2025: Poll picks
British public opinion: five things to look out for this year
Former U.S. Vice President, Dan Quayle is one of several people associated with the quote, “It is difficult to make predictions, especially about the future”. As well as raising a wry smile, the quote feels more relevant than ever. As the twenty first century reaches its first quartile, the one certainty is uncertainty.
It is far more sensible, and safer, to raise questions, to identify things to watch out for, to consider signals of profound change. And here’s my pick of five aspects of public opinion to watch out for this year.
1. Issue salience.
On current trajectories, the NHS and economic issues will likely remain salient this year as things people consider consequential. This may be due to their own experiences, what they see, hear and read about in the media, or because of the prevailing political discourse.
By calculating the annual average mentions in Ipsos’ monthly Issues Index for the past few years — as I have done, shown in the chart below — we can smooth out the effect of exceptional months when issues gained uncharacteristic prominence (such as crime after last year’s riots). Mentions of inflation, like inflation itself, have proved sticky. As Europe and Brexit have faded as top-of-mind concerns — quite literally in the chart — immigration and the NHS have become darker, more salient shades.
What worries people reflects media and political attention but can also shape it; a case of push and be pulled. Rishi Sunak chose to promote his ‘stop the boats’ aim in response to public disquiet, but in doing so likely attracted further attention and his government’s inability to achieve change.
What will matter to people, and politicians, during 2025?
2. The state of public services.
Will people discern improvements in public services (and will there even be any improvements in public services this year for people to detect)?
When commentators talk about public services, they often focus on the NHS and rightly so because it commands a huge chunk of public spending. Its health influences our health. But, if it is the “nearest thing Britons have to a religion”, polls show people losing their faith. Last year, Ipsos found Britons’ ratings of NHS hospitals were down 39 percentage points since 2021, and ratings of GPs down 30 points. More recently, only 31% expressed satisfaction with their local GP and NHS hospital services.
Already this year, some patients in England have been waiting up to 50 hours for treatment in A&E departments. A winter crisis in the NHS is now so normalised, no-one seems surprised anymore. The new Labour Government is throwing the kitchen sink at improving the NHS — more money, more policy and this month talked of “unleashing” AI to help.
Will anything start to work? Will experience and perceptions improve?
3. Economic optimism.
As the House of Commons Library put it, “Business and consumer sentiment can give an early indication of economic trends”.
The default position of Ipsos’ Economic Optimism Index is more negative than positive and can be out of kilter with economic realities; even during (rare) periods of economic growth in Britain, people haven’t been especially positive. In 28 years since 1997, the annual average Index finished positive just twice.
Business sentiment is at low levels, not dissimilar to that recorded after the mini budget in 2022. The British economy is “still stuck in the muck” according to Danni Hewson, head of financial analysis at AJ Bell. He’s not alone. In its Budget report, the OBR forecast GDP growth of 2% in 2025; 1.8% in 2026, and then around 1.5% from 2027 onwards. Even this might be hard to achieve and, anyway, it wouldn’t prompt public celebrations — GDP growth is a relatively abstract concept for most.
What matters more is people’s sentiment about their own personal finances and prospects, the pound in their pocket (these days, in their app). At the end of last year, 77% of Britons thought that ‘prices in my country will increase faster than people’s incomes’ during 2025.
Will they be right? Will we see ‘green shoots’ in the economy and in sentiment?
4. Labour’s ratings.
So-called ‘honeymoon periods’ for new governments and Prime Ministers appear to be a thing of the past. According to Ipsos, seven in ten Britons are dissatisfied with the way the Government is running the country. At the same point, David Cameron’s Coalition Government attracted the opprobrium of around four in ten.
Sir Keir Starmer’s personal satisfaction ratings after five months were the weakest of all Prime Ministers measured by Ipsos going back to the late 1970s. There have been mutterings about his future, and that of Chancellor Rachel Reeves. While this says a lot about ‘horse race’ journalism obsessing about who is up and who is down, it will be of concern to party strategists.
In some ways this shouldn’t surprise us — the Labour Party has been more liked than Starmer for a long time now. Their election victory owed more to dislike of the Conservatives than their perceived merits, and they have got off to a shaky start (plus, politics is fickler than it once was too). But getting some credit in the bank matters even for a government with a large majority and time on its side.
What can the Labour do to change the mood around its performance?
5. Local views.
Some of Labour’s most consequential first steps in office look set to change the dynamic between central and local government. Reforms to the planning system aim to replace a discretionary system with something more rules-based and productive. This potentially creates some friction with the public who tend to prefer locally made decision-making about housebuilding and want to understand ‘why’, ‘how’ and ‘where’ as well as ‘how many?’
Labour has moved to address so-called ‘devolution desserts’, home to just under 30 million people in England who live in places without any form of devolution. As well as announcing four devolution deals, it published the English Devolution White Paper heralds significant restructuring of local government to create fewer, larger unitary councils.
The LGA described this reform as “…an emotive and polarising issue for some of our member councils.” Losing a local council to be replaced with something apparently more remote, strikes hard at ‘loss aversion’ and people’s sense of identity. This could be a jarring experience for enough people in enough areas to bring on a political headache nationally as well as locally.
“All politics is local” so the saying goes. Will politics in 2025 become more local?
