Voters are not listening

New research uncovers the gap between what politicians say and what voters notice

Polls before last week’s Labour conference showed the party in deep trouble. The first post-conference polls have brought no relief. Ministers are – and if they aren’t, they should be – asking two questions:

** What has the government done to put off so many voters? and

** Why is it getting little credit for the things it has done to set Britain on the right course?

Fresh data helps to answer both questions. I am grateful to Kai Hain, a research executive at Opinium, for sharing them with me The polling company asked more than 2,000 electors what has been the best thing the government has done since last year’s election – and what has been the worst. Respondents were not restricted to a tick-box list. They could say what they wanted.

In response to each question, some left the space blank; some wrote “nothing”; some gave a single answer; and quite a few listed a number of things that were on their minds. Together, Opinium’s data give us a revealing insight into the mood of a wary electorate.

The analysis here concentrates on three groups: voters who have stayed loyal to Labour, those it has lost since last year, and those who have joined its ranks having not voted or who supported another party last year. These are the voters whose choices at the next election will decide whether or not Labour wins a second term. Maximizing its support among these three groups is vital: fresh converts from the rest of the electorate would be icing on the cake.

Part of the story is predictable. The three things that most upset voters are Labour’s record on immigration, the winter fuel allowance, and the economy. This is true for Labour loyalists, as well as voters who have deserted it to left (Greens or Liberal Democrats) or right (Reform or the Conservatives). Deserters to the right mention immigration most, those to the left put the winter fuel allowance first. But the larger picture is that the disappointment list is similar across the board – among loyalists as well as both kinds of deserter.

Far behind the top three issue are also-rans: smaller numbers of respondents who mentioned Gaza, and/or insufficient progress on housing costs and the NHS.

As for Labour’s successes, party loyalists give the government most credit for economic and social measures, including raising the minimum wage, preserving the pensions triple lock, free school breakfasts, and starting to improve Britain’s infrastructure. Labour’s record on the NHS also scores reasonably well, but not outstandingly. Smaller but still significant numbers mention climate change, defence (including Ukraine), and new policies on workers’ rights and Britain’s relations with the EU.

Deserters give Labour little credit for anything. As for Labour’s new voters, the NHS gets ten favourable comments; nothing else is mentioned by more than one or two (out of 84) respondents that have joined Labour’s camp.

Like Sherlock Holmes’s dog that didn’t bark in the night, the most significant findings from Opinium’s survey are the things that nobody mentioned. It has uncovered whole kennels full of silent dogs.

Here are some of the achievements that ministers frequently talk about. Out of 560 past and present Labour supporters polled for the survey, not one person mentioned any of them.

Four other bits of Labour’s record just escaped joining that list, by being mentioned in each case by a single Labour loyalist (out of 244) : extending free childcare, imposing VAT on school fees, reducing the voting age to 16, and settling the various public sector strikes after winning last year’s election.

Plainly some respondents will be conscious of some of the things on that list, but feel other achievements matter more, so did not include them in their responses to Opinium. However, given that a fair number could not think of anything Labour has got right, while others listed a variety of things, the fact that not one current or former Labour voter mentioned any of the 16 items tells us something important about the trouble Labour is in. Ministers keep telling us what they have done, but voters aren’t hearing them. If the government has a communications strategy, it isn’t working.

What about the other side of the coin: the worst things that Labour has done? Here is another list. This one relates to criticisms of Labour records which Labour voters past and/or present seem either not to have noticed or not to care much about.

Yes, the fate of Non Doms appears in both lists: the government’s plans have fired up neither their supporters nor their opponents. It’s much the same with Europe. There is no sign of a widespread demand among the voters of concern to Labour, either to reinforce Brexit or to reverse it. The appearance of VAT on school fees on this list is also worth noting. A number of non-Labour voters plainly hate it; but nobody in this survey who has deserted the party since last year includes it in their “worst” category.

Two weeks ago I referred to YouGov polls in the past showing that voters felt more favourable about their local public services, which they could judge from personal experiences, than about the same services nationally, which they judged from media reports. A new YouGov survey shows that this gulf in perceptions is even wider than it was in the Blair/Brown era. This is the public verdict on today’s NHS: local service, good 55 per cent, bad 38 per cent; national service, good 27 per cent, bad 63 per cent. Another example of ministers not getting their message across as well as they might hope.

What, then, is to be done? I doubt that long, disparate lists of achievements are the way to voters’ hearts. When Gordon Brown was prime minister, a video used to be played before the leader’s annual conference speech reminding delegate of all the wonderful things Labour had achieved since 1997. It warmed the hearts of the faithful. Some found the emotion overpowering. But it didn’t help Labour at following election. And as those NHS poll figures show, Labour’s messaging problems are worse today than they used to be.

EM Forster got it right in Howards End: only connect. Labour needs a story, and a list is not a story (except, of course, for those of us who write about them). The party needs to tell of successes that connect with each other, and which are all seen to flow from the effective implementation of a clear plan for Britain. Peter Hyman, one of the smartest members of Tony Blair’s team in its salad days, has written a useful guide to how to win big political arguments. It’s not rocket science; but it does need skill, care, discipline and determination.