Steve Akehurst
@SteveAkehurst
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Politics, policy, public attitudes. Work in polling and comms. Director of @Persuasion_UK . ex- @Shelter & civil service. 🏳️🌈
Deptford, London
Joined April 2009
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Pinned Tweet
How does opinion map across Labour constituencies on the big issues likely to shape this Parliament?
🧵on some MRP research for
@IPPR
/
@Persuasion_UK
out, featured in
@NewStatesman
today.
We find significant 'room for manoeuvre' on several issues, less so others. /15
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A country where everything is expensive but nothing works.
Quite big national decline vibes around at the moment
Paddington is chaos right now - trains cancelled while everyone tries to get out of London
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This Cummings testimony is why i'll never understand conspiracy theorists. Most of the time in government, most people don't know what the fuck is going on. Frightening but true
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This is the sort of innocuous visibility of trans people in public life that went without comment 15 years ago.
Depressing and disorientating to see Britain go backwards on a LGBT issue.
ITV news did a piece about the impact of soaring water bills on an everyday mother. So naturally they got a man to play the part.
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Labour won because it increased its vote share in places it needed to win, losing votes in places it could afford to (including to tactical voting).
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People say public service doesn’t exist but this is a man richer than god choosing to spend his time earnestly pretending to be enthusiastic about a team he’s never heard of in a sport he patently doesn’t like. Inspiring.
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New
@Opinium
polling shows UK public overwhelmingly fear the costs of inaction on climate change more than the costs of action.
Completely contrary to what a small number of MPs have been arguing recently.
#ukclimate
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I wrote something on 'the Blue Wall' - socially liberal suburban seats long held by the Conservatives but which are trending away from them. I think they get less attention than they should
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One of the few times I’ve felt genuinely embarrassed to be British was hearing from friends shaken down by the UK’s extortionate visa fee system.
It’s disgraceful and exploitative - and about to get worse. Depressing.
UK visa application fees are about to increase “significantly,” says PM Rishi Sunak
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This is a great thread.
Reform should be taken seriously, but not exaggerated.
Viewed from 2015, we've mostly seen the same ~15% of voters grow, collapse into the Tory vote, then re-spawn.
It's not some new massive surge in right-populist voting.
Reform 2024 (4 million votes, 5 seats)
30% in 10 seats
98 second places
Ukip 2015 (4 miillion votes, 13%, 1 seat)
> 30% in 8 seats
120 second places: "a springboard for 2020?"
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Great point because absolutely nothing in this process thus far has been contrived to put pressure on the police. All high integrity stuff up to now
This surely puts unfair pressure on the officers of Durham Constabulary? Why not wait for officers to complete their investigation and respond to what ever happens next?
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Neglected fact: getting more housebuilding is about more than planning reform.
Here’s an important graph for understanding that:
Developers have consistently under-delivered on their planning permissions for years.
🧵 on why and why it matters
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Who is winning the argument on energy independence with the British public?
Right now, it's the green side of the debate - by quite a margin. A clear mandate for an expanded focus on renewables.
New polling by
@OpiniumResearch
for
@ECIU_UK
today.
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There has to come a point when mainstream people appearing on GB News are treated with the same scorn as RT News. It’s becoming more than a circus.
Laurence Fox just did a whole speech on GB News on why men apparently won’t shag me ?
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Starmer is the first Labour leader to have a sustained lead as Best PM in well over a decade. This could sometimes be better reflected in The Discourse imo.
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An uncomfortable fact YIMBYism has to wrestle with:
While some will always oppose housebuilding no matter what, a big chunk of opposition comes from the fact that a lot of housebuilding is actually shit
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Sunak has had a competent start to his time as PM, made no big mistakes and his personal ratings are decent. Yet polling recovery has been minimal.
Either something is wrong with these polls, or the damage done to the Tory brand by the Truss experiment is very deep.
Westminster Voting Intention:
LAB: 48% (+1)
CON: 25% (-1)
LDM: 9% (=)
RFM: 5% (-1)
GRN: 5% (=)
Via
@YouGov
, TBC.
Changes w/ 15-16 Nov.
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Never understood why these stats were brought up to shame Bob Crow. They should put them on his epitaph.
http://t.co/1cDZzZpgBZ
#RMT
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@HughRBrechin
It’s very annoying/confusing when you consider the same thing in a UK context indicates change on the last poll
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By-elections are odd but this lines up with local elections: the scale now of tactical voting - and efficiency of anti-Con vote - should terrify CCHQ.
