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Dear friend,

Hope this finds you well and looking forward to the bank holiday! In this week’s newsletter:

• The politics of energy bills - our latest report looks at how Britons are coping with the cost of living crisis, the impact of Iran, and what this means for politics.

• Who is the “Polanski Wave” of new Green supporters? And how do they look different from the party’s 2024 voters?

• Which moments from the Scottish government have cut through? Our new perception grid tracks awareness and approval of policies and incidents.

The politics of energy bills

The cost of living crisis has always had multiple fronts, but it now has a clear focal point. With the new energy price cap coming into effect, our new research with Electrify Britain shows that energy bills have now overtaken food prices to become the single biggest source of financial anxiety for Britons, with nearly three quarters naming them as a top concern.

Across our polling and focus groups, Britons told us about the personal sacrifices and struggles that the crisis is causing for them. Most Britons (53 per cent) say that they turned the heating on less this winter in order to cope; 30 per cent cut back on going out; 20 per cent cut back on the cost of Christmas. One in ten sold possessions for extra cash.

What stands out is how habitual this behaviour has become. Back in August 2025, we asked people what changes they expected to make in order to cope with winter. With a high degree of precision, Britons anticipated what action they were going to have to take over the Winter to cope with the cost of energy. Expected actions in August 2025 mirror almost exactly the actions people reported they had taken by March 2026. 

And we also heard from people about the personal impacts and household strains of these sacrifices: parents told us about how they have meticulously turned off and unplugged sockets before leaving the house, or sending their children to bed early to avoid putting on the heating. This inevitably led to more family arguments. 

“When it’s cold - get to bed, wrap up - I make that choice. Boys, get your dressing gown on and get in your bed and do not put the heating on because in the end the bill is going higher and higher. It's either heat or food. You can't do both. Well, I can't.” 

Penelope, Birmingham

“Before I leave the house now, so if I leave for work on the Wednesday morning, I literally switch all the plug sockets off in the house, but I even go as far now as unplugging the sockets. So unplugging everything just so that it's literally, there is no risk of using any form of electricity…And you shouldn't have to live like that….. My son says to me now, he says, “‘Why are you switching everything off? Why are you unplugging everything?’”

Tom, Stoke

The country feels that it cannot absorb another shock. If bills rise further, nearly half of Britons say they would not be able to cope, compared to fewer than three in ten who think they could. 

This is not confined to the lowest incomes: only those earning above £40,000 are more likely than not to feel they could absorb further increases. And parents themselves are even more likely than average to say they could not absorb another rise in bills.

So what do Britons blame?

The public increasingly recognise the role of global events. Although the war in Iran may not hit energy bills until July, more than two-thirds say that the conflict is partly or entirely responsible for high bills. Compared to August 2025, Britons are also now more likely to blame the war in Ukraine.

But this does not let the government off the hook. The government is still widely seen as the primary cause, alongside energy companies. There is also a clear sense of scepticism and distrust, with some saying in focus groups that the war feels like an excuse for a lack of action from the government, and the greed of energy companies.

“but I think that is what we will be told. {The war in Iran} is why fuel is going up. And the energy companies obviously will follow tack and say, "Yeah, yeah, it's definitely, as the government has said, the price of a barrel has gone up to this…." So yeah, I think that's the sort of rhetoric that they'll use” 

Peter

If there is a bright spot or the government, it may be that some of their energy announcements - such as lifting green levies in last year’s budget - have begun to cut through. The proportion of Britons who say the government has no plan to reduce energy bills has dropped from 36 per cent to 25 per cent. 

However, the percentage of Britons who think this plan is working now or will start working soon has increased by just six per cent. Belief that the government is at least trying to do something to bring bills down may have grown, but trust in them to successfully achieve this remains stubbornly low.

“It does nothing. It does nothing for the consumers. It really doesn't. I mean, energy price go up, it doesn't come down. And if it does come down, I don't think the consumers benefit at all. The price cap is for the people who supply, So the big companies, not us little people.” Penelope

“[The Price Cap] just something to put out there to make you think, "Oh yeah, you're getting a deal." There's no deal in it. I'm still spending the same money, if not more, each year. So yeah, it's just something to throw out. It sounds good, doesn't it?” 

Ron 

What makes this particularly difficult for the government politically is how widely the strain is felt; this is not a crisis confined to the poorest households. Stress, anxiety and financial strain now span across income levels, creating a broad coalition of voters who feel vulnerable.

That has two really important implications for politics. First, it erodes support for any targeted support. When large parts of the country feel they are “just about managing”, policies aimed only at the most vulnerable risk backlash from the squeezed middle who feel excluded despite struggling themselves. This is where the zero-sum instinct becomes powerful - the sense that help for others comes at their expense.

“I think the government should focus on bringing down everyone’s energy bills and treating people equally. I work part-time and I’m on my own but because I earn over a certain amount, I’m not entitled to help. I struggle, just cause I work part-time and others don’t work at all, why should I not receive support but others do because they are not working” Katherine, Stevenage

“So basically we are going to pay for other people to be able to heat their home, while we can’t afford to heat our homes. Amazing. It's just mental who comes up with this crap? Do they just sit there? Is the government going to be paying an extra 15 pounds out of their wages to help this as well? Or is it just us bloody robots?” 

