‘Labour has a good plan to fix economic gloom

Elections expert John Curtice has warned that voters are sceptical of the main policies the Government is planning to boost the economy and public services

Voters are not convinced by Labour’s plans to turn around the country by boosting economic growth, Britain’s best-known elections guru has warned.

Sir John Curtice told The i Paper that new research he has helped to lead points to deep scepticism from the public about ideas such as relaxing planning rules and cutting disability benefits.

He suggested that Sir Keir Starmer had picked the right goals by making the economy and the state of the NHS his main priorities – following a collapse in trust in the health service and record levels of worry about people’s personal finances.

The British Social Attitudes survey, published on Wednesday by the National Centre for Social Research (NatCen), finds that 26 per cent of people say they are struggling to live on the income they have, the highest proportion ever recorded.

Just 35 per cent say they are living comfortably, while two-thirds say their income is not keeping pace with rising prices – even though official statistics show average pay is growing well above inflation.

The proportion of people who are dissatisfied with the NHS has also hit a record high, at 59 per cent – up from 25 per cent before the pandemic – with 69 per cent believing the Government spends too little on health despite significant rises in funding over recent years.

Curtice, a senior research fellow at NatCen, said: “Labour’s diagnosis is – one we’ve got to turn around the economy, two we’ve got to turn around the health service. Essentially, in terms of identifying the problem, the Government is in the right place.”

But other parts of the survey find that many voters are opposed to the policies set out by Starmer to boost the economy and therefore improve living standards and the quality of public services.

Only 41 per cent of people support building more homes in their local area, with 32 per cent opposed. In 2018, the split was 57 per cent to 23 per cent, meaning that the public has become much more “Nimby” even amid a growing political consensus that more housebuilding and infrastructure are necessary.

Curtice said: “It’s during the pandemic that you see the rise in the proportion of people say, ‘Oh, hang on, I’m not sure I do want more houses around me locally’ – arguably, people came to value their local environment more.”

He added: “Some of the stuff on the green infrastructure, again, you find that it’s not that there is widespread opposition, but it’s less than half of people who embrace the idea ‘we should make it easier to build these electric pylons across this countryside’ which is clearly what is going to happen if we’re going to rely on electricity more than fossil fuels to be able to find our energy.”

There is also controversy around Government plans to cut disability benefits, with only a majority of voters agreeing that this would be a good idea, according to the research. Curtice said: “The point that I can make about all these things, of course, is that these are all things where there are very potentially clear winners and losers… The benefits of these things are widely distributed, the costs are concentrated. And therefore it’s not necessarily politically an easier win, because you will still end up with potentially local campaigns that would cause difficulties for local MPs.”

He concluded: “At the end of the day, the problem the Government faces is it’s got an enormous, bloody problem to solve, and it ain’t got many levers to pull, and the levers that it’s got to pull have got potential political red flags around them.”

More popular ways of finding more money for public services, according to Curtice, could include hiking taxes on the wealthy and getting closer to the EU.
The British Social Attitudes survey, which comes out every year, finds that only 19 per cent of the public believe that the UK’s political system requires “little or no improvement”, with just 12 per cent trusting the Government to put the country’s interest ahead of its own.