Despite a dominant right wing press and a broken election system that consistently results in the Conservative party winning power far more often than Labour, the public continue to remain broadly centre-left in their values and aspirations – as you will see from the data below. The data is a sample of a much larger report by the organisation Common Ground which brings together detailed polling data.
We invite Labour, Green and Liberal Democrats party supporters and members to examine public support for the different policies outlined below and to answer two questions:
-Do their party manifesto commitments broadly align with public aspirations set out below?
-If so, why do centre left parties find it so difficult to work together given the huge challenges we as a country face? And what can be done?
You can leave a reply at the bottom.
Climate Change
| Policies that find common ground | Voter Support | |
| (for information sources click the text) | All voters | progressive |
| A Green New Deal for green jobs and infrastructure | 74% | —- |
| A government run Green Investment Bank | 49% | 60% |
| Frequent flyer levies | 68% | 76% |
| Greater investment in flood defences | 61% | 69% |
Why do this?
- Investing in a green recovery could create 1.6 million new jobs after Covid crisis, report finds
- 9 of the 10 hottest years in the UK have occurred since 2002
- 5.2m homes are at risk of flooding from rainfall & rising seas
- Climate change will cost the economy £20bn p.a. by 2050
Housing
| Policies that find common ground | Voter Support | |
| (for information sources click the text) | All voters | progressive |
| Build more social housing | 71% | 77% |
| Additional tax on second and empty homes | 67% | 74% |
| Introduction of rent controls | 74% | 82% |
| Strengthen the rights of private renters | 79% | — |
Why do this?
- 8.4 million people are experiencing a housing problem
- Up to 64% of monthly household income is spent on rent
- Workers spend 7.8 times their salary on buying a house
- 1.5 million people live in poor quality homes
Work
| Policies that find common ground | Voter Support | |
| (for information sources click the text) | All voters | progressive |
| Minimum wage rising gradually to £15 per hour | 65% | 73% |
| Ban zero-hours contracts | 56% | 63% |
| A job guarantee for everyone who can work | 72% | 71% |
Why do this?
- There are 3.2 million people in insecure work in the UK
- Zero hour contracts have increased by 692,000 since 2000
- Real wages are forecast to still be lower in 2026 than 2008
- Wage & wealth inequality is rising, widening rich-poor gap
Utilities and rail
| Policies that find common ground | Voter Support | |
| (for information sources click text) | All voters | progressive |
| Nationalisation of rail companies | 67% | 77% |
| Nationalisation of water companies | 69% | —– |
| Nationalisation of energy companies | 66% | —- |
| Nationalisation of royal mail | 68% |
Why do this?
- Rail fares have risen by an average of 3.4% per year since 2011
- Huge increase in raw sewage released into UK waterways and sea (increase of 2,553% over five years)
- Figures published in August 2022 showed that Britain’s gas producers and electricity generators could make excess profits of up to 170 billion pounds ($198 billion) over the next two years
Tax and the economy
| Policies that find common ground | Voter Support | |
| (click text to see information sources) | All voters | progressive |
| A tax on wealth over £750,000 (excl pension and home) | 63% | 71% |
| 10p Income Tax increase on earnings over £100k | 65% | 72% |
| Higher corporation tax rate | 68% | 78% |
| Closing loopholes to stop wealthy avoiding tax | 87% | 90% |
Why do this?
- Two-thirds (67%) agree that ordinary working people do not get their fair share of the nation’s wealth, up ten percentage points since 2019.
- The richest 1% now own 23% of the wealth in the UK and the richest 6 people own as much as the poorest 13m
- The income share of the richest 1% increased from 7% to 8.3% between 2011 and 2020
- Tax avoidance and evasion cost £7 billion in 2019/20
- Corporation tax cut from 28% to 19% has cost £12bn
Cornwall Compass 
3 responses to “What the public thinks”
You ask why parties find it hard to work together. I think that if a Labour Prime Minister brought these policies to Parliament, many of them would receive the support of Lib Dems MPs, but working together in Parliament is very different to working together during an election campaign!
Whilst each of these policies taken on their own are popular with a majority of voters, each one creates winners and losers, and voters will often vote *against* a party with ten policies they supports because of *one* policy they oppose.
Each different policy adds a different cohort to the pool of opponents, and the FPTP voting system requires progressive parties to compete against one another for the progressive votes, as well as trying to top up their tally by pulling in some conservative voters.
The overall package also has to stack up financially: If we’re going to nationalise everything, build social housing, build flood defences, invest in green stuff, increase foreign aid, support Ukraine against Putin, subsidise energy bills, give everyone a guaranteed job and introduce a £15 minimum wage we’re either going to have to borrow so much that we break the bond market, or raise so much tax that voters start to worry it’s not going to just hit the top 1%, but will end up hitting the average middle-income voter too.
That’s why parties usually try to calibrate their manifesto offers to include just enough to differentiate themselves from the opposition and not include so much that they sound implausible.
Many voters also have strong feelings about one particular party they would “never vote for”. I need to pick up the votes of “soft Conservatives” who would “never vote Labour” and soft Labour voters who would “never vote Conservative”. Standing on an overtly joint platform with Labour would alienate one of these groups.
There are many seats around the country where the Lib Dems are the main opposition to Labour. If we have identical manifestos, how are we meant to run an election campaign against one another?!
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It is difficult to the public to understand common ground amongst progressive parties because investigative journalism and local political reporting have taken a back seat in recent years. Even at a UK level (for example) a recent Kuensberg on Sunday programme had half a dozen centre/right guests and Keir Starmer. Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Greens are under-represented in coverage – and that is just the BBC and ITV. The right wing press are allowed to churn out their bile and lies in the ironic name of press freedom. Many of the listed policies are misrepresented by said papers: ie people would like to have X but fear the consequence of Y.
The second issue is trust. People across parties need to work together to achieve common goals. This means reducing in some cases personal ambition and accepting that territory you once held or had a chance in is now lost ‘forever’. If ‘progressive’ parties end up doing things which are not progressive (like privatisation or tuition fees) their voters loose heart.
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First question: having had had a situation several years ago where I needed to compare a list of “asks” by a Citizens panel against Liberal Democrat policies, I can say that current policies align with or are close to most of those outlined.
Second question: I agree with and can’t add much to what Colin Martin said in this response. In terms of campaigning in local or national elections, a typical voter doorstep question is, “Ok, I don’t want to vote Tory but why should I vote for you rather than Joanna Bloggs?” So although party platforms may be (and having talked widely to activists across the spectrum) pretty much similar *where it comes to viable, costed policies which could be justified & defended in media interviews* , in our system (particularly in an FPTP situation) you have to find ways to differentiate your “brand” from the other brands.
Differences between parties obviously run deeper than that, and there’s also a territoriality involved- parties are emotionally invested in constituencies they have spent decades campaigning for, and are to a great extent beholden to long-standing and fiercely loyal supporters who’ve provided money and time. The word “tribal” has been used as a descriptive in this context: tribal is not necessarily a pejorative term, it’s describing the way groups of people bond and work together to achieve a common purpose.
The allegiances involved, looking at political activity at grassroots level, are held by smallish numbers of people but very strongly- if there are common approaches to be negotiated, it’s probably easier to achieve at levels higher up the hierarchies, but then there’s always the prospect that local groups will defy the higher authority!
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