Class and region are the most important factors in influencing how people will vote. Being working class is now more accurately defined by having a lower income and renting your home, rather than by having a traditional manual job. Recently, the working class has endured declining public services and inflation both of which have reduced their living standards. This means that the working class is shaped by both class and partisan alignment. Not everybody in recent years have become homeowners and middle class and thus Conservative Party supporters. Middle class voters are more influenced by economic issues, low taxation and house prices, and therefore lean more to the political right. Patterns of voting have a long-standing regional bias. Labour is strong in London, urban areas and the north - having regained seats lost in Scotland. The Liberal Democrats are strongest in South-west England and the Conservatives in the rural areas of the UK.