Starmer, Burnham and political chaos: What do the public think of Keir Starmer in focus groups and polling, and what do they want to happen next?
Britain’s respect crisis: Sharing insights from our latest report with UCL Policy Lab, which shows that respect is part of the diagnosis of what’s gone wrong for the government, and a principle for whoever comes next.
An election debrief: Some of our analysis of last week’s elections across England, Scotland and Wales.
Webinar Invitation: No Overall Control: What’s happening to our politics? Next Tuesday, we’ll be sharing our in-depth analysis of the 2026 elections, what they tell us about our politics, and what happens next for each nation and each party.
And don’t forget, you can now hear us discussing these findings in our Opinion Brief Podcast, released every Thursday in time for your morning commute. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts here:
In yesterday’s episode, we explored what has driven the public’s loss of faith in the Starmer premiership, what the public want to see happen next, and also answered some of your questions about the elections! We were delighted to have some really interesting questions, and thought it was a great way to start a conversation about the elections and what they mean.
Last Thursday’s election results saw the public’s frustration with the first two years of this Government, and their anger at the political status quo fundamentally reshape our politics. As a result, insurgent political parties who offer something different to business as usual benefited.
Despite this Government having run on a manifesto that led with ‘change’, the public’s desire for something new appears to be as strong as ever. Nearly half the country (46 per cent) think a change of Prime Minister this year would be good for Britain, compared with just 18 per cent who think it would be bad. More significantly, even among those who voted Labour in 2024, opinion tilts the same way: 41 per cent say a change of PM would be good for the country, while only 28 per cent say it would be bad.
In focus groups, we often hear from Britons who feel that Keir Starmer has become an absentee Prime Minister, often “missing”. While many give him credit for his diplomacy and skilful handling of Trump, Iran and Ukraine, they are far less positive on the domestic level. Many think that he lacks vision, and in particular strength - those who voted Labour often feel that he has diluted his Labour values in the face of external pressure.
Alongside this, many see the Prime Minister as out-of-touch and insincere. There are also perceptions of him being detached from ordinary people and dishonest. These themes all came across strongly in a focus group in Tameside on Tuesday - an area which swung dramatically from Labour to Reform last week.
“(Starmer’s) always on the missing list isn’t he? You never know where he is. You never see him, you never hear from him. (...) At least Boris used to get out and about, do you know what I mean. What is (Starmer) doing? Where is he going? I don’t know what he stands for. I don’t have a clue what his morals, his ethics are.”
Louise
“They’ve not handled these situations well at all. It’s because there’s been no vision at the top.”
Ben
The question is can the Prime Minister get a renewed hearing? This week, we asked Britons what actions the Government could take that would signify a genuine change of direction: a cabinet reshuffle, bringing in ministers from other Labour governments, updating their ‘missions’.
Across almost all of these measures, Britons said they signify ‘more of the same’. While reshuffles were once used to show a fresh start, 54 per cent of Britons say they represent ‘more of the same’, a continuation of years of political turmoil.
But it would be a mistake to say that the problems start and end with Keir Starmer. The public’s sense of hopelessness is deeper than just one figure at the top. Although many Britons now think we need a new Prime Minister, few think this will bring an end to the chaos.
Three in ten Britons (31 per cent) think it would make politics more chaotic; only 21 per cent think it would make it less chaotic, and a further third think it would be the same. If there is to be a new Prime Minister, they may only have a very short window to show that they represent something genuinely different and can both bring about change and restore stability to politics.
“Whether he does (resign) or he doesn't, I don't think anything's going to change, (...) They’ve had all these times to make a difference and I just haven't seen it, so I've just sort of lost faith.”
Shanice
“I think there's a massive open space for somebody to come in and offer a better option, but it's not out there just at the minute.” Richard.
You can hear us discussing public opinion on government chaos, the Prime Minister, and his potential successors on this week’s episode of the Opinion Brief Podcast:
Our report released last week, in partnership with the UCL Policy Lab, examines a core driver of dissatisfaction with the Government: respect, or a lack of it.
In the run up to the last General Election, More in Common and UCL Policy Lab identified a lack of respect for ordinary people and their contribution as one of the biggest sources of frustration not just at the then Conservative Government, but right across Britain’s institutions.
Following the election, it seemed that there was an opportunity for the Labour Government to pick up the ‘respect mantle’ and indeed Starmer referenced respect in his pitch to the public. However, the promise of a respect agenda has not met with the reality of impressions of the Government so far.
