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Dear friend,

Hope this finds you well!

In this week’s newsletter:

• How would the Seven Segments vote in an election today? We look into what the segments tell us about Burnham’s gains and the battle for the right.

• The attention war: We look at how Andy Burnham is cutting through on social media, and why it’s important for politicians to be “everything, everywhere, all at once”.

• Is the ‘Green surge’ over? Looking at how the public have responded to Polanski’s latest controversy, and whether momentum for the Greens has stalled.

• Britons and vocational education: Three in five say that vocational education deserves more attention - yet Burnham’s plan to make ‘the hard hat as valued as the graduation cap’ could carry a public opinion risk.

How would the Seven Segments vote today?

In last week’s newsletter, we looked in detail at which voters were switching to Labour since Burnham became leader. We promised we’d take a deep dive this week into how the Seven Segments are voting - and what they tell us about Burnham’s prospects and the battle for the right.

You can hear us chatting about this in this week’s episode of the Opinion Brief Podcast. Listen here:

Progressive Activists overwhelmingly voted Labour in 2019 under Corbyn, but have since swung towards the Green Party - driven in part by a sense that Labour has pivoted right on issues like Gaza, climate change and welfare, and in part by the view that the party failed to deliver the scale and pace of change they wanted in government. Now Burnham seems to be winning many of them back: Labour's support among Progressive Activists is up 13 points since May, a bigger increase than in any other segment.

Incrementalist Left Britons, meanwhile, have stayed loyal to Labour through much of the past two years. They share many of Progressive Activists' views and priorities, but are more comfortable with a gradual pace of change and more risk averse when it comes to parties like the Greens. Their support for Labour has ticked up by 4 points since May.

Established Liberals are one of the few segments where we haven't seen a "Burnham boost". These "Blue Wall" voters - economically centre-right and comfortable with the status quo - switched from Conservative to Labour in the 2024 election, and are the only segment among whom Labour's support increased under Keir Starmer. Since Burnham took over, their support for Labour has remained the same, while the Conservatives have made inroads. That could make them a key target for Kemi Badenoch's party in the coming years, particularly if these voters are deterred by Burnham's more economically populist agenda.

Sceptical Scrollers are the least likely to vote, and perhaps the most politically untethered. Among those who did turn out in 2024, Labour led with 40 per cent. Since then Reform UK has held a narrow lead, and Labour, Reform and the Conservatives are now within 10 points of each other with this group. The question is whether any of them can motivate Sceptical Scrollers to turn out at the next election.

The race to win over Rooted Patriots, meanwhile, looks more competitive than it has in a long time. This group is best understood as the "Red Wall" swing voters who have been instrumental in recent elections: they backed Brexit in 2016, voted for Boris Johnson's Conservatives in 2019, and many put their faith in Labour in 2024. But issues like the Winter Fuel Allowance, freebiegate and perceived failures to tackle small boats and control immigration have driven the segment to Reform UK. Yet this is not Reform's base - they are better described as "wavering Reform voters", desperate for an alternative to the political mainstream, but risk averse and unsure that Reform is the right choice.

Rooted Patriots now sit at the centre of the battle for the right. Farage's finance row has dented Reform's support among this group, many of whom are wondering whether the party is just "more of the same". At the same time, many have been impressed by Badenoch, even if they are not ready to forgive the Conservatives for their time in government.

Traditional Conservatives and Dissenting Disruptors represent the two flanks of that battle. Dissenting Disruptors have fuelled the rise of Reform in recent years, voting for the party in the 2024 General Election and holding the most positive view of Nigel Farage personally. As we'll get into below, if Restore Britain poses a threat to Reform, it is with this segment - some of whom want a more radical approach on issues like migration, while others simply crave a more anti-establishment voice. Even so, Reform's lead with this group remains strong. Traditional Conservatives, like Rooted Patriots, have swung to Reform since 2024, but are risk averse and pro-institution. When we ask them why they plan to vote Reform, the top answer is usually that the party offers the best chance of getting Labour out of government. The Conservatives are now tied with Reform among this segment, but if they hope to regain their historic lead they will need to pass a "viability test" and prove they are the main party of opposition on the right.

Is Burnham winning the attention war?

We’ve written before about the importance of politicians being “everything, everywhere, all at once”. At a time when social media is such an important channel for politicians to talk to the public, being able to dominate the attention economy is crucial. And for much of the past two years, it’s seemed that Zack Polanski and Nigel Farage have held a monopoly.

