Dear friend,

Happy Friday!

It has been a busy week - and we are back with another roundup of some of the polling and focus groups we’ve been conducting into what the public think. In this week’s newsletter:

💼 Britons’ views about the spending review, from a focus group in Coventry and our polling across the country

📈How life satisfaction is shaping voting intention in the UK

🚨Do internal political divisions cut through to the public? 

🍹Trouble at the Summer cocktail party…the Conservatives are no longer in the lead even with Pimms drinkers

We’d also love to know what you think about this new weekly roundup  we have been trialling for the last few weeks - do reply with your thoughts and feedback if you have any!

What does the public make of Wednesday’s Spending Review?

Ahead of the spending review, expectations that anything announced would really shift the dial on the state of the country were low - a  reflection of ongoing political disillusionment and sense of pessimism about the state of Briton today. 

Only three in ten Britons expect that this Government will improve their personal finances and the lives of people like them. Since the General Election last July, the net share of Britons who think that Labour will  improve their lives has fallen significantly from +8 to -43. 

Today, 71 per cent of Britons say that they do not expect the government to improve the lives of people like them. The central task for the Government will be to demonstrate that the investments announced on Wednesday will in fact lead to tangible change in people’s everyday lives.

Part of that is convincing the public that the years of tough choices will come to an end - that there are good times ahead. As it stands, the  majority of Britons believe that the UK is either re-entering or never left austerity - including a majority of Labour voters.

Almost a  year into their government the ‘black hole’ rhetoric is no longer what the public want to hear about - 54 per cent of Brits think that Labour is blaming the Conservatives too much for the economic situation of the country - instead the public want to hear a more positive vision for what this Government stands for. 

“Growing up when you voted for Labour, you knew what you were voting for. I think at the moment, they've just gone back to blaming things on the Tories and not giving stuff they promised” 

Deena, Coventry in a focus group on 11/06/25

The good news for the Government is that the Chancellor’s decisions align with the public’s priorities going into the spending review. Last week, we asked the public which sectors they thought could be cut and which need to be protected. Defence, education and health ended up being  both the biggest winners in the review and the public’s top priority areas for investment. 

Alongside its spending decisions, this Government has made driving economic growth central to its agenda.  The challenge is convincing the public that growth will benefit them - only 4 in 10 Britons believe that economic growth is good for people like them - with majorities of Reform and Green voters, among the most disillusioned, saying that growth makes no difference to them.

The Government’s communications challenge in this spending review, then, is not just sorting the public finances, but restoring public trust that the economy can be fixed to deliver tangible benefits for ordinary people. 

You can read our polling about voters’ expectations for the spending review here, and we’ll have much more analysis from our snap polling about the review out over the weekend, so do make sure you are following on X or Bluesky. 

A view from the focus groups.

On the evening the Spending Review was announced, we were in Coventry conducting a group of 2024 Labour voters to see how they responded to the announcements. 

The group were keen to give the Government a little more time to deliver improvements, although in common with many groups in recent months, they were losing patience at the slow pace of change and growing tired of excuses that blame the country’s poor economic conditions on the previous government.

Much more than the review itself the group wanted to talk about the cost of living. As Barby summarised: “Every time I go shopping for something - I go one week and then the next week it’s gone up again”… “Everybody’s struggling”. Barby’s comment is typical of what we hear in focus groups across the country. 

What is so pernicious about the cost of living is the extent to which it means people have to cut out the fun stuff in life, the occasional small nice things that shouldn't be a luxury but which make life better - odd meals out, trips to the pub, day trips with the kids, as Barby went on to say ‘I now meal prep at home so I know I have enough food each week- I can’t ever just say I fancy fish and chips one night as a treat”

Some had seen inflation numbers coming down but didn’t feel that was yet making their lives easier - “Three or four years ago things got really bad. Last year it kind of levelled off and gave us a bit of breathing room. But it’s not made it any easier - it just hasn’t got harder”, said welder Chris.

That sense of daily struggle was why the group in Coventry really  wanted the Chancellor to succeed: “just think they have a really hard job to do. I think there's been so many years of just no investment, so it's difficult. I'm trying to have faith in the decisions that are being made” Biomedical Scientist Jayne said.