It’s a big part of why they’re underperforming even low expectations.
That was a *very* effective squeeze on Lib Dems and Greens from Labour
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Astonishing moment when you consider how bad the 2019 result was. To deprive Starmer of credit for this is utterly ridiculous.
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Mum: I’ve bought you a present, something nice for the flat
That present:
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The audience reaction here tells you how fringe a position climate denialism has become in the past ten years.
Even among right-leaning voters, it's tiny. Massively over-represented in our media.
“You've got to adapt to climate change as opposed to thinking you can stop it”
Reform UK’s Richard Tice says “smarter” and “less costly” options such as improving sea defences in the Maldives should be prioritised over net zero commitments
#bbcqt
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Is it a new thing that we demand young singers make complex ethical judgements on topics typically reserved for politicians and organisers, then revel in cancelling them for insufficient purity?
It’s very unpleasant, anyway.
Queers for Palestine sent me their letter asking me to withdraw from the ESC earlier this week and I responded to them directly, I’m sharing my response here alongside this mornings collective artist statement 🩷
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Interesting point from
@TorstenBell
’s new book:
When Govt has fiscal rules which don’t distinguish between day-to-day spend and investment, it inevitably leads them to cut capital spending when they need to find money.
This is often bad for economic growth and productivity.
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An ongoing thread on the risk - to both parties - of reading way too much from Uxbridge/ULEZ into wider voter attitudes on the environment and climate change.
Posting it here not least for posterity. 🧵
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Slightly frustrating to again see climate/environment pitched as a fringe activist concern here.
This has not been true for the best part of 5 years now!
Despite everything, climate remained voters top 3/4 concerns throughout 2022.
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Some new polling to try and get at this "voters support Net Zero but won’t pay for it" zombie take running wild in recent days.
via
@focaldataHQ
(apologies for yet another thread on this but it's been annoying me and, more importantly, is now actively shaping Govt policy!) 🧵
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If you are using the actions of an idiotic minority to typecast English football fans, you are a snobbish bore. It’s almost like a sport of its own on this platform
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Never not relevant
No fewer than five stories today on what the Mail on Sunday are calling the WORK FROM HOME CRISIS.
People working via Teams is apparently responsible for alcoholism, mental health crises and the Taliban’s victory (!?!).
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At this point I’m convinced this movement has become an elaborate psy-op funded by the oil and gas industry
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NEW: What are voters thinking about rising energy bills?
TL;DR it's pretty different to what a small fringe of climate sceptic MPs have been promoting.
Four findings from new polling by
@OpiniumResearch
for
@ECIU_UK
👇🧵
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Whatever mistakes you may think XR (or its offshoots) have made since, their initial action in 2019 looks like it was a really important moment in the rise of climate as a key voting issue
Environment concern reaches a record high in our 'top issues facing the country' tracker. 40% of Brits now list it as being among the top 3 issues facing the country
Rates have been climbing since 2018, and were seemingly boosted by XR protests in 2019
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Can I just make clear there is no excuse for any English person to use “y’all” on this app. You’re from Bedford not New Orleans
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What's pushing people to far-right parties in EU elections?
Useful 6 country poll via
@focaldataHQ
this week.
It's mostly immigration.
(Despite early hot-takes, the salience of climate backlash is low. Far-right voters are more anti green but it doesn't drive their vote)
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I am calling for a total and complete shutdown of British politicos absorbing American political culture until we can figure out what’s going on
Tory source doubles down on "Sleepy Keir" strategy: "Keir pushed back his press conference this morning because he wanted another half an hour in bed."
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Quick early win for a Labour govt: road resurfacing.
Am amazed how often the state of roads comes up with voters. It’s ascended from local politics to visible manifestation of decline/‘everything falling apart’.
Find some money for it and sit on councils until they deliver
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One of the many weird things about this article (apart from the fact Lula has always triangulated) is the idea he didn’t ‘charm CEOs’.
He went out of his way to reassure investors and gain their support. He even did it in his victory speech ffs!
Lula did not win by triangulation. He won by mobilising a coalition of trade unions and social movements, united by the prospect of transformative change.
My piece for
@tribunemagazine
.
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NEW: We've heard what your uncle on Facebook thinks, but what do UK voters at large think about the recent heat wave?