So this week we asked the public which political figures they had seen content from on social media. Over a third of Britons had seen something from Andy Burnham, rising to 53 per cent of 18 to 24 year olds. That compares with 16 per cent who had seen something from Nigel Farage, 9 per cent from Kemi Badenoch, 9 per cent from Zack Polanski and just 3 per cent from Ed Davey. Rupert Lowe is often talked about as dominating the social media landscape, but only 6 per cent had seen content from him.

Burnham’s ability to cut through on social media matches what we’ve heard in focus groups recently, people who say they never felt up to date on what Keir Starmer was up to, but see something from Burnham every day.

“I don't know whether I was being ignorant or what, but I didn't feel like I was hearing a lot about what (Starmer) was actually doing. And maybe it’s because I'm from Manchester, but I feel like I'm really up to date with exactly what Burnham’s doing day-to-day.”
Ellie, teacher, Manchester

“He's new and I've quite seen him quite a lot of my socials as well. Keir Starmer, I didn't really see much of him.”

Ezek, student, Manchester

With much discussion today about Burnham’s tone on social media, it’s worth saying that a key test for politicians is authenticity, and how much they seem to be enjoying the job.

On that test, Burnham seems to be doing well: two in three Britons (68 per cent) say that he seems to be enjoying the role of Prime Minister, compared to just 8 per cent who say he is not. We also split our sample to compare this with Keir Starmer: fewer than half of Britons (48 per cent) said Starmer enjoyed his time as Prime Minister, while 33 per cent said he did not.

What seems very clear is that Andy Burnham's first few weeks have not only produced a series of policy announcements that have been popular with the public, but crucially, Britons are hearing about it.

Zack Polanski's problems deepen

But not all attention is good attention.

After a meteoric rise, Zack Polanski’s resharing of an image of a T-shirt depicting a guillotine alongside a reference to Nigel Farage - and his refusal to apologise for it - is the latest in a run of questions about his judgement.

For the most part, Britons did not buy his explanation: 21 per cent think it was true compared to 55 per cent who think it was false, including more than a third (35 per cent) of Green voters. Most Britons (55 per cent) said he should apologise to Farage compared to only 25 per cent who disagreed.

That doesn’t mean people endorse Reform's response - 52 per cent say reporting him to the police was an overreaction while 27 per cent said it was proportionate. But it seems that, by refusing to apologise, Polanski may have misread a public with little tolerance for posts that risk condoning political violence, particularly after the shocking murder of Ann Widdecombe last month.

It compounds a decline that began earlier this year. It seems that Polanski’s approval never fully recovered following his controversial response to the Golders Green attack in April, and this week it fell to -28, making him the least popular leader on our tracker.

Meanwhile, the Greens are on 9 per cent in our polling, virtually reversing the "Polanski wave" that followed his election as leader. The party has tapped into a real appetite for a progressive alternative, and Polanski has owned the attention economy at points over the past year, but a Burnham bounce and a run of leadership missteps risk setting them back.

Britons and vocational education

Burnham's ambition to “make the hard hat as valued as the graduation cap” is one that Britons share. 3 in 5 (60 per cent) say university education has been emphasised too much and that more attention should go to vocational education, compared with 8 per cent who say the emphasis on vocational education has gone too far. That view holds right across the political spectrum: majorities of those planning to vote Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrat, Green Party and Reform UK all take it, from 60 per cent of Green voters to 67 per cent of Reform voters.

It is strongest among older Britons, with 71 per cent of Baby Boomers and 81 per cent of the Silent Generation saying university has been over-emphasised, falling to 51 per cent of Gen Z.

But there’s a risk here. The announcement that schools will offer technical education to pupils as young as 14 could lose the public. Only 28 per cent think children are capable of making decisions about their future careers by the age of 14, while 65 per cent say that is too young. And when we asked when they thought young people should be able to start moving away from academic qualifications and onto technical and vocational ones, 57 per cent chose 16 and 19 per cent chose 18. Just 22 per cent chose 14.

It’s clear Britons value academic qualifications, and think kids should stick with them until they’re old enough to decide properly: 54 per cent say young people should study academic subjects until 16 and then choose their path, compared to 34 per cent who say they should be able to choose vocational qualifications from 14.

So Britons share the diagnosis but not necessarily the prescription, and proposals to start young people on semi-vocational routes as young as 14 could just be the new government's first public opinion misstep. The risk of these reforms - and of the rhetoric in Lucy Powell's article this week - is that they suggest Labour is embracing a form of selection at an age the public thinks is too young, and could close down academic pathways for those from less affluent backgrounds.

Thank you for reading! 

all the best, 

Luke