The group were happy with the investments the government was making in the NHS, education and defence. But there was still  scepticism in the Government’s ability to deliver it - particularly without any further tax rises: 

• “She just says what she thinks we want to hear. And we do want to hear it. But will we see it? I definitely won’t hold my breath” Barby, Retired Personal Assistant
• “You've been hearing for years and years now how many billions are thrown at the NHS yet our services are getting worse, so does it need more money or does it need a fundamental change in the systems and how it works” Andy, Police Officer 
• “Where's it all going to come from? What services are they going to stop other people using? Eventually they'll probably put the tax up won’t they?” Rob, Engineer

The Spending Review could be a reset moment for the Government - away from the ‘hard decisions’ narrative that has driven the sense of pessimism  in the last few months and towards a more positive vision for the future. But getting out of this doom loop will be a difficult battle, and it’s clear from this focus group, that only delivery on these issues, rather than as the Chancellor herself put it ‘numbers on a spreadsheet’, will convince them that things are headed in the right direction.

In other news…

THE LIFE SATISFACTION THEORY OF EVERYTHING - Our polling shows a striking relationship between how people vote and how happy they are in their lives. 

This revealed that the Green party and Reform UK both overperform significantly with those who self-identify as dissatisfied in life with Reform holding a clear lead with this group. At the other end of the spectrum, Labour  outperform with those who are most satisfied. The Conservatives also tend to do better with more satisfied groups, seeing a 15 point increase from the least to the most satisfied. 

Clearly disillusionment and dissatisfaction is the driver that is moving people away from the established mainstream parties - and the electoral prize will be for the parties that show people politics really can deliver for them. 

WHAT IS DRIVING PROGRESSIVE BACKLASH? In the Guardian this  week Gaby Hinsliff wrote a great long read about the rise and fall of  progressive or ‘woke’ campaigning - drawing on our Progressive Activist report. It’s well worth a read if you haven’t done so already - but here’s a brief overview of what our research finds:

Who are the Progressive Activists? They make up around 10 per cent of the UK population but have an outsized impact on public discourse and in their strong presence in activist networks. They can play a key role in driving social change and are the backbone of much of civil society, but also tend to be outliers on certain value questions. 

Progressive Activists often overestimate where the rest of the country stand on the issues that they care most deeply about - and can sometimes adopt absolutist or polarising approaches to those issues or causes that fail to build big tents, or recognise the different starting points of other groups. 

The article discusses how campaigners can better engage with the mainstream of the public and advocate for their cause in a way that persuades rather than repels. If you’re interested in learning more about our report you can read it here or get in touch. 

A SPLIT ON THE RIGHT: The past week saw rifts on the right on both sides of the Atlantic with President Trump and Elon Musk’s relationship deteriorating and Zia Yusuf resigning before returning to Reform UK.

Does any of this make a difference to the public?

For Reform the Yusuf row does seem to have affected perceptions of party unity with a drop in those saying the party is united. Though Reform is still seen as more united than either Labour or the Conservatives. For Labour, internal disagreements around benefit cuts and spending review jockeying appears to have affected perceptions of party unity, meanwhile the Conservatives have struggled to recover a perception of unity since disagreements in Government.

Looking at public’s perceptions of what is happening on the other side of the Atlantic: Donald Trump’s favourability among the British public, which started from a low base, has continued to fall. Perhaps most notable is the decline in favourability among Reform voters, Trump’s net favourability  has fallen from +31 at the time of the inauguration, to -18 today. From our focus groups we know that tariffs, the Zelenskyy meeting and a general sense of unpredictability have all played a role in this drop.

On the Trump-Musk split, while Britons disapprove of both, if pushed to choose -  two-thirds of the British public (63 per cent) favour Elon Musk over President Trump. With the Liberal Democrats most likely to side with Musk at 76 per cent. Reform voters were the only group more likely to back Trump - at 55 per cent. 

But while our domestic politicians aren’t particularly popular both Nigel Farage and Keir Starmer are viewed more favourably than either Elon Musk or Donald Trump. 

And on a sunnier note…

Heading to summer drinks this weekend? Pay attention to what people are drinking as it could tell you more than you think about who they might be voting for.

We’ve found that aperol drinkers are much more likely to be voting Conservative, and that if someone prefers a frozen margarita you can be pretty sure they are voting Labour. But Reform’s rise to the political mainstream is clear from the range of drinks their voters are winning with: lager, cider, and even the former Tory stronghold of Pimms drinkers. 

ASK WALES ANYTHING

Next week we are re-launching our Wales omnibus survey, giving you rapid insights into public opinion in Wales as the country prepares for a critical Sennedd election next year. If you work for an organisation who might benefit from these insights, do get in touch as we are offering discounted rates to readers of this newsletter.

That’s it for this week! See you next time and have a lovely weekend.

All the best,

Luke