New polling on disability-related benefits: following the government's U-turn, we take a closer look at public opinion on PIP and other disability-related benefits.
Public perceptions of NATO: Britons still believe in the importance of the transatlantic alliance, although some worry that our allies across the pond may not share the same commitment.
Changing climate attitudes: Britons are feeling the heat this week, and the public is worried about the climate. But is party political polarisation on net-zero starting to shift public opinion?
The view from the focus groups: Why is the High Street so important to Britons?
In other news: how would a new party on the Left reshape British politics? And does having a ‘live, laugh, love’ sign in your house affect your political views?
Britons on disability-related benefits
This week, the government's proposed welfare reforms brought splits over disability benefits to centre stage.
Working with Disability Rights UK, we published new polling yesterday: a deeper look at public attitudes on PIP and other benefits, and why the government’s climbdown will be welcomed by much of the public.
Conducted last weekend, the poll found that only a quarter of Britons supported the proposed cuts to PIP, compared to 38 per cent who opposed them.
Britons were concerned about the impact of PIP reductions on the health of disabled people. Many expected the cuts to leave disabled people less healthy, less physically active, and more stressed. Crucially, this concern was shared by those with direct experience of disability-related benefits: more than half said the cuts would make them more stressed.
In fact across a range of measures, people in receipt of benefits expressed deep concern about the impact on their lives. A third (34 per cent) said they would take part less in their community, and four in ten (39 per cent) said they would feel more lonely.
Just 17 per cent of Disabled people said they would be more likely to seek additional work if they lost their benefits, while 70 per cent said they would not - meaning the reforms would not achieve their goal of getting people into work.
But the concerns go beyond the impact on disabled people. Most Britons think that cutting PIP would cost more in the long term, and many worry about the impact on NHS waiting lists. Strikingly, most Britons across politics - including a majority of Reform voters - think that the government should look elsewhere as they seek to balance the budget.
Britons are likely to welcome the concessions on welfare; the challenge now lies in showing the Government is in control and providing a convincing narrative about how they will address the state of public finances, protect the vulnerable and allay public concerns about tax rises.
You can read Disability Rights UK’s writeup of the polling here.
Is Britain's climate consensus under threat?
As we reach the end of London Climate Action Week - and enter another weekend of sweltering heat - it's probably a good time to talk about climate change.
First off, Britons are feeling the heat: our polling from last weekend showed that 71 per cent of the public think the weather has been too hot, while only 28 per cent thought it was the perfect temperature - and 1 per cent thought it was too cold (we'll write that one off as the lizardman’s constant!)
What's more, the public see the link between heatwaves and climate change: Three in five (59 per cent) say they are worried that unbearably hot weather might become more frequent in the coming decades, and four in five (79 per cent) blame this week’s heatwave on climate change.
In fact, concern about climate change is a perennial worry for the public. Since April of last year, the proportion of Britons who say they are worried about climate change has been consistently between six and seven out of ten.
Notably, this concern is not polarised: it spans across voter groups and ages, and our climate MRP last year found that there is not a single constituency in the country where fewer than half of people are worried about climate change.
However, while Britain's climate consensus remains strong, there are signs that support for Net Zero has polarised more in the past year as political parties have staked out different positions. Support for the net-zero by 2050 target still outweighs opposition by more than two-to-one, but it has fallen from 62 per cent to 46 per cent. This suggests a decoupling between concern about climate change and support for the target: in April 2024, 83 per cent of those worried about climate change supported the net-zero target. Today, that figure has fallen to 65 per cent.
Driving that drop is a growing left-right split: In 2024 the gap between Labour and Conservative support for net zero stood at eight points; today that has tripled to 24 points. Though Conservative voters are still more likely to support net-zero than to oppose it.
While opposition to net-zero hasn’t risen significantly, more Britons now say they don’t know, or neither support or oppose the policy. What’s driving that? One of the themes we explore in our report is trust. Britons want to see visible progress in the fight against climate change, but many feel that the government isn’t capable of delivering it’s promise: only 17 per cent of the public think that the UK will hit its net-zero target by 2050, while nearly two-thirds disagree.
Linked to this lack of faith in the government is a feeling that climate policy is being steered by private profit, rather than the public interest: 53 per cent say it is possible that big oil companies are secretly funding climate denial to protect their profits, and 62 per cent say it is at least possible renewable energy companies are pushing the climate agenda because they stand to make huge profits.
This lack of faith in politicians and energy companies alike is eroding trust in the energy transition as a whole.
Partly this reflects a failure to tell a convincing story about the progress the UK has already made in tackling climate change - and focusing too much on the job still to do. Despite the UK having reduced emissions by around 50 per cent since 1990, just 26 per cent think that Britain’s climate policies have actually made a difference to reducing Britain’s emissions.
But the public hasn’t given up on climate action: nearly two-thirds (64 per cent) think the government should keep its current pace or move more quickly to reach the Net Zero target, compared to 36 per cent who think it should slow down or abandon the net-zero target altogether.
But in order to hold together Britain’s climate consensus, the public want to hear more about the tangible progress in the energy transition, alongside the real improvements transition will make to their own lives.
