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Dear friend,

Happy election anniversary! Hope you've had a nice week.

The last week of Labour's first year in government has been an eventful one, and we've got a lot of new research to share with you. In this newsletter:

• How Britons think and speak about the Government's first year, in their own words.
• What the public make of the government's reversals on welfare, and how it might affect wider views of the Labour Government.
• How will Britons measure the success of Labour's remaining four years?
• And a refresher: what would be the chances of a new party on the left of politics? And what impact would they have on the other parties?
• Invitation: next Tuesday at midday, we’re hosting a webinar to share our new upcoming report with UCL Policy Lab, What’s Changed, where we look back over how public opinion has shifted a year on from the General Election and how a politics of respect can help Labour reconnect with the voters who elected it. Sign up here.

The verdict: what do voters make of Labour's first year?

It’s safe to say that many people are disappointed with the government’s performance so far. A majority - 55 per cent - say it has been worse than they expected, while 30 per cent say it has met their expectations, and just 8 per cent say it has exceeded them.

Labour voters are a little more optimistic, but not overwhelmingly so. While 43 per cent say the government has met their expectations and 17 per cent say it has performed better than expected, a substantial 38 per cent still say it has fallen short. 

This mixed picture comes through in focus groups with Labour supporters. There’s a willingness to give the Government the benefit of the doubt and a sense that the government needs more time to address the challenges facing the country. Many current Labour voters are not yet satisfied with the government’s record, but hopeful about what could be achieved over the next four years.

“I don't think they've been given enough time to actually implement anything or put out any of the fires that they have to put out. I think it would be a 10 year plus process to kind of heal the long-term damage that's been caused over time.”
Piers, programmer, Worcester

“You can't expect them to change things in nine months. The country didn't get into this state in nine months. It takes time to bring it back out of it and you've got to give them a chance to turn things around. I'm not saying they're going to be perfect, but we've had 14 years of one government, surely we've got to give them a bit more than nine months before we completely write them off.”

Kate, retired, Runcorn

Asked to sum up the PM in a word or two, the public give a range of answers, one of the most common is “good”. But beyond that, the most popular answers: as with most politicians don’t make for happy reading, ‘useless’ is among the most common answers, alongside ‘weak’, ‘incompetent’ and ‘rubbish’.

And yet beneath the surface, by looking at the smaller, more positive words, you can spot a pattern that tells us what Keir Starmer's supporters like about him: “calm”, “pragmatic”, “steady”.

Asked to sum up Labour’s biggest achievement, by far the most popular answer was ‘nothing’. However, there are positives: the second most common word was ‘NHS’, matching what we hear in some focus groups that progress on waiting lists could be beginning to cut through as evidence of the government’s delivery.

When we asked about the government’s biggest failures, the result is stark: the Winter Fuel Allowance drowns everything else out.

This reflects something we see across our polling. Many of Labour’s individual policies are highly popular - from GB Energy, to renters rights and the employee rights bill. But they simply aren’t as well known as their more negatively received spending decisions: means-testing the Winter Fuel Allowance, benefits cuts and farmer’s inheritance tax are among Labour’s most well-known policies - and the most unpopular.

Public opinion on welfare reversals

While it’s too soon to say exactly how the public will respond to the tumultuous events of the past week, one thing is clear: infighting within the Labour Party is leaving the concerned that the era of political chaos and division is set to continue. 

After several weeks of debate, the proportion of Britons who see Labour as a divided party has risen sharply - up ten percentage points in less than a month. And that data was collected before Tuesday’s U-turns and Wednesday’s dramatic PMQs.

Fifty-five per cent of Britons say the Labour Party appears divided, while just 21 per cent see it as united. In early June, those figures stood at 45 per cent and 22 per cent. Labour is now seen as more divided than either the Conservatives or Reform, a big shift from March, when it was viewed as the most united of the three main parties.

And what’s more, the welfare row seems to have undermined trust in the government to make fair decisions about disability benefits: Sixty-three per cent of the public say they have little or no trust in the government to make fair decisions about disability benefits, including a third (32 per cent) who say they don’t trust the government ‘at all’. 

Even among Labour’s own voters, a significant minority (41 per cent) say they don’t trust the government to be fair on disability benefits.

How will Britons measure Labour’s success?

One thing we know from across our research is that headline economic metrics and government targets often mean very little to the public. This can lead to a mismatch between figures on a spreadsheet looking positive, and people’s everyday lives which don’t feel better off.

For example, Britons measure the success of the economy by their own paychecks and supermarket prices, rather than GDP. They measure the success - or failure - of the government’s immigration strategy by small boats, rather than net migration figures.

Working with the Economist, we tried to find out what was most important for how the British public will measure Labour’s performance. We started with a focus group of Labour voters to discuss what they thought about the government’s six targets, and then ran polls asking the GB public to select their most important targets over eight policy areas: immigration, income, housing, health, energy, crime, transport and the environment.

Using these insights, the Economist developed a set of metrics by which to track the government’s performance, using the outcomes that matter most to Britons. You can find the trackers here:

How would a new party on the left reshape politics? 

Following announcements from Zara Sultana and Jeremy Corbyn about a potential new party on the left, here’s some polling.

A strong caveat is that this is hypothetical and will likely change, but the starting point is one in ten likely voters say they would back the new party. That shift would cost Labour three points, bringing them level with the Conservatives. What’s more, Corbyn’s new party could win outright among 18–24 year olds, taking 32 per cent of the vote.

Where would these voters come from? Interestingly, the biggest share - 37 per cent - would be drawn from current Green voters, while 23 per cent would come from Labour. 

So why would more not come from disillusioned Labour supporters?  Labour has already lost much of its most progressive flank. In 2019, two-thirds (67 per cent) of our Progressive Activist segment backed Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party. By 2024, only 49 per cent still supported the party, and in our May voting intention, Labour was polling at just 39 per cent with this group.

In other words, many of the voters most likely to be drawn to a Corbyn-led party have already made the jump to the Greens. That’s why, in this scenario, the Greens - not Labour - would likely lose the most ground. 

Though of course this polling is highly hypothetical - and was based on Jeremy Corbyn, not Zara Sultana. The party’s popularity is likely to shift as details emerge - so watch this space!

As always, thank you for reading! And have a lovely weekend!

All the best,

Luke