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Dear friend,

Happy friday!

In this newsletter…

• Which moments have stood out in the Government’s first 18 months? Our latest polling maps public awareness and approval of Labour’s start in government.

• The view from the focus groups: We spent the weekend driving around North Wales and the North West of England. We asked focus groups whether Britain is broken, and how they had responded to the Epstein files.

• Ahead of the Senedd election in May, how do Welsh voters feel about 27 years of Labour government?

• Our first Scottish voting intention of 2026.

Which moments have defined Labour's first 18 months?

To mark the start of Labour’s second full year in office, we asked the British public about what they had liked and disliked and what had stood out from18 months of Labour’s Government. Given a list of 40 policies and decisions, Britons were asked how much they had heard about each of them, and whether they reflected positively or negatively on the Government.

The grid below provides an insight into how Labour’s start to government has landed with the public, and which moments have stuck in voters’ minds.

One clear pattern emerges right away: Labour’s most popular decisions tend to, with the exception of the minimum wage rise, have lower cut through than the more unpopular ones. 

Six months on from the U-turn, the decision to means-test the Winter Fuel Allowance remains one of the Labour government’s most salient and unpopular decisions, with high public awareness (85 per cent) combined with strong negative public views of the policy. Sixty-three per cent say the decision to remove the Winter Fuel Allowance for pensioners reflects badly on the Labour government, while just 14 per cent think it reflects positively.

It's clear that the change of the policy has done little to improve perceptions of the Government - Britons are considerably less likely to have noticed the U-turn than the policy itself. Similarly, Britons are far less aware of the U-turn on farmers’ inheritance tax than the tax itself, and it remains alongside Winter Fuel as one of the government’s most salient and unpopular moves. So while U-turns may risk making the government look chaotic, they often fail to reverse the damage of the original decision.

We also identified a series of ‘missed opportunities’ - policies that are viewed positively by the public, but are not well known. These include many of the government's interventions on the cost of living: the freeze on rail and prescription fares, and relief on energy bills as well as the government’s rights agenda for workers and renters and measures to reform the immigration and asylum system. Telling a better story about all of these policies might help to increase perceptions of the Government.

The view from the focus groups: ‘Broken Britain’ and the Epstein files

We spent last weekend driving around Wales and the North West of England, talking to people about the state of the country in focus groups. 

We often ask these groups what they think about the debate playing out in Westminster - that is  “do you think Britain is broken?” The answers are always illuminating: many talk about their experiences with public services, the cost of living crisis, a sense that work doesn’t pay, frustration over channel crossings - underpinned by a sense of Government impotence of ‘the politics of can’t’. But you also hear people talk about a country they love, and stress that the ‘backbone’ or ‘foundations’ of the country remain great.

“We've just become Broken Britain (...) The country itself is great. The backbone is brilliant. It's just the mechanisms in place”

Ash, legal professional, Heywood

“Well, you tell me. What one thing works well in this country? I don't really know of one thing that works. Education's not great. NHS is not great. Transport's not great. Councils are not operating, look at Birmingham. There's loads of issues.”
Ian, retired, Heywood

“I voted Conservative for a lot of my life and I was ready to go for Labour this last time (...) everything seems to be now in the party we are going have a consultation about it before we do anything about it. It always seems to be, oh we'll consult or we'll consult. Not much seems to be getting done.”

Sally, hospitality worker, Wrexham

“People are struggling to get off benefits cause they can’t get the same wage. I just think because I've always worked full time, nine to five and I think sometimes if there is people who could genuinely work, and I understand that people are sometimes better off on benefits than going to work and that gets me a bit annoyed sometimes.”
Kate, regulation advisor, Gorton

“My son’s in Dubai at the moment. (..) It's heartbreaking. I can already cry thinking of that day at the airport, but it is just so much more opportunity for him. No sooner than he got off the plane, he got calls and (job) interviews for tomorrow. He's getting all that and I'm like, how can I hold him back from that to stay in Great Britain? It's not Great Britain anymore.”
Helen, care worker, Heywood

But beyond experiences of everyday life in Britain, for many people a key symptom of ‘Broken Britain’ is a sense that those in power don’t have the ordinary public’s interests at heart and that it’s ‘one rule for them’. Our polling shows seven in ten say that the British system is rigged to serve the rich and influential.

“Crooked. Most politicians can't even lie straight in bed. They lie to us though, I’m afraid (...) no matter what colour the party is.”
Alex, sales manager, Wrexham

The release of the Epstein files and their revelations about Peter Mandelson risk feeding this distrust. We know from our polling last weekend that the Epstein files had cut through far beyond the Westminster bubble, in fact overshadowing every other story this week. And already in our focus group conversations, the scandal seemed to confirm evidence of a corrupt self-serving elite and a rigged system.

"Well (Starmer) knew what Mandelson had been up to. He must've known he got associations with Epstein. So you wouldn't think I'll just give him job as an ambassador in Washington and then think, well it's not going to come back to bite me. And then when he does it's like, well I don't really know much about this. You act blind and deaf. It's just another, there just seems to be something weak with the government, the lurching from one crisis to another, and I should stop watching the news."

Ian, retired, Heywood

"(Starmer's) judgement is in doubt, isn't it? I mean he picked Lord Mandelson! Some of the appointments he's made and everything."

David, retired, Altrincham

Checking in on Wales

Alongside our perception grid of the Labour’s first 18 months in Westminster, we have also for the first time mapped how Welsh voters think about their government in the Senedd.

Our perception grid shows which moments from the Welsh Government have cut through. Interestingly, one of the most prominent and damaging issues was the decision to impose a 20mph default speed limit! Of the policies we asked about, this is the one voters have been hearing the most about, and it ranks among the most negatively viewed. Vaughn Gethin’s resignation, alongside the government’s handling of the NHS and education also sits firmly in the high-awareness, high-negativity quadrant, reinforcing a sense of poor performance in core public services.

As on a UK-wide scale, the grid highlights some missed opportunities for communicating what the Welsh Government is doing thats popular. Several more popular policies, including support for Port Talbot steelworkers and the Trydan Gwyrdd Cymru energy project, also suffer from low visibility. Interestingly, just a few months out from the election barely half of Welsh voters are aware of the new voting system.

It’s been great seeing our first Welsh poll of the year receiving such interesting coverage!

Will Hayward’s excellent newsletter covered the grid here. And our polling on Labour’s perception issues in Wales got some great coverage in the South Wales Argus.

Our first Scottish voting intention of 2026

Today, we released our first Scottish voting intention poll of 2026. Despite a significant fall in support since 2021, the SNP remains on course for a clear victory at Holyrood. In our constituency vote, the SNP holds a 16-point lead. 

In part, the SNP’s lead is boosted by the fragmentation of the unionist vote. While the SNP’s dominance among pro-independence Scots has loosened since 2021, still more than three in five nationalist voters support the party. In contrast, the anti-independence vote is split four-ways, with Reform UK now taking an 8-point lead. This fragmentation on the unionist side gives the SNP a significant advantage that could take them into the 2026 Holyrood election.

One of the most striking things about this poll is the way Reform has jumped into second place - particularly in the regional list vote. Now on 20 per cent, Reform sits just five points behind the SNP. As recently as August 2025, the SNP led Reform by 16 points on this ballot.

In the next few days, we’ll be releasing more insights from this poll into the state of Scottish politics - so stay tuned!

Thank you for reading! And as always, please let us know what you think.

All the best,
Luke