Golden thread
A look back at 50 years’ worth of surveying what matters to Britons
Most survey datasets are considered precious by survey researchers and statisticians, but some have a special quality. They have an extra lustre because they reliably measure the changing preoccupations and interests of British people. So, the 50th birthday of Ipsos’ Issues Index is a cause for celebration and reflection.
Ever since September 1974, Ipsos interviewers (before them, Ipsos MORI and MORI interviewers), have asked a representative sample of around 1,000 Britons to identify ‘the most important’ and ‘other important issues facing the country today’.
Interviewers have a long list of possible responses — the interviewer codes everything that the respondent says into as many categories as are relevant (an ‘Other’ category is used for anything that doesn’t fit). The results from answers to both questions are combined to generate a single Index and, while Ipsos fully accounts for all mentions, publication tends to focus on the top ten.
There are no enforced limits on the number of issues respondents can mention and, crucially, the Index involves no prompting either — that is, no-one is shown a list (necessary within online surveys). This has made it an exceptional measure of what is truly top-of-mind. Researchers don’t have to anticipate what people will want to say, they just capture it.
Quite an innings
Month after month, year after year, with some interruptions and on precisely 485 occasions, the Index has measured what people consider important for the country.
It has captured 45 different issues over the years, everything from ageing to unemployment with BSE crisis, coal/pits, drug abuse, inner cities, local government/Poll tax, petrol prices, the Royal Family and lots, lots more in between. What started out as the ‘Common Market’ became ‘the EU’ and latterly ‘Brexit’. ‘Pandemic/flu’ was repurposed from capturing mentions of avian (bird) flu in the 2000s to Covid in the 2020s.
The Index has been present during the tenures of 13 Prime Ministers and throughout 12 General Election campaigns. Symbolically given its political importance — all politicians want to know, reflect, and sometimes change, what people think matters— the Index originated within polling for the Labour Party. It was designed by Sir Robert Worcester, founder of MORI, shortly before the second election of 1974.
The Index faced its own biggest issue in 2020 when the Coronavirus pandemic forced the suspension of face-to-face in-home interviewing. In response, Ipsos moved to a telephone methodology, protecting the valuable time-series in a way a switch to an online approach couldn’t.
Top ten tells
Even a cursory glance across the top ten issues recorded in September 1974, 1984, 1994, 2004, 2014 and 2024, is informative of the way Britain, and the world, has changed. For example, Northern Ireland featured in the top ten in 1974 but at no time since. The same was true of nuclear weapons in September 1984.
Morality/individual lifestyle was uniquely placed in the top ten in September 1994 — the tabloid press was at its more prurient during this decade and it was mentioned by 6%) -while taxation featured in 2004 (8%) a period when Gordon Brown’ tax credits received considerable attention.
More recently, the environment (combined with mentions of pollution and climate change) has made the top ten having not featured previously — it was only introduced in 1988 — but so too has lack of faith in politics and politicians, a code started in October 2016 because respondents were mentioning it spontaneously in sufficient numbers.
Peak issues
Each decade’s anniversary is a snapshot of concerns at that point and salience can be illusory and transient. For example, on its fortieth birthday in 2014, the Index recorded just one in 12 people (8%) mentioning Europe, but it had reached one in three (35%) on its 42nd birthday, going even higher on its next two (46% and 59%) as Brexit played out.
Crime has been absent from the top ten for years, reaching record lows in 2020, but has climbed recently and reached 25% in August this year — the highest it had been for five years — as lawlessness and rioting took place across Britain.
It has been one of the ever-present issues across the entire history of the Index. Among this group, the NHS has the highest average score across the entire series (at 32%), closely followed by unemployment (30%), then education (20%), crime (19%) and immigration (18%) which had been combined with race relations until October 2014.
The first telephone survey in 2020 was remarkable for another reason — 85% of people mentioned Coronavirus, among the highest scores recorded by the Issus Index, surpassed only by unemployment on a few occasions in the early 1980s.
Economic issues have particularly high ‘bests’ — 82% of people mentioned prices/inflation in the first ever Index in September 1974 and 71% identified the economy in May 2010 following the financial crash and shortly before Labour’s election defeat.
The NHS and Europe have had similar highs, reaching 72% in February 2002 and April 2019 respectively. At most, more than half of people identified education (54%) and crime (55%) — respectively at the start and the end of Tony Blair’s time as Prime Minister. A similar proportion (56%) mentioned immigration in the Autumn before the EU referendum.
Housing and pensions peaked at 27% and 23% respectively while the COP26 summit in Glasgow briefly propelled the environment to a record high of 40% (it fell to 13% a month later).
Other issues have had transient prominence. Mentions of defence/foreign affairs have spiked at the start of conflicts and military action. Nuclear weapons reached 41% in January 1984. Local government and the Poll Tax hit 49% in March 1990 and was the top issue for a few months preceding Margaret Thatcher’s resignation.
Fuel protests in the Autumn of 2000 prompted MORI to include petrol prices as a code and this was initially mentioned by 32% before fading into obscurity although hitting double figures a few times, most recently in 2022.
How it started, how it’s going
The NHS didn’t start as a top ten issue. It was mentioned by just 3% of Britons in September 1974, a tiny fraction of the 82% who identified inflation/prices. That first measure had three issues jostling for second spot — housing (23%), trade unions (22%) and the (then) Common Market (19%).
Ten years later in 1984, trade unions were even more salient (39%) but had been overtaken by unemployment (70%). Equal proportions mentioned crime and the NHS (10%).
Unemployment remained top in 1994 (59%), but the NHS (34%), crime (33%) and education (21%) had risen in the rankings, a foretaste of the rise of Tony Blair’s New Labour.
These same issues were still salient by 2004 and the Index’s, thirtieth birthday, but unemployment wasn’t — it had fallen to just 8%. War in Iraq pushed defence/foreign affairs to top spot on 36%, race relations/immigration had reached 26% and pensions made a rare appearance in the top ten (15%).
After forty years of the Index, race relations/immigration (a month before the code was split in two) was on 39% in September 2014. Concerns about crime and education had softened, while the economy was mentioned by 30%. Housing had returned after decades outside the top ten, joined by poverty/inequality.
In the fiftieth anniversary edition, the Index’s top ten contains a mix of Index old and new. Immigration is just about top, mentioned by 32%, with the NHS (30%) and the economy (29%) close behind. Inflation/prices is not far off 1984 levels, but salience had been higher at points during the cost-of-living crisis. The environment and lack of faith in politics and politicians also have top ten places.
Gold reserves
The Index is a socio-cultural ‘barometer’ which not only records the weather, but influences it too. Like all polls of public opinion, it is partly a reflection of media and political attention but can also shape it.
Its value is its unique longevity. It tells us how Britain and Britons have changed over time — a long time — not just decade to decade or year to year, but month to month.
At 50 years old, the Index is a national treasure and provides us with an indispensable golden thread running through modern British social history. Here’s to a diamond encrusted anniversary in ten years’ time.
