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Dear friend,

Happy Friday!

In this week’s newsletter:

• Inside the ‘Burnham Bounce’: Our polling this week finds Labour in the lead for the first time in 16 months. Who are the voters Burnham could be winning back, and what’s driving them?

• Greater Manchester decides: We’ve been polling and doing focus groups in Greater Manchester. With just hours until the results, what does our research say about voters’ priorities and thoughts.

• What do Britons really want from our social care system? We found the public open to a tricky question about spending, and nearly half in favour of Burnham’s mooted social care levy.

• Where does ‘the North’ begin? We asked 2,000 Britons to place on a map where the North of England begins. See the map below.

Inside the Burnham Bounce

This week's poll was a dramatic one. As ever there’s an important caveat: it's just one poll, and it's far too early to tell whether this will translate into sustained support for Labour. But there's no doubt that Burnham's first weeks - the policy blitz, the focus on the cost of living, the media appearances - have worked in the new Prime Minister's favour and the feedback from focus groups has suggested he has dominated the attention economy too. 

We saw Labour rise to 28 per cent, their first lead since March 2025, and their highest share since the early months of Keir Starmer's government. Meanwhile, Reform UK sank to their lowest point since before last year’s local elections, and the Greens fell to pre-Polanski levels of support on 8 per cent. This suggests Burnham's Labour could pose a real threat to parties on both the left and the right.

But who makes up the "Burnham bounce"? Who are the voters Labour could be winning back? Using an average of our two latest polls, we've dug into what these voters look like and what could be driving them.

Perhaps the most important metric for the new Prime Minister is rebuilding Labour's fractured 2024 voter coalition. And the early signs suggest it is possible: back in March, barely half (51 per cent) of those who backed the party at the general election still planned to do so. Today, that has risen to two thirds.

The biggest shift has been among Labour to Green switchers: in March, 13 per cent of Labour's 2024 voters were planning to vote Green; now that has dropped to only 4 per cent, a fall of more than two thirds. But Labour may also be winning back voters from Reform: in March, 10 per cent of Labour's 2024 voters were planning to back Reform; that has now dropped to 7 per cent.

Labour's gains have been most pronounced among young voters, rising 12 points among Gen Z, but they extend across age groups, the exception being Britons aged over 75, where the Conservatives are making gains, winning back ground from Reform UK.

And Burnham's bounce in the polls has extended far beyond his home turf in the North West of England. His approval rating has risen in every single region of Great Britain, and is now net positive everywhere.

And what about our Seven Segments? This is a real test of the ideological diversity of the Burnham bounce. Crucially, Burnham has now cut the Greens' lead among Progressive Activists. This segment was the left-leaning, Corbynite wing of Labour's 2024 coalition; some defected to the Greens between 2019 and 2024, and as recently as May the Greens led Labour by 24 points. Now, that lead has dropped to just 2 points.

In focus groups in Manchester this week, we heard from young voters who had considered switching from Labour to the Greens, but now felt cautiously optimistic about Andy Burnham. This is a group frustrated by the slow pace of change under Keir Starmer's government, so for them it's encouraging that the new Prime Minister has, as John put it, "gone straight to work", although many clarified that they wanted to see real delivery before their trust was rebuilt.

I felt massively betrayed by Labour after the last general election (…) I probably would've gone more Green by now if it wasn't for the fact that I knew that Andy Burnham was coming in. So now it's almost like for me, it's not Labour versus Green. It's Green versus Andy is how I see it. Peter, videography student, Manchester

I think Andy Burnham will bring some fresh impetus and he's done a pretty good job in Manchester. So I think people are quite optimistic. I think people in this part of the country are certainly optimistic because he's got a good track record over here and he's already sort of seems like he's gone straight to work.
John, IT, Manchester

He's delivered. And he's genuine. You can relate to him. He's been in our shoes. He's grown up (…) in a working class family. So I think there's a lot to relate to him. Whether he's going to deliver or not, that's another question.
Jabeen, housing officer, Manchester

But Labour have also made significant gains among Rooted Patriots, increasing their vote share by 8 points since May. Reform UK led this group by 19 points just a few months ago; that lead has now gone, with the Conservatives level with Reform and Labour just 7 points behind. These voters - who overlap with the "Red Wall" swing voters that have been crucial in recent elections - are once again very much to play for. In focus groups, the Nigel Farage’s recent controversies had given them pause for thought, they were impressed by Kemi Badenoch and, in many cases, willing to give Burnham a hearing.

I voted Reform because I was fed up with what's going on today. Not that he could [do it]. If he would've got in as prime minister, God knows what he'd do. But I don't care. He said he was going to do what I want (…) I want a complete change.
Tony, retired, Tameside

We do need change. I think a lot of people would vote Reform, but there's just this annoying right-wing element that seems to follow, unfortunately. A lot of it's going to be bastardised by social media and the news. But actually I think we do need change.
Scott, retired, Tameside

There are still challenges for Burnham elsewhere: Labour's vote share has stagnated among Established Liberals and Sceptical Scrollers, and dropped among Traditional Conservatives. In next week's episode of the Opinion Brief Podcast, we'll be looking at each segment, and what their changing voting intention tells us about the state of British politics.

