an election.

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⁸² A paired-samples t-test of the difference between other premiers and Heath provides evidence for this claim overall (t = −5.306, p = 0.000) and versus Thatcher specifically (t = −3.437, p = 0.002).

⁸³ A paired sample t-test that Thatcher faced smaller factor loadings than a pool of other premiers in regard to social policy supports the claim for the foreign policy (|t| = 1.725, p = 0.048) and government personnel (|t| = 1.557, p = 0.065) factors.

⁸⁴ A paired sample t-test that Blair faced smaller factor loadings than other premiers in regard to social policy shows this true for foreign policy (|t| = 1.517, p = 0.070) and the cost of living (|t| = 1.463, p = 0.077) factors.

⁸⁵ A paired sample t-test that Heath faced smaller factor loadings than a pool of other premiers in regard to foreign and defence supports the claim for the macro-economic (|t| = 1.632, p = 0.057), foreign policy (|t| = 2.625, p = 0.007), and cost of living (|t| = 2.879, p = 0.004) factors.

⁸⁶ A paired sample t-test that Thatcher faced smaller factor loadings than a pool of other premiers in regard to the macro-economic policy asset shows this for the foreign policy (|t| = 2.235, p = 0.017) and cost of living (|t| = 2.086, p = 0.023) factors.

⁸⁷ A paired sample t-test that Heath faced larger factor loadings than a pool of other premiers in regard to environment and natural resources upholds the claim for the foreign policy (|t| = 2.093, p = 0.023) and cost of living (|t| = 3.137, p = 0.002) factors.

⁸⁸ A paired sample t-test that Heath faced smaller factor loadings than a pool of other premiers in regard to infrastructure and investment supports the claim for the foreign policy (|t| = 1.496, p = 0.073), cost of living (|t| = 1.461, p = 0.073), and government personnel (|t| = 1.886, p = 0.035) factors.

⁸⁹ A paired sample t-test that the Wilson and Callaghan governments pooled together faced smaller factor loadings than a pool of other premiers in regard to law, order and civil rights supports the claim for the foreign policy (|t| = 1.789, p = 0.042), cost of living (|t| = 2.308, p = 0.014), and government personnel (|t| = 1.657, p = 0.054) factors.

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¹⁰¹ By asset, speech from the throne investment weights are distributed as follows: social policy (mean = 9.07, SD = 4.79), foreign and defence (mean = 43.55, SD = 9.57), macro-economic policy (mean = 18.62, SD = 5.25), environment and natural resources (mean = 10.00, SD = 3.74), and law, order and civil rights (mean = 7.58, SD = 3.36).

¹⁰² By asset, returns are distributed as follows: social policy (mean = −11.22, SD = 84.82), foreign and defence (mean = −9.18, SD = 29.63), macro-economic policy (mean = 29.46, SD = 344.90), environment and natural resources (mean = −1.45, SD = 11.89), and law, order and civil rights (mean = −72.54, SD = 282.07).

¹⁰³ By asset, price signal uncertainty is distributed as follows: social policy (mean = 186.40, SD = 375.22), foreign and defence (mean = 51.55, SD = 52.39), macro-economic policy (mean = 595.99, SD = 641.42), Environment and Natural Resources (mean = 30.34, SD = 40.35), and law, order and civil rights (mean = 361.70, SD = 441.69).

¹⁰⁴ By asset, factor instability is distributed as follows: social policy (mean = 3.25, SD = 1.89), foreign and defence (mean = 3.27, SD = 1.96), macro-economic policy (mean = 3.74, SD = 1.75), environment and natural resources (mean = 1.16, SD = 2.25), and law, order and civil rights (mean = 4.31, SD = 2.09).

¹⁰⁵ By asset, manifesto investment weights are distributed as follows: social policy (mean = 15.40, SD = 3.69), foreign and defence (mean = 11.41, SD = 3.12), macro-economic policy (mean = 29.12, SD = 7.69), environment and natural resources (mean = 8.57, SD = 3.57), and law, order and civil rights (mean = 17.47, SD = 6.51).

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