Luke Tryl

🌼🌹On these shares, Plaid and Lab would be able to form a government, Plaid would most likely be the larger party and provide the FM
➡️ Reform would not necessarily be the largest party, although likely the official opposition to a Plaid admin
🌳 Tories reduced to just 7 seats, only 2 ahead of Greens

Seat projection from the same voting intention. Reform UK and Plaid Cymru are tied on seats, with Labour close behind.
➡️ REF UK 28
🌼 PLAID 28
🌹 LAB 26
🌳 CON 7
🌍 GREEN 5
🔶 LIB DEM 2

New 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿Senedd voting intention. Reform UK down and now neck-and-neck with Plaid, while the Greens jump up to tie the Conservatives.
➡️ REF UK 26% (–5)
🌼 PLAID 26% (+2)
🌹 LAB 20% (nc)
🌳 CON 10% (–3)
🔶 LIB DEM 7% (+1)
🌍 GREEN 10% (+5)
N=851, 15/2-3/3 Change with 10/2

oh that's so depressing

No, the name was recognition wasn't high enough so it including on a tracker wasn't a fair comparison - there's no point in comparing the net score of someone with low recognition to the PM. However, Greens have been on our voting intention since we started.

While the partisan differences are margin of error stuff, the age divides are more stark with the Gruffalo (published 1999) edging out more traditional staples such as Paddington and Winnie-the-Pooh.

Paddington, Winnie-the-Pooh and the Snowman are the clear top choices of the public, personally I was surprised that the Hungry Caterpillar did poor. Among those who specified 'other' their top entries were:
Cinderella, Peter Pan, Bambi, Pinocchio and Dragon Ball (?!)

📕It's world book day! So how does favourite children's book vary by voting intention. Despite having been dragged into the culture wars, Paddington is top choice of Tory and Reform voters, for Labour voters it's the Snowman while Winne-the-Pooh comes out on top with Green voters

And if people think things can never get better than why would they stick with the status quo, they will become more willing to roll the dice on something new entirely and further driving the rise of 'burn it all down' sentiment.

In his speech today Andy Burnham cited our poll finding that record numbers now think the cost of living crisis will never end.
Totally right imo it is 'code red' - it's not just that life is too hard for too many at the moment - but people have also lost hope it will get better

Cost of living way ahead top issue, jobs & unemployment continues to tick up

💷 Cost of Living 65%
🏥NHS 36%
🛃 Levels of immigration* 30%
🛥️ Channel crossings* 29%
👷Jobs and unemployment 20%

*47% selecting at least one (excluding double counters) of immigration or crossings

One reason we haven’t included Polanski before on tracker is many say don’t know or neither good/bad which means net scores aren’t a fair comparison, that remains the case but Polanski now has more people expressing a positive/negative opinion than Davey so makes sense to include

Starmer’s approval rating is back close to its all time low at -50, Farage is much higher but -17 is among of his worst scores over the past year. Badenoch is at -12, Davey at -10, Polanski at -8.

Big movements in our voting intention this week
Greens hit at our highest vote share, Labour their joint-lowest
Reform lead Tories by 10

➡️ REF UK 29% (+1)
🌳 CON 19% (-1)
🌹 LAB 18% (-4)
🔶 LIB DEM 14% (nc)
🌍 GREEN 14% (+3)
🟡 SNP 3% (+1)
N = 2,010 | 27/2 - 2/3| Change w 23/02

Also again shows Con-Ref differences - a quarter of Tory voters would most like to vote against Reform. Though it is not shared the other way around only 6% of Reform voters would most want to vote against the Tories.

Striking that Reform have now overtaken Labour as the party people would most like to vote against - very much matches what we heard in Gorton with many voters primary concern less merits of Lab/Green but who could best stop Reform.

it's a nationally representative sample?

Makes sense

Who do Britons trust on the economy? No one really.
26% trust the Conservatives
25% trust Reform UK
21% trust the Liberal Democrats
20% trust Labour
17% trust the Greens

None of this is hypothetical, people aren't imagining struggling despite the data, in focus groups people tell us how they're constantly cutting back, that life feels that little bit worse than before. Half are cutting down on luxuries. Others are taking more drastic action.

Crucially, and this is particularly important in the rise on anti-system parties such as the Greens and Reform, very few Brits believe that they will feel their personal finances improve when GDP is growing - the link between growth and public benefit has been broken for most.

And a major part of the challenge is that Brits simply don't think inflation has fallen. 51% say inflation has increased, almost half say the same of borrowing, while the public are more split on interest rates. Unemployment rising is the only one a majority get right

In fact in our tracker this weekend 59% of Brits said that they now don't expect the cost of living crisis to ever end. That's the highest that we've recorded in the four years we've been tracking when people think the crisis might end.

📈🧵The Chancellor will likely use her spring statement shortly today to trumpet economic indicators pointing in right direction. But the public are far from feeling it. The rise in unemployment has had far greater cut through and negative reaction than falls in borrowing or inflation.

But in short no easy answers I think on this, other than people see signs of life becoming easier/system becoming derigged.

Maybe it is focusing on some specifics rather than party as a whole. E.g drugs policy which comes up a lot in groups even among e.g. those who voted Green in Gorton? But clearly didn't stop them their either, so how effective is that.

Labour seem so far in the tone of their attacks on the Greens to have decided to do the opposite and go full on offensive, maybe learning from Tories, but risk there of course is their soft-left supports don't like that tone/people think it's unfair.

2. Tone: I think there's good evidence for too long the Tories saw the battle with Reform as a family feud, or similar to UKIP 2010s and mostly avoided attacking them as they rose. Entirely right to want to avoid a fruitcakes and gadflys or deplorables moment. But it gave Reform more of a free pass.

Or will it just move onto Greens turf & people go for full fat version it ends up being equivalent of Tory attempt to be 'right but sensible' with 'left but sensible' Interested if there's similar literature on traditional mainstream left trying to outmanoeuvre parties to their left and if it works

Is that also true on the left? One argument gaining traction is Labour needs to tack left to stop the bleeding, but tacking right didn't help Tories (to date). Will Labour tacking left let them win back left voters who can get behind a more clearly social democratic vision,