Once again, it's too early to tell how far this bounce can go, and how long it will last once the government gets into the practicalities of governing. But it's clear that Burnham's bounce is about more than reigniting the base. The choice to spend his first weeks hyper-focused on the most unifying issue in our politics - the cost of living - might give him more license to engage in the trickier, long term conversations.

In those same focus groups, some young progressive voters said Burnham was one of the few politicians both they and their conservative grandparents thought were "all right".

My parents are more Tory than me and my grandparents are more Tory than them. And I'm more Labour. And you can't get them to like anything that Labour does most of the time, especially my grandma. But she loves Andy. So I'm sure it's just because she can see how much of a good job he's done. Peter, videography student, Manchester

My family, they are Conservatives and they also like Andy Burnham, which is quite telling because we can't agree on anything else apart from the fact that Andy Burnham's all right. John, IT, Manchester

Greater Manchester decides

It’s just hours until we get the results from the Greater Manchester Mayoral By-Election, and our poll of Greater Manchester this week suggests the contest is being fought on many of the same issues that are shaping our national politics. Cost of living is the top issue, named by 51 per cent as one of the biggest facing the city-region. Crime and antisocial behaviour comes second on 30 per cent, ahead of access to the NHS on 25 per cent and housing on 24 per cent.

That matches what we heard in our focus groups. There was real pride in how the city centre has changed, but in every group there was also a feeling that the city was becoming less affordable for young people. Ellie said she had left the city for university, and returned shocked to find that rent in the area she used to live in was now “over a grand”. Alex from Stretford said that if Bev Craig wins, her first priority should be making Manchester affordable for young people.

And then I’ve come back to Manchester and rent's over a grand (…) So I've had to move out. It's just sort of like one thing after another where I feel like I've not had any say yet. It's directly affecting me.
Ellie, special needs teacher, Manchester

She needs to concentrate on trying to make Manchester affordable for young people, because it's become that dear to buy a house here (…) half the people I know have moved out of Manchester because of affordability.
Alex, social services, Stretford

The issue of anti-social behaviour and safety came up consistently too - particularly around Piccadilly Gardens in Central Manchester.

I've seen Manchester turn into Crack Central. I won't walk through Piccadilly Gardens with my children.
Alan, cafe owner, Tameside

But this is not only a decision about Greater Manchester's next four years. It is also the first test of Andy Burnham's legacy. 52 per cent of Greater Manchester residents say he has changed the city-region for the better, against 10 per cent who say for the worse - and interestingly that view spans across politics, with even those planning to back Reform UK's Sian Astley saying better rather than worse by 44 per cent to 23 per cent.

But our poll (which was conducted partially before he became PM) suggested that the jury was still out about what kind of Prime Minister Burnham would be: nearly half - 48 per cent - said he will be a good Prime Minister and 17 per cent a bad one, while Reform voters split 31 per cent good to 48 per cent bad. Greater Manchester is fairly settled that Burnham was good for the city-region, but many voters are waiting for proof that he will be good for the country.

What do Britons really want from our social care system?

Social care has bedevilled successive governments, and attempts at reform have become associated with electoral peril. So there is some potential good news for Andy Burnham's social care push in our polling this week: Britons want the problem prioritised, and they are willing - at least in principle - to have a conversation about how to pay for it.

Seven in ten (70 per cent) per cent say social care costs should be met by the government through general taxation, rather than by the individuals receiving care. That view holds across every voter group and every age group.

This view holds even when faced with the tradeoff. 61 per cent say the government should prioritise good quality care for as many people as possible, even if that means higher taxes or spending cuts elsewhere, compared to 21 per cent who say the priority should be avoiding tax rises or cuts even if care does not improve. Older Britons are the most likely to want care prioritised, at 72 per cent of over-75s. 

With the suggestion that Burnham’s government could replace inheritance tax with a 10 per cent social care levy, our polling found that many are open to the idea. 47 per cent support the proposal, compared to 21 per cent who oppose it. Support outweighs opposition among every group of 2024 voters except Reform UK, where 38 per cent support and 40 per cent oppose.

None of that means the issue is settled. Awareness of the different models remains low, and support offered in principle is not the same as support for a specific tax rise in the face of a forceful opposition campaign. The Prime Minister will likely have to spend political capital, once the shape of the proposals is known, to show they are fair.

Succeed, and Burnham will have shown that the government can still tackle the big, long-term challenges that affect everyone. Fail, and social care goes back into the 'too difficult' box, with a public even further convinced that the only way out of Britain's problems is to abandon the traditional mainstream.

Where does “the North” begin?

With Burnham bringing the focus of our politics - and much of this newsletter - to the North of England, we asked 2,000 Brits to place on a map where they thought the North begins.

It turns out the average Briton places the North just above Loughborough, a little North of the Leicestershire/Nottinghamshire border. If you want to be really specific, there’s a village called East Leake - population 8,500 - that sits roughly at the centre.

The most common placements form a band running from West and South Yorkshire down through the Peak District and the Trent valley into the East Midlands. There’s also a separate hotspot at the top of the country, on the Scottish border around Berwick and north Northumberland.

That’s all for this week - thanks so much for reading and, as always, let us know what you think.

All the best,

Luke