Labour’s exam question for the new year is: how can it reconnect with a tetchy electorate? Just before Christmas, an admirably clear report, “Thin Ice”, from Compass, a left-leaning campaign group, offered a firm answer. It received a lengthy, and friendly, write-up in the Guardian.
The report’s central argument is that the UK has an inbuilt progressive majority that Labour needs to woo by moving to the left. It supports this view with new polling evidence. The Compass report says: “the results are resoundingly in favour of progressive policies”.
I wish I could endorse this conclusion. Sadly, I can’t. I fear this is an example of a habit common to enthusiasts across the political spectrum: using polls for ammunition rather than analysis. “Thin Ice” looked for data that confirmed its outlook—and found it. Using the same format, I commissioned different questions. Their results tell a different story.
In both cases, reputable companies carried out the polls: Opinium (for Compass) and Deltapoll (for me). The figures themselves can be trusted. It’s the conclusions that need to be scrutinised.
The questions all start by asking: “Would the Labour party supporting the following issues make you feel more or less favourable towards them?” Two of the Opinium questions involved substantial amounts of public spending:
In both cases, “more favourable” outnumbers “less favourable”, though the large numbers saying “neither” or “don’t know” should warn us that much of public opinion is soft, and views could change.
In particular, those questions omit the issue of how to find the money to pay everyone a basic income and all pensioners the winter fuel allowance. My version, given to Deltapoll’s respondents, has the same preamble, but repairs that omission:
As those figures show, support for both measures falls sharply, when they are presented not as cost-free benefit but a tax-versus-spend trade-off. A plurality still favours ending the means test for the winter fuel allowance, but much more narrowly. Support for a universal basic income falls to one in four.
One other “Thin Ice” proposal does not produce a “progressive” plurality at all, even when its tax cost is omitted: just 29 per cent told Opinium they would regard Labour more favourably if it removed the two-child cap on child benefit; 30 per cent said they would regard Labour less favourably.
Tax-and-spend issues, then, divide the country. This does not mean that Labour can’t win an argument based on policies that raise more money to fund better services and a fairer society. The moral case is strong. But it does mean that there is currently no “progressive” majority for doing so.
Another set of results for “Thin Ice” addresses wider political and constitutional issues. Each of them is less attractive than the poll figures suggest.
Two decades ago, the Blair government wanted each English region to have its own elected assembly. It found that support for this was highest in the northeast, so it held the first referendum there, in order to set an example and build momentum in the rest of England.
The referendum campaign was a disaster. Opponents challenged the cost, and the need for an extra layer of elected politicians. Support for reform drained away. The plan was rejected, with 78 per cent voting against it. The whole England-wide project was abandoned. As with the tax-and-spend issues, the case for change is strong. But don’t assume public support for such a project will stay the course.
Voting reform tells a similar story. This is what Opinium found:
In 2010, as part of the deal to take part in the Conservative-led coalition, Nick Clegg insisted on a referendum to change the voting system. To be fair, the proposal put to the public was very modest, and could not properly be described as proportional. However, it was a step in that direction. The Alternative Vote’s very modesty, for example keeping local constituencies, should have made it acceptable to voters who might be wary of a system that produced more fragmented election outcomes.
Early polls, in October 2010, pointed to a clear majority for change. ICM, which went on to give the most accurate eve-of-poll forecast, found a 56 per cent majority for reform. But, as with regional devolution, the more voters heard about the plan, the less they liked it. Seven months later, it ended up being defeated by 68 per cent.
As a general truth, it’s wise to treat with caution “peacetime” polls on issues of limited public interest. The results cannot be relied on to anticipate future enthusiasm or distaste. I, too, think our voting system needs changing; but I don’t cherish the illusion that millions of voters share my views.
Here’s another “Thin Ice” finding that isn’t quite as encouraging to the left as it seems:
The poll numbers are sufficiently strong to suggest that the tide of public opinion is running in favour of this policy. Polling research that I reported two years ago for the Tony Blair Institute also found widespread public support for nationalising all the big utilities—when the questions were posed in isolation. But the more our survey explored the issue, the clearer it became that few voters were exercised by the ideological arguments on either side. Their concerns were cost, quality, reliability and customer service.
Should the present government end up taking over, say, Thames Water, there would be little public resistance. But to promote the principle of nationalisation as a progressive imperative would be to misinterpret the public mood.
Let us turn to some issues that “Thin Ice” omitted, but that I commissioned Deltapoll to ask, again with the same preamble about attitudes to Labour.
Personally, I dislike all these policies intensely. They would do far more harm than good. A savage cut to immigration would wreck the economy, the NHS and social care. Capital punishment has no place in a civilised society. And so on. But we cannot pretend that voters’ views are irrelevant or don’t exist. They contribute to the wider context in which a progressive party must seek support.
(By the same token, the Conservatives should acknowledge that most voters have turned against Brexit, now think the 2016 referendum vote was a mistake and want closer relations with the European Union.)
As I hope this analysis has made clear, I back most of the policies favoured by “Thin Ice”. My quarrel is with its depiction of the public mood. Given that there need not be another general election for four years, here’s a proposal for progressives everywhere, be they government ministers, Compass supporters or anyone else. To be sure, public opinion matters. As a recovering pollster, I could scarcely say anything else. However, it should be used in the right way.
Here is my advice to Labour (and, indeed, all parties). First work out what policies are best for the UK, regardless of what the polls say. Then, and only then, take account of what voters think—and how to win over the doubters. Meanwhile my Labour friends should not pretend there is a firm majority for their progressive ideas when there simply isn’t.