Some new
@OpiniumResearch
polling for
@ECIU_UK
just out, fieldwork Monday/Tuesday this week 👇🧵
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This tradeoff brings vulnerabilities of course - there’s no such thing as a free lunch - but any chat about vote share that doesn’t acknowledge these facts is fundamentally unserious. That’s the end of it.
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Firstly some new numbers to back up an old point: people's willingness to pay for Net Zero is no worse than most other major policy areas. (actually for some its better, incl among swing voters)
It's only the NHS which clear majorities are actively willing to take a hit for.
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Utterly brutal from Ashcroft focus groups for Labour. These are the people that decide elections. cc
@AaronBastani
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One of the things we should all take from this Parliament is voters are far more transactional than in the past.
It’s hubristic to think what’s happened to the Conservatives couldn’t happen to Labour if they don’t deliver or people’s priorities shift suddenly
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What happens when voters see Labour politicians talking about climate change?
A short thread on an interesting new experiment I helped
@LCEF_UK
with - a great new organisation launching today. via
@OpiniumResearch
🧵
#ukclimate
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How do views of UK MPs on climate change compare to the public? In short, there's a few alarming gaps.
A quick thread on new polling with
@ECIU_UK
, plus a few thoughts (some hope and some despair!)
#ukclimate
#cop27egypt
👇🧵
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Interesting new
@OpiniumResearch
constituency polling: leading 'climate sceptic' MPs are out of touch even with their own constituents.
Comes on the day they launch new anti-Net Zero group.
A mark of how marginalised opposition to climate action has become in the UK. 👇🧵
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I am still not sure some parts of Westminster have grasped the hole the Conservatives are in; it’s not just mid-term blues. Wondering if this result might finally change that
More breaking news: Senior source at Mid Beds tells me “whispers” inside the count are that Labour may have won by 3-4,000.”
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Which messages work best to raise support for climate action among UK voters, especially swing voters?
Generally, messages of universal destiny or concern beat more transactional ones. A piece on some new research I have out with
@IPPR
today.
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This is why it’s unfair to say Starmer deserves no credit for Labour’s poll lead.
The first job of an opposition leader is to not be scary - not just to reassure swing voters but make sure you don’t motivate the other side.
This isn’t something other leaders have found easy.
Just 55 per cent of the 2019 Boris Base would react negatively to a Keir Starmer premiership
via
@RedfieldWilton
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Not sure this from
@BBCNews
on Austrian election results is especially helpful or neutral way to frame things...
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I’m 33 and NHS website just let me book a vaccine appointment. For all you other ageing millennials out there, put down your houseplants, stop thinking you can do TikToks and get on it! 💉🌈
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It's a made up policy obviously but 'frequent flier taxes' is an interesting one.
It's an idea toxic with MPs, who think voters will hate it, but consistently very popular with actual voters: +22 overall, +19 even with Con voters (YouGov).
Average voters don't fly much!
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The gap between actual public support for new onshore wind and what voters *think* public support is = much higher in the UK than other European countries.
Good example of how noisy elite/media debate distorts things, making us feel more divided than we are.
#ukclimate
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‘How will voters respond to the governments handling of the fuel crisis?’ they ask.
‘What will the public make of Keir Starmer’s speech?’ they wonder.
The British public:
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How to fix this? Letwin and other work points to:
State-backed development corporations with the power to buy up land cheaply (via CPO if needed) and ‘parcel it out’ at lower cost to a wider range of builders - with obligations on cost, build out speed and quality.
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A quick bit of ‘personal news’: happy to say I have set up a small research initiative to study public opinion in the coming years:
@Persuasion_UK
If you've enjoyed any polling i've put out here in recent years, please do give us a follow!
Short 🧵 on what we'll do and why:
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This is an interesting and revealing interview really.
That liberal graduates have disproportionate cultural power is straight-forwardly true; the idea this shapes our world anywhere near as much as economics is totally demented.
This was one of most interesting parts of my interview with
@GoodwinMJ
I asked him to name 10 left wing journalists (it's allegedly an industry replete with lefties) and he named...Emily Maitliss and Hugo Rifkind 🤔
Full interview:
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Meeting now dissolving into an open argument about whether randomly blaming Jews for things is anti-Semitic. Happy days
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More good news for Lab on Net Zero. Every constituency bar 2 (Clacton & Boston) shares the view we should be moving faster on climate.
Again, not a blank cheque - but shows you backlash to NZ still mostly confined to right-leaning media echo chambers.
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Even in this model, there's so many seats where Conservatives cling on but there's a large Lib Dem or Labour vote in third place.
