Using e-petition data to quantify public concerns during the COVID-19 pandemic: a case study of England

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound impact on society and many governments and politicians were required to make quick decisions to protect public health. In reaching these decisions they needed to weigh advice from experts in many fields and then “sell” these decisions. However little was known at the time about the desires and aspirations of their electorates. Here we identify one such source of public opinion, signatures to various COVID-19 related Parliamentary e-petitions Whilst there were over 1,500 such e-petitions, we identify 27 common and meaningful topics and show how the strength of these topics varies between individual parliamentary constituencies. Using a measure of support for each topic in the constituencies we identify five constituency groupings. There are two Conservative voting groups, “Middle England” and “Equity of Support”, the former are located largely in southern England whilst the latter are in the midlands and northern England. The groups that show strong support in Labour voting constituencies are ones around education and funding issues. This article shows how a targeted range of e-petitions can be grouped into topics and the popularity of topics established, and thereby function as a useful way of augmenting democracy and democratic institutions.