Only 19 per cent of Britons think the Government respects people like them, and three in four (73 per cent) say it respects them only a little or not at all.
This isn’t all about delivery. The main reason four in ten (42 per cent) people feel disrespected is not a failure to get things done, but a more fundamental sense that politicians look after their own interests rather than those of ordinary people. This perception of self-interest has been compounded by the scandals and sleaze stories that came to define the Government's first year. Too many of its early decisions were overshadowed before it could build a record on the things people actually care about. For many, the Mandelson saga has come to exemplify this: a sense that the wealthy and powerful operate by different rules.
Into that vacuum, insurgent parties are moving. Reform UK and the Greens - very different in almost every respect - are now both seen as more likely than the mainstream parties to respect people who work hard, do the right thing, and contribute to their community. They are appealing to very different segments of the public, but both are filling the space that Labour and the Conservatives have left open.
Looking at individual politicians, the figures the public are most likely to feel respect them are Andy Burnham and Kemi Badenoch. This is what unites them in the public's eyes, despite sitting at opposite ends of the political spectrum.
In the coming months, we’ll be doing more analysis of what happened in the elections last week, but it’s clear that the concept of respect needs to be part of the diagnosis of what’s gone wrong for the government. It will also be an important North star for whoever comes next.
We'll be releasing full analysis this weekend and hosting a webinar to give you the complete picture, but here are the key themes we saw play out.
England: the insurgent election
In the local elections, voters expressed a complete rejection of the two-party system. We saw an almost gravitational toward insurgent parties, with Reform eroding what’s left of Labour’s Red Wall while the Greens undermined their urban stronghold.
Arguably the main winner at these elections was ‘no overall control’. The fragmentation we saw emerge in the 2024 General Election is evidently now a feature, not a glitch, of our system. As a result, there are now more councils than ever where no party has a majority.
Labour's vote share collapsed most sharply in areas of high deprivation, and in focus groups a recurring theme is a sense that the social contract in Britain is broken. Younger graduates moving to the Greens describe following the rules but still struggling with housing and debt; those moving to Reform describe a feeling that hard work no longer pays, that "you're a mug for playing by the rules."
Scotland: the "meh" election
In Scotland, the dominant story was disengagement. Voters went into the election wanting change but found no clear change candidate: many are disillusioned with nearly two decades of the SNP, yet equally sceptical of the Labour Government in Westminster. The result was low turnout, falling to 53 per cent, ten points below 2021 and almost reaching parity with Wales for the first time.
The SNP bore the brunt of anti-incumbency, losing an average of 10 points in their constituency vote share - their weakest result since 2007 - yet fragmentation allowed them to maintain a healthy lead as the largest party. Interestingly, these losses cut across the independence divide. The vacuum in support left by incumbent parties was filled by insurgents. Reform UK and the Green Party won seats in every region. For Reform, this meant a breakthrough as the party gained seats in Holyrood for the first time. The Scottish Greens, meanwhile, returned their best ever result.
Wales: the change election
Perhaps saving the most dramatic result until last: if the results last week have now made the government look like it’s going to collapse, it may be Labour’s collapse in Wales that the history books attribute this to.
The last time Labour lost an election in Wales, women were not allowed to vote unless they were over the age of 30 and owned property. The year was 1918.
From 1922 until 2026 - as long as Britain has had universal suffrage - Labour never again fell below first place in a Welsh election. And since the creation of the Senedd in 1999, Labour has always led the Welsh Government, never falling below 30 per cent of the vote.
Before Thursday 7 May 2026, Labour dominance was a fundamental feature of Welsh politics. The party’s collapse to just 11 per cent of the vote (tying the Conservatives) marked the end of an era in Welsh history.
Plaid Cymru made sweeping gains far beyond their traditional Welsh-speaking base, driven by three forces: progressive voters deserting Labour, a rallying of those who want to take the fight to Reform, and a broader desire for a party that speaks for Wales, not Westminster.
Reform's gains, meanwhile, were most intense in Labour’s former heartlands - the party exceeded 30 per cent in ten Welsh constituencies, most of them Leave-voting areas where Labour had overperformed as recently as 2024.
Webinar Invitation
No Overall Control: What is happening to our politics?
Next Tuesday at 11am, we’re hosting a webinar to share our post-election analysis: an in-depth briefing on the state of politics in 2026.
We’ll cover…
What drove the results last week and what trends did we see across the elections?
What do the parties’ new voter bases look like? A detailed new profile of each voter group.
How has the landscape changed in Scotland and Wales?
What are the implications for the next general election?
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