Reading West, N E Herts, Surrey Heath, Newbury, Mid Cambs etc
Any kind of heightened tactical voting and it could be real carnage.
Here it is! What you've all been waiting for (since I tweeted earlier this afternoon).
We've got a brand new
@YouGov
MRP out.
And it's quite something:
- Labour above 400 seats
- Conservatives lower than in 1997
- Labour largest party in Scotland
- 'Portillo moments' everywhere
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Letwin found on large sites, developers were *intentionally building out slowly in order to keep the price of housing high in that area*.
This is what’s meant by ‘the absorption rate’, an industry euphemism.
The largest sites can take 15 years (15!) to complete for this reason
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The level of skill it takes to create a wedge issue that perfectly cleaves your own side in two while leaving your opponents totally unscathed. Deeply impressive
Rishi Sunak's party 'is now in open civil war'.
Sky's
@BethRigby
analyses the prime minister's news conference outlining the government's Rwanda immigration plan.
📺 Sky 501, Virgin 602, Freeview 233 and YouTube
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Also annoying that climate gets held to different standards.
It’s consistently top 3/4 voter issue, above crime + education, yet gets treated as metro lib fringe issue.
“People like it until they have to pay”. Well ok, that's also true of basically all other areas! eg crime
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@meadwaj
You’re massively over stating how much it’s about climate. AFD switchers are overwhelmingly motivated by immigration. And the 2019 Green vote has mostly gone to other left/centre left parties not the far right.
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Every single mistake of this election campaign can be traced back to Sunak calling it too early when his own side were clearly not prepared.
Still totally dumbfounded by the logic of it.
Day 5 so far:
- Outgoing Tory MP backing Reform to win her seat
- CCHQ accidentally emailed senior Tory MPs saying they weren't working hard enough
- An actual minister criticised the party's first big policy announcement
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I’m sure Embery goes round screaming in the faces of biological women who adopt, “you aren’t a real mother you know!”. Toad.
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For the handful of ppl who follow me here for work stuff, I’m starting a exciting new job today at European Climate Foundation doing polling and comms work on climate change.
Any recommendations on interesting things you’ve read on climate are welcome 🙂
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Will probably go down as one of the most underrated Presidents in my lifetime. The Inflation Reduction Act alone is more than most Presidents get done in two terms.
Sad the job just came too late for him.
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Anyway, that is the thread.
My general plea is that endless rounds of planning reform - just giving big developers more of what they want (consents) - has not moved the dial for a reason.
The problem is more complex and discussion around it should better reflect that.
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In message testing, the idea of Britain leading the world on clean energy is one of the most effective pro-climate pitches with Leave leaning voters.
Labour using this and tying it to other things voters also care about (bills, growth)
#lab22
A Labour government would create a publicly-owned green energy company to turn UK into clean energy "superpower", leader Sir Keir Starmer says
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@TomHCalver
I think the compulsory element is the thing that will make this unpopular with most
Rishi Sunak has announced that he will bring back national service if re-elected, offering youngsters a choice between serving in the military for a year or a scheme to volunteer for one weekend a month for a year
In September we found that 64% of Britons would oppose year-long
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@FootballCliches
Has anyone ever done ‘if different languages Christmas greetings were footballers?’
Happy to negotiate but Frohe Weihnachten is definitely a hard as nails DM
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Yet nobody walks around SW1 sagely stroking their chin, “ah yes people *say* they care about schools/crime but are they willing to pay for it?”
Because we've absorbed the idea NZ simply must = cost + inconvenience. But it needn't.
Get the policy + comms right = voters follow.
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Once again we see that climate is nowhere near as polarising in the UK as newspapers, social media or dare I say it political party leadership contests may suggest.
Thanks to
@ECIU_UK
for commissioning,
@MrJCrouch
&
@OpiniumResearch
for turning around so quickly.
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This is a great resource.
Whatever happens tomorrow, Elections Twitter has been great in this campaign.
So many useful resources out there for making sense of stuff and much of it from people just volunteering their time
Final post of the day
What to look out for tomorrow night by me and
@Beyond_Topline
And a bunch of sites and resources to help you interpret the results.
(£/free trial)
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Hot take: I don’t care if corporates do tacky shit for Pride.
Even when cynical, it signals acceptance of LGBT people to more people. It makes that company easier to influence on LGBT issues.
It’s a mark of success not failure.
