Steve Akehurst
@steveakehurst
Politics, policy, public attitudes. Work in polling and comms. Director, Persuasion UK. ex- Shelter, civil service and various other things. 🏳️🌈
Some wild shit happening in France too on this, where climate has catapulted into joint 2nd issue for voters (along with inflation) in the aftermath of wildfires. This will subside post-summer i'm sure, but does show voters still pay attention when things get v bad. www.ipsos.com/fr-fr/ce-qui...
Some interesting context: a summer of extreme weather (or, cultural discussion around it) has spiked the issue salience of climate for voters. Is back as a top 5 issue, ahead of housing, education, crime. But elite polarisation means politicians largely still too scared to talk about it for now.
Updated numbers here: Burnham bounce still basically entirely coming from clawing back voters Labour had lost to Greens, Lib Dems and Plaid/SNP. In addition, Burnham now winning 10% of Green 2024 voters - double that from June.
Where is the 'Burnham bounce' coming from? So far, it's largely Labour 2024 voters returning to Labour - mostly those 'progressive defectors' who had previously switched to the Greens. Based on 5 polls with headline VI since 20th July (MiC, Delta, YG, Survation).
Was intrigued by this so went to have a look at how Labour voters values/priorities differ by whether they live in more metropolitan or provincial constituencies. The answer is: not much ! Geography matters at the margin, but a Lab voter in Makerfield is not that different to one in Hastings.
Along similar lines, associating Net Zero with high energy costs intuitively lands with core Reform 2024 voters but nobody else. Most just don't think about it much at all beyond passive support. Except for Lab/Green voters for whom it's still v important to be solid on it!
...so you drive voters to the Greens while not bringing back (or over) any from Reform or the Tories. In this sense, Lab coalition is pretty together on it. It’s the Con vote that's more split between what’s left of the Goldsmith environmental types and new wave NZ skeptics
Weird thing is most testing will show you that one of the most vote losing positions Labour could adopt is explicit anti-Net Zero signalling. This is because climate still disproportionately matters to Lab/Green voters while Lab/Reform voters don’t care either way...
This is *just an experiment* but tells us: 1. There’s lots of elasticity in Lab vote which gets catalysed by CoL populism 2. It unites Burnham’s Makerfield coalition nationally (unites left, pulls over soft Cons + Reform). Combining it with being clear anti-Reform option is a winner
To stress test, then, we had a condition where people were equally exposed to both a CoL platform AND a standard Reform platform (see full deck for it). Doing this reduced Lab’s advantage a bit but, in a Lab vs Reform squeeze, still left them with a majority.
If you combine people seeing this platform with a ‘it’s Labour or Reform in this election’ squeeze message, you end up with Labour on 47% and an increased majority. This is the absolute upper end of what’s do’able, realistically – so we wanted to stress test it more.
The second group, though, were asked how they’d vote if Labour stood on the below platform – established from aforementioned testing. This saw a sizable jump (15ppt) in Labour vote share and seats – to 358 seats. Massive improvement on status quo trajectory.
To get to a platform, then, we threw 50+ ideas from new economy thinkers into RCT testing – judging them by ability to move Lab’s vote but also *grab attention* (crucial). More on policy wording + how we did this in full deck (it's cool!) but the results gave us this shortlist:
Nice of this cafe in Sarajevo to pay tribute to our fallen leader this week
They’re calling it the quote on British politics that ended the need for all other quotes
Elsewhere, a few other bits. Cost of living populism measures unsurprisingly popular in Makerfield. Electoral reform - people can see the system is rubbish but it struggles for salience.
Candidate quality: salience x ownership. AB was safe on the basics of being a good local MP (ofc important for hygiene) but all his strengths are national change. The more the fight became a national one, the more the stakes were raised, the better it was for Labour campaign.
This conditions what his voters see as his weakness: whether he's just more of the same. It's NOT 'he's using Makerfield'. This only really chimed with voters outside AB coalition. It was a rubbish attack imo since Lab voters (or any) arent dumb, they saw what was happening and liked it!
What attracted voters to Burnham? Among voters overall, his strongest card was the chance to replace Starmer. But among the Burnham coalition, strikingly, the top pro-AB quality was his *platform on taking back control of public essentials*. Plus yes anti-Starmer angles.
Burnham's Makerfield coalition looks a lot like what Labour needs to win nationally. He united progressives (retaining voters that Lab is losing nationally to left or apathy) and hoovered up Greens/Libs. Then plugged losses to Reform with soft 2024 Cons + Reform voters.
The first thing to say is a reminder that this should have been a comfortable Reform win. Labour over-performed what national polling says should have been the result by 30-odd points. This is really very largely down to a unique connection voters in GM have with Burnham.
Small irritation but by this logic, the Greens ‘handed’ Reform victory in Runcorn. Or a split left has handed the Conservatives basically every election victory in forty years. Split blocs only matter when it’s on the right apparently 😃
Dodgy graphic from a dodgy org but vaguely useful lesson in polling. ‘Stay Out’ includes ppl who want a closer relationship. This doesnt contradict polls showing a Rejoin majority, it shows you the question being asked matters. Force a binary and Rejoin wins. If not, there’s a spectrum of views.
Obviously Lab->Reform or even Reform -> Lab (!) switching here 'counts twice' so even tiny effects can't be totally dismissed. But it's just - as ever - a lot else going on under the bonnet. Here's the underlying numbers for the first graph (too much going on for its own graph).
One for bloc politics fans: How should we understand the'Burnham bounce' in Makerfield? His power seems mostly in bringing back Labour 2024 voters from indecision/apathy (or other left parties), plus consolidating the left. Impact on Lab->Reform switching relatively limited. (data via Survation)
No shade to my namesake but this might be the most Labour Party tweet of all time. Factional warfare through the means of brand guidelines