After yet another eventful week on the international stage, we’ve been trying to keep up with how Britons are responding to the latest from the White House. A few highlights from our recent research:
Hope this email finds you well and enjoying the spring!
After yet another eventful week on the international stage, we’ve been trying to keep up with how Britons are responding to the latest from the White House. A few highlights from our recent research:
Britain responds to tariffs. Our polling has revealed that trade and tariffs are at the forefront of the Britons’ concerns, with deep-seated anxiety about the UK economy, the cost of living and further strained UK-US relations.
The view from the focus groups. In conversations across the country, we hear from people who feel that their social lives never fully recovered following the pandemic. Is Britain suffering from ‘social long Covid’?
How do the public define ‘rich’? We’ve asked Britons at what level of wealth or income they start to consider someone rich - there are some interesting trends in their answers.
Britons respond to tariffs.
Over the past couple of weeks, we’ve asked the public how they feel about the trade tariffs announced by President Trump on ‘Liberation Day’.
We found the public deeply anxious, with two-thirds of Brits saying that they are worried about the situation - an increase of eight points in just over a week. Specifically, Britons cite concerns about the economic impact on the UK: 53 per cent say they expect the 10 per cent tariff to worsen the cost of living crisis, and 49 per cent think it will negatively affect economic growth in the UK.
Britons no longer see the US as an ally
Tariffs and the wider actions of the Trump Presidency are clearly having a real impact on how the public see our relationship with America: only 43 per cent of Britons think that the United States is an ally to the UK. This has declined from 49 per cent over the past month alone
Just as stark is the fact that only 28 per cent of Britons see the US President as an ally of the UK, while 30 per cent see Donald Trump as an enemy, and 33 per cent think he is neither.
How should the government respond?
Many Britons want to see the UK government to send a strong response to the tariffs: half (51 per cent) would support retaliatory tariffs, while only 27 per cent would oppose this.
Support for retaliation is a view that extends across all voter groups except for Reform voters, who are split down the middle.
What's more, few Britons are in the mood to see the government make concessions on policy in order to secure a trade deal with the United States.
The most unpopular concession of those polled would be to allow American companies to import chlorinated chicken into Britain: 62 per cent of Britons would oppose this, while only 16 per cent would support it.
The public would also be opposed to scrapping the digital services tax, conceding on Ukraine, or limiting social media regulation.
But while Britons want the UK to show strength in our dealings with the US, the polling suggests that many Britons think it is futile to try to predict or influence the President.
Asked how the Prime Minister should approach negotiations with the US President, 8 per cent think Starmer will get a better deal for Britain by going along with what the Trump wants, and 14 per cent think he will get the best deal by standing up to him. Meanwhile, three in five think that the Prime Minister’s actions won’t make a difference, because the US president will do whatever he wants regardless.
You can read the full research, and browse the data, here:
The view from the focus groups: did Britain ever fully recover from the pandemic?
Every now and then, during a focus group, someone says something that you just can't shake afterwards.
This time, it was a quote from Clive, a crane driver in Dudley. He remarked that we had never properly recovered from Covid. I probed him further on what he meant: the NHS, schools, debt? It was something I hadn’t expected: Clive explained that when it came to the construction sites he worked on, ‘Before Covid we all used to have lunch together, but since then we just sit in our cars and eat alone on our break.’
It turns out Clive wasn’t alone in feeling this way. Others in the group agreed:
‘It’s true, the social lives at work and the banter, they’ve all gone. Mentally it’s really affected me. Because you’re stuck in the house, and you don’t see people’.
Linzi, a bank worker who now often works from home.
‘I used to go in the pub and socialise, but after Covid I don’t, I’m less likely to talk to people now’
Gordon, painter
‘I miss the banter, you can’t have a laugh with colleagues in your breaktime now’
Nicky, admin worker
In my article in the Spectator, I dig into the prolonged social cost of Covid - asking how the lockdown, followed immediately by a cost of living crisis that has transformed socialising into a luxury, has affected Britain’s social fabric and caused us to turn inward. You can read the full article here:
We know from our polling and focus groups that taxing the rich is popular, but what do the public think of when they hear the word ‘rich’? Is it about wealth or income - and where do Britons draw the line?
For three quarters of the public, wealth is a better measure than income. 75 per cent say that wealth is more important than income in deciding whether someone is rich or not. Interestingly, younger Britons are slightly more likely to think that income is important.
We also asked Britons at what level someone is considered ‘rich’. The median Briton draws the line somewhere between the annual incomes of £80 thousand to £100 thousand, and a wealth of more than half a million.
But notably, Britons who are themselves wealthier tend to set the bar significantly higher. 59 per cent of those who earn more than £100 thousand say that you only become rich once you earn more than £200 thousand. Similarly, a majority those with combined assets worth more than £1 million think that you need to have more than five million in wealth in order to be considered rich.
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