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In general worth saying: polling is fucking hard and it’s getting harder for various reasons - so respect and thanks to all pollsters doing their absolute best at this point, on behalf of those of us who sit on the outside !
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Cutting green levies is not popular with voters at large. Thankfully, they understand clean energy is the solution to rising bills not the cause.
#C4LeaderDebate
NEW: What are voters thinking about rising energy bills?
TL;DR it's pretty different to what a small fringe of climate sceptic MPs have been promoting.
Four findings from new polling by
@OpiniumResearch
for
@ECIU_UK
👇🧵
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Advisory warning on discourse to come:
It’s ok to both:
1) Acknowledge the underlying economic conditions need to change if right-populism is not to be triumphant in the near future
2) Still find this all very funny
You don’t have to choose, I promise. x
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Right 'bloc' in Houghton & Sunderland South:
2019: 50.7% (Con 32.9%, BXP 15.5%, UKIP 2.3%)
2024: 42% (Reform 29%, Con 13.8%)
Left:
2019: 48% (Lab 40%, Green 2.8%, LD 5.8%)
2024: 57% (Lab 47%, Green 4.3%, LD 5.7%)
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One for agreeability bias fans everywhere:
it’s possible to generate plurality support both for banning North Sea drilling and expanding it.
Polling!
@YouGov
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V interesting story this.
Labour's plan to borrow £28bn a year to invest in clean energy backed not just by voters, but international investors too.
Business starting to worry about the Conservatives' anti-Net Zero turn.
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This though requires more active and imaginative statecraft than “more permissions” (YIMBY/Treasury default) or “bung Housing Associations more money for social housing” (NGO default).
It was normal in the post-war era, but lost amid the hollowing out of state in Thatcher era.
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Aldershot has never had a Labour MP.
In fact it’s never returned anything other than a Con MP since its creation as a constituency in 1918.
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Extreme weather is woke now?
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LGBT people, including LGBT Muslims, in Batley and Spen have had to endure weeks of Galloway and his travelling band of Stalinist filth whipping up hate against them. Hopefully they’re feeling a bit happier and safer this morning.
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A thread of some random polling bits and bobs which tell us a few interesting things about voters in this election campaign.
All from a survey I ran recently with
@OpiniumResearch
, - leaving here mostly for posterity! 🧵
#GE2024
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Because the state would own the land, they don’t have to prioritise maximum short-term returns - they can lower development costs for builders and thus deliver more homes & better homes.
The landowner loses (tho they still get pretty rich !) but everyone else wins.
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Sorry to be a bore but this really is crimes against election discourse. PNS matters but you can’t apply it like this, apart from as a ‘bit of fun’
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Any media doing PR polling in this area who thinks it clever to run questions like, "would you still support this policy if we slapped your grandma round the chops" should at the least also ask: would you support this if we actually helped you do it.
Oddly, they never do.
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Boring take: there *is* a Whitehall orthodoxy that leads to unimaginative policymaking, resistance to big ideas and managed decline.
But a really good politician anticipates this and overcomes it. It’s literally your job!
SUNDAY TELEGRAPH:
@trussliz
: I was brought down by the left-wing economic establishment
#TomorrowsPapersToday
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Incidentally this also explains many other maladies: it’s why developers cut corners on quality, on infrastructure & affordable housing.
The developer with the best deal for the landowner is de facto the one with the worst deal for consumers.
Is it surprising we get NIMBYs?
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10% is a lot - a higher number of switchers than past elections - and they count double
Only one in 10 voters who supported the Tories in 2019 have switched to Labour, according to a major new poll for Sky News
Read more 🔗
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Consequently, voters prioritise other short term solutions over cutting green levies.
And long-term, they overwhelmingly back green solutions to this crisis as the best.
This goes for those in 2019 Con gains (incl 'Red Wall' marginals) and holds (incl 'Blue Wall').
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Topline: seeing Starmer talk about Labour’s climate commitment increased Lab voting intention by 6-8%.
53% of those who saw this video went on to say they will vote Lab, compared to 45% of those who saw nothing and 47% compared to those who saw him talk public services.
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How do ‘Just Stop Oil’, ‘Insulate Britain’ style direct action protests impact public attitudes to climate action?
Sometimes they work well, but not all publicity is good publicity.
On a new experiment I did with
@OpiniumResearch
:
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@J_D_89
You should listen to his
@FootballCliches
episode. If you’re not familiar, the idea is to pick obscure things about football you love/hate.
For love, he chose ‘goals’ !
Painfully normie in an endearing way.
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