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Dear friend,

As we approach the Christmas break, we thought we'd take a moment to look back on the year.

There is some fresh research in this newsletter, but first, we want to say thank you to everyone who has been a part of what has been, in many ways, our biggest year yet.

Throughout 2025 we polled 362,319 people! We also conducted a record number of focus groups, and it's been a privilege (and a lot of fun) to speak to so many Britons across the country.

This Autumn, our team attended six (!) party conferences: Labour, Conservative, Reform UK, Liberal Democrat, Green, and SNP, across six British cities. Along the way, we ran 30+ events, from interviews with Cabinet ministers to panel discussions and private roundtables.

None of this would have been possible without the brilliant partners we worked alongside, to name just a few: WWF, UCL Policy Lab, Save the Children, Humanists UK, the National Trust, Solar Energy UK, and Spotlight on Change UK.

For anyone who couldn’t join us in person, all event slides are available on our website here. We’re already looking ahead to a busy 2026 party conference season and hope to see you there !

This year, we published 15 reports spanning a wide range of topics, including social cohesion, climate, nature, housing, criminal justice reform, conflict in Gaza and Ukraine, EDI, education and more

To name just a few of our big projects this year: This Place Matters, working with our friends at UCL Policy Lab and Citizens UK, is our ongoing look into the state of social cohesion in Britain and how we can rebuild social connection; the Progressive Activists provided a detailed look into the worldviews and attitudes of our Progressive Activist segment; From Protest to Power? was our deepest look yet at Reform UK’s changing voter base; meanwhile After Choosing Sides explored Britain's changing views on the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Of course, a major milestone this year was the release of Shattered Britain; our landmark research into UK public attitudes, the drivers of discontent, and the fault lines shaping public opinion. Drawing on polling of 20,000+ people and dozens of focus groups, the report introduced More in Common’s new segmentation of the British public, helping us look beyond what people think to why they think it. Since its launch in July, this framework has become central to our work and our understanding of the UK public.

And not to mention, as we end the first year of the Opinion Brief, this is our 40th edition! 

So again, a big thank you to everyone who has made this possible - to the wonderful partners we’ve worked with, to anyone who has attended our events or invited us to share our findings, to our friends in the media, and to everyone who has read our work.

Now, on to some research!

In this newsletter:

• What measures would the British Public accept to slow the spread of the flu?
• Britons are mediocre fortune tellers: looking back at the public’s predictions for 2025.
• What your childhood nativity role might tell us about your politics.

But first, we were delighted to see our cross-country polling in the Financial Times, in John Burn-Murdoch's great piece about how zero-sum attitudes are driving people away from the political mainstream.

You can read the full piece here. 

Britons and the flu

With the NHS warning of a ‘worst case scenario’ in flu cases that could overwhelm the health service, what measures would Britons accept to slow the spread?

We find that the public are often more authoritarian - particularly on health - than you might expect. Public opinion on flu control measures are no exception.More than three in five Britons (63 per cent) would support compulsory working from home for people in jobs that can do it; More than half (52 per cent) would support compulsory isolation for those who test positive for the flu.

There’s also a strong appetite for face covering in public: 62 per cent would support optional face masking in public, and nearly half (47 per cent) would support mandatory face mask wearing in public spaces. 

However, British voters’ views on flu control measures are divided along party lines: Labour voters stand out in their support for strong measures - and just over half would support banning large social gatherings! 

Reform and Liberal Democrat voters tend to be most sceptical of flu control measures. Of the voter groups, Reform UK supporters tend to be the least supportive of measures that would restrict personal freedom to slow the spread of flu. Liberal democrat voters also strongly oppose many of the measures, particularly a week-long “circuit-breaker” lockdown before Christmas.

 How did the public predict 2025?

At the end of 2024, we asked the public to look ahead to 2025, giving them a list of 13 possible events and asking how likely they thought they were to happen.

So how did they do?

On balance, pretty well. The public were particularly good at ruling things out: by a margin of two-to-one (56 per cent to 29 per cent) Britons said Keir Starmer would not resign as Prime Minister. Britons correctly predicted that China would not invade Taiwan. They correctly foresaw the lack of Royal babies this year, and the fact that Prince William would not become King.

The public leaned too pessimistic in some predictions. About half expected serious AI-related job losses, and while this is hard to score precisely, it likely didn’t meet their bleak expectations. Similarly, a majority expected a new recording-breaking temperature, and despite a very warm summer, the UK did not record this.

Only around one in five thought NHS waiting lists would fall. In fact, they did, albeit modestly, down 1.9 per cent between October 2024 and October 2025.

Overall, not a bad performance - broadly right on at least 10 of the 13 predictions we asked about. Good at getting a general sense of direction, if not the specifics.

Were you a wise man, a shepherd or a sheep? The role you played in your school nativity may tell us something about your politics today

For this week’s silly, festive polling, we asked the public what role they played in their school nativity. As always, we found that even this fact can tell us how people are likely to vote.

The Labour party is popular among previous wise men, earning 35 per cent of the vote with this group, with Reform UK on just 20 per cent.

The two main leads have followed different political paths: those who played Mary are most likely to vote Reform UK in the next general election (29 per cent) whereas those who played Joseph would more likely vote Labour (28 per cent).

And perhaps mirroring their party’s rise from underdogs to pole position donkeys and sheep are now more than twice as likely to back Reform UK than any other political party. 35 per cent of those who once played a donkey or sheep in their school nativity say they would vote for Reform UK at the next general election. The Greens emerge as the second most popular choice, attracting 17 per cent of the vote from past donkey and sheep performers.

And as Ed discusses here, your school nativity role relates to other factors such as your income!

That’s all for this week. Thanks again for being a part of our year - wishing a Happy Christmas to those celebrating it, a restful end to the year and a happy new year. See you in 2026!

All the best,

Luke