Politicians will have to face up to what voters really prefer

Researchers have discovered that Tony Blair's electoral success can be partly put down to his features, which voters preferred to William Hague's and Michael Howard's.

Similar subconscious voting patterns might also have propelled George Bush to election victory and caused similar results in Australia and New Zealand.

Last night, the research, which was published in the medical journal Evolution and Human Behavior , met with a mixed response from politicians and political commentators in Scotland.

Kenny MacAskill,SNP MSP, rejected what he called the need for an "Adonis" image, but Bill Miller, a professor of politics at Glasgow University, said that politicians ignored the findings at their peril.

In the latest research conducted in a joint project by Aberdeen, Stirling and Liverpool Universities, specially adapted photographs representing political leaders were shown to the public.

Facial shots of the winner and loser of nine different elections in the UK, US, Australia and New Zealand were "morphed" into one composite image.

Then one of the composites was slightly altered to reflect the winner's facial shape a little more and the other altered to reflect the loser's facial shape.

As a result one photo would be a little more Blair than Hague and the other more Hague than Blair but neither would be instantly recognisable as one or other of the party leaders.

The same method was applied to John Major and Neil Kinnock, Blair and Major, Blair and Howard plus George Bush and John Kerry and George Bush and Al Gore.

Professor Miller said: "The idea of people being repelled or attracted by faces applies to politics just as it does to relationships. What attracts in ordinary life at a subconscious level will attract in voting terms too.

"Politicians are very made-up creatures and know they cannot ignore findings like this. Their advisers will tell them to wear make-up, or will put them through a smartening up or dressing-down process to get votes."

Researchers say the phenomenon is not new and ever since Richard Nixon faced John F Kennedy in the first televised presidential debate in 1960, voters have been won over subconsciously by looks.

A nervous Nixon, sweating under the hot overhead camera lights, refused makeup and lost the head-to-head debate to the more youthful, all-smiling, clean-cut Kennedy. But radio listeners, focusing on policies, assumed that Nixon had won.

However, Mr MacAskill said: "Some of the greatest politicians ever have not been Adonis type characters. It's ideology and philosophy which count, not a pretty face. History shows numerous politicians who were all image and no substance just crashed and burned."

More than 100 university staff, students and members of the public were shown the nine sets of two head shots and asked to pick the one they would vote for from each.

The results of the simple survey mirrored, almost exactly, the share of the popular vote in each election fought between the pairs.

It was even more accurate than the overall election result in the case of Al Gore versus George Bush because more people chose the face shape representing Gore.

In the US elections of 2000, Gore actually polled more of the popular vote than Bush but lost the election.

Benedict Jones of Aberdeen University said: "Forget policies, strategic vision and leadership principles. As it turns out, the shape of a politician's face may in fact be the best predictor as to whether or not he or she wins or loses.

"Voting based on facial shapes largely matched up with the actual results."

"While people base their voting on many factors, they could unconsciously simplify the information overload of election time with something like facial appearance.

"Although it is likely that competence is important in almost all leadership decisions, it is possible that different faces signal different valued traits that may be more or less important according to circumstances."