You can find our full briefing, including a deeper look at the five main drivers of public opinion on climate change, here:
Following the 2025 NATO summit, what do Britons think of the Cold War bloc? Our polling found that Britons are still optimistic about NATO, believing that it still plays an important role in keeping Britain safe.
A majority of Britons believe that NATO is important, while a fifth (19 per cent) believe that it is no longer an important alliance, and five per cent believe it was never important.
However, younger Britons are less convinced about NATO’s role: just over a third (36 per cent) of those under the age of 25 believe that NATO is an important alliance, while a large proportion (40 per cent) say they don’t know.
While the public tend to think the alliance is important, there are doubts about its future. Fewer than half of all Britons think NATO is likely to exist in 30 years' time, and only 15 per cent think it is highly likely to still exist.
Part of some Britons’ scepticism about the alliance appears to be related to a concern that the US might not fulfill its Article 5 defence commitments.
Two thirds of Britons (63 per cent) believe it is likely that NATO would defend the UK if it was attacked, that falls eight points to barely half (55 per cent) who believe the United States would do so.
The view from the focus groups: The High Street
Are WHSmith prices a symbol of what’s “Broken” in our society? In a recent focus group, Jayne from Coventry said she was worried about how rising prices and cheap online shopping are affecting local shops.
“You can get something cheaply if you buy it cheaply on the internet, but then if you had popped in to go to town for WHSmith to get it, you'd be paying over 10 times the price. So it doesn't encourage you then to go in to town and use the shops, but then if you don't use the shops, they are not going to stay there.So it just feels a bit broken. It seems like we've really lost our direction as to what society should be.”
Jayne, Biomedical Scientist, Coventry
We know that the High Street is an important place to Britons. For many their assessment of the health of their local area and community is based on the state of the high street. When we ask Britons to choose from a list of improvements they’d like to see in their area, ‘better shops and high street’ is at the top of the list - second only to fewer potholes.
But our polling shows that Britons think the high street is getting worse, and that shared spaces for socialisation have declined since COVID. In that Coventry group, people spoke of their local pubs and shops closing with a real sense of loss, attributing it to the pandemic as well as large chains putting strain on small businesses.
For others, their interactions in public - particularly shopping - had made them feel that we’ve become more transactional and less patient.
“I think that COVID really changed an awful lot for society and I think that there has been a real shift in services in particular.”
Jayne, Biomedical Scientist, Coventry
““It's all chain stores or big retail that have got such buying power that the little man just doesn't. Your local butchers, your local bakers, which used to be just literally walking distance from your house, they've all gone. You've got a million barber shops and coffee shops because they're about the only thing that seem to be having the profit margin that you can have as a little independent.”
Chris, welder, Coventry
“I think COVID was the big thing (...) the amount of public houses that have closed and other social gatherings because they're happy to sit at home, they got used to it, it was cheaper.”
Barby, retired, Coventry
“Everywhere at the moment is just…everyone seems lacklustre. So you go into a shop and just no one cares anymore. I think we've been burnt out since COVID times. That really changed things” Chris, Welder, Coventry
But why does the health of the high street matter so much? Rob summed it up - he worried that the loss of local pubs and shops would mean that there’s no reason for people to go out and spend time in their local area. For many people, the High Street is about more than just shops: it’s the main shared space at the heart of their community.
“We're all going to be online soon. There won't be cities and towns to go around. A lot of pubs that have closed down near me, a lot of shops that have now closed down and charity shops, there's just nothing to go out into town and no reason to go out there really.”
Rob, Engineer, Coventry
In other news...
How would a new party on the left reshape politics? With rumours of a potential new party led by Jeremy Corbyn on the left, we asked people how they would vote if this were an option. In this hypothetical, we found that one in ten likely voters say they would vote for the new populist left party.
In this hypothetical, one in ten likely voters say they would back the new party. That shift would cost Labour three points, bringing them level with the Conservatives. What’s more, Corbyn’s new party would win outright among 18–24 year olds, taking 32 per cent of the vote.
Where would these voters come from? Interestingly, the biggest share - 37 per cent - would be drawn from current Green voters, while 23 per cent would come from Labour.
So why would more not come from disillusioned Labour supporters? Labour has already lost much of its most progressive flank. In 2019, two-thirds (67 per cent) of our Progressive Activist segment backed Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party. By 2024, only 49 per cent still supported the party, and in our May voting intention, Labour was polling at just 39 per cent with this group.
In other words, many of the voters most likely to be drawn to a Corbyn-led party have already made the jump to the Greens. That’s why, in this scenario, the Greens - not Labour - would likely lose the most ground. Though of course this polling is highly hypothetical and would likely shift significantly if an actual party of the left were formed.
Does having a Roomba affect how you vote? In some of our slightly less serious polling, we asked Britons whether they have a “live, laugh, love” sign in their home. Labour holds a four-point lead among those who do, while Reform UK leads by five points among those who don’t. We also asked about a range of household items, from robot vacuum cleaners to air fryers and compost bins, to see how they correlate with voting intention. Read Ed’s thread here.
As always, thanks for making time for the Opinion Brief. We’ve loved hearing your thoughts on previous newsletters, so please do keep the feedback coming!
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