Sarah, Stevenage

Second, it feeds into anti-politics sentiment. A perception that the government is unable or unwilling to address Britons’ biggest source of financial anxiety undermines faith in the status quo.

Those under the greatest pressure from energy bills are the most dissatisfied with the status quo and the most open to alternatives - particularly Reform and the Greens, who are drawing support from financially insecure voters on different ends of the spectrum.

For the Government, the risk is particularly acute. Those who still back Labour tend to think energy bills will become more affordable over time. Those who have drifted away are far more likely to think they never will. Confidence in the government’s ability to ease the cost of living is predictive of whether voters stick or leave.

With bills expected to rise again in July, and the Chancellor stating that any relief will be targeted, this leaves the government in a tight political spot. 

You can read the full report with Electrify Britain below:

Who is the “Polanski Wave”?

Fuelled by disillusionment with the status quo, the Green Party has soared in the polls since Zack Polanski took over as leader last Autumn. With this growth, the party’s voter base is changing - what does the “Polanski Wave” look like? And what does this mean for the Greens?

The Green Party’s new voters are younger and more likely to be women While 57 per cent of the party’s vote in 2024 was female, our polling suggests that 64 per cent of newer Green voters are female. 24 per cent are under 25, compared to 15 per cent of their 2024 voters. And the Polanski Wave of supporters are twice as likely than the 2024 Green voters (and three times more likely than the general public) to be current students.

As discussed above, financial insecurity is also related to the Green surge: new Green voters are considerably less likely to say that they feel financially comfortable, and less likely to own their own homes. In our research into the Politics of Deprivation, we’ve looked in detail at how young, financially insecure voters are abandoning the political mainstream in favour of Polanski’s party.

And as the Green Party’s voter base changes, so too do its priorities. In his 2024 leader’s speech, then-co-leader of the Green Party Adrian Ramsay used the word ‘climate’ 12 times. By comparison, in his speech at last year’s conference, newly elected Zack Polanski used it only 5 times. Instead, he focused on energy bills, wealth inequality and ending ‘rip-off Britain’.

Interestingly, there is no statistically significant difference between the climate attitudes of the party’s new voters: in fact, on some measures, they favour even stronger action to address climate change. Yet the key difference is salience: the Greens’ new voters are less likely to cite climate change as a top issue facing the country, and more concerned about the cost of living and affordable housing.

As such, new Green voters are increasingly economically populist: compared to the party’s 2024 voters, they are more likely to support redistribution of wealth, and more sceptical of big business.

They also diverge on other issues: they are more likely to describe themselves as pro-Palestine, and more progressive in their attitudes toward migration.

In many ways, as Tom Calver described in his column using our research, “the Greens are the heirs to Corbynism. Of today’s Green coalition, more people backed Corbyn in 2019 (39 per cent) than voted Green then (21 per cent); a further 22 per cent did not vote or were too young.”

Using our Seven Segments, we can track this journey from Corbynism to Polanski-ism. In 2019, Labour led with 57 per cent of the vote among the Progressive Activist segment - our most left-leaning segment who want radical change to improve the country. In 2024, this fell to around half of the vote. Now, the Green Party leads by 19 points among Progressive Activists.  The party’s rise has been fuelled by progressive voters who feel that they no longer have a home with the Labour Party.

You can read Tom Calver’s great writeup of the findings in the Sunday Times here.

What moments from Scottish politics have cut through?

With just over a month until Scots go to the polls, how do they feel about the SNP’s record in government? We asked Scots what they had heard about a range of policies and controversies over the past several Scottish governments, and whether each reflected well or badly. The grid below gives a clear sense of what has cut through, and what is shaping the government’s reputation ahead of the election.

The big challenge for the SNP heading into the elections is not dissimilar to Labour’s struggle in Westminster; there are some popular policies, but these appear to be overshadowed by scandals and missteps.

Many of the SNP Government’s policies are, on their own terms, popular with the public. Where they cut through, they tend to land well. Abolishing prescription charges is well-known and strongly supported, as are policies like free school meals, free bus travel for under-22s, free tuition, and the Baby Box.

But beyond this top tier, there is a second group of policies that are also well-liked but far less visible. Free personal and nursing care is the best-rated item tested, and free NHS dental care for under-26s is similarly popular, yet few Scots know much about these. Rent caps and the ban on no-fault evictions fall into the same category. These present missed opportunities for the Scottish Government. 

That matters because these positives are being crowded out by a set of highly salient negatives. The police investigation into the SNP is the single most widely recognised issue, and 57 per cent say it reflects badly on the government. Close behind is Scotland’s record on drug deaths.

Some scandals carry particular weight. “iPad-gate” - the controversy over a £11,000 roaming data bill on a ministerial iPad - is one of the most high-awareness scandals with strongly negative reactions, and while the Neil Gray car controversy stands out as especially toxic among those who have heard of it, it has not fully cut through yet.

Our polling suggests that the SNP may be set to win another clear victory in Holyrood next month, yet it also finds that seven in ten Scots feel it is time for change, and we could see Reform UK break through for the first time North of the border. Much like in England and Wales, anti-incumbency in Scotland is likely to be prevalent at this election.

Read the full research below.

That’s all for this week - thank you for reading! And as always, let us know what you think.

All the best,

Luke