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Dear friend,

I hope you’re well!

In this week’s newsletter:

• The ‘beer test’: which party leader would Britons rather go for a drink with?
  
  
• Does being likeable matter in British politics? Or is it just about delivery?
  
  
• What did Britons make of Harry and Meghan’s return to the UK? Hint: most don’t care.
  
  
• Ukraine revisited: as Andy Burnham makes his first official visit to Kyiv, where does public opinion stand on Ukraine?

We have a very busy few weeks of party conferences round the corner, and More in Common and our partners are hosting multiple events looking at what the public think about the biggest issues of the day at all seven main party gatherings.

Reform kick things off next week and we have events looking at trust in science with the Wellcome Trust, disagreeing well with UCL, nature with a group of five nature charities and many more, as well as our flagship event for the conference, ‘Where next for Reform?’, at 11am on September 4th. I’ll be joined by guests including Harry Cole, Nadine Dorries, Baroness Claire Fox and Matt Goodwin to explore who is voting for the party, where the party might go next as well as the trade-offs and choices they face.

Visit our website to see every event that we’ll be running across the conferences.

The beer test

Given that summer is drawing to a close, we’ll start on a lighter note. The ‘beer test’ was most famously coined as a concept to explain the likeability gap between a sometimes folksy and rough-and-ready George Bush compared to the wonkish Al Gore.

We decided to test UK party leaders against this metric (broadening a beer to any drink!). 24 per cent of Britons name Burnham as who they’d most like to go for a drink with, edging Farage on 20 per cent and Badenoch on 10 per cent. “Don’t know”, perhaps reflecting that a drink with a politician isn’t everyone’s idea of fun, comes out on top with 35 per cent.

Burnham also leads across other activities such as who would you rather have as your neighbour or have as your boss. He does, however, draw with Farage on who Britons would rather lead them into battle, with nearly half the country (46 per cent) not selecting any party leader.

Badenoch wins in one category: who Britons would rather have babysit a child. 20 per cent pick Badenoch, followed by Burnham on 17 per cent. We can assume that there is a gendered element to people’s responses here, with her being the only female party leader. If you break the results down by gender, men are slightly more likely to pick her as the best babysitter than women do (22 per cent versus 17 per cent), although women are much more likely to pick “don’t know”.

We also carried out some broader research for the British Beer and Pub Association that was released this week.

Instead of asking which party leader they’d rather have a drink with, Britons were asked to pick a historical figure. Winston Churchill - the man often seen as the greatest Briton, who also didn’t mind a drink - emerged on top with ten per cent. He was followed by Queen Elizabeth II on four per cent, Princess Diana and Albert Einstein tied in third on three per cent, then Michael Jackson, William Shakespeare, Jesus and Henry VIII on two per cent. One respondent opted for ‘the Vikings’, which would certainly make for a raucous session.

You can read more about it here.

Does being likeable matter in British politics?

What all this talk of beer really boils down to is likeability.

So does it matter that Britons would rather have a drink with Burnham over the other party leaders? We know that Burnham has an edge on favourability more generally, 39 per cent of Britons have a positive view of him, above the 31 per cent who have a positive view of Badenoch, 27 per cent of Farage, 23 per cent of Davey and 17 per cent of Polanski.

For those who aren’t frontline party figures, on the other hand, the most common view is to express no opinion at all. This week we asked about the favourability of other political figures including the party's economic spokespeople and found that in all cases a majority either didn’t know or had neither a positive nor negative view. A reminder that most of the country don’t live and breathe politics.

But does that likeability matter? Asked if being likeable is part of being a good Prime Minister, the country splits right down the middle with 45 per cent saying it is part of being a good Prime Minister and 45 per cent saying it has nothing to do with it. Intriguingly, younger generations are more likely to say that it matters than older ones - perhaps they have been burnt by politicians who appeared likeable!

But even for those for whom likeability is important, it’s only part of the story and while both Badenoch and Burnham enjoy positive favourability ratings, their parties lag behind them. The chart below sheds some light onto why that is - the public continue to think that the Government is underperforming on all of the top issues they care about. While they may be willing to give a new Prime Minister the benefit of the doubt, what the public now want to see is real delivery on the issues they care about. For the Conservative opposition they’ll have to show they have a plan to tackle Britain’s problems, including some the public attribute at least in part to the legacy of the last Conservative Government. 

Do Britons actually care about the Sussexes’ return?

Harry and Meghan’s return has generated a significant amount of coverage, commentary and social media posts in recent days. Despite that, when we asked the public how they felt about the Duke and Duchesses' return, well over half said that they were neither happy or unhappy and instead didn’t care either way.

Britons also tend to think the issue has been covered too much by the media. 51 per cent said this, with only three per cent wanting even more coverage. Of course, there is a difference sometimes in polling between expressed preference and the revealed preference of Royal stories generating a significant number of clicks.

However, while Britons may not say they are animated about the Sussexes' return, the couple might have work to do to improve their image if they want to re-engage in public life. Over four in ten say they hold a negative view of Harry, rising to over half the public for Meghan. There is, though, an age divide here, with younger Britons holding net positive views of both. Their favourability then declines with age, reaching respective lows of -54 and -71 with those aged 65-74, the inverse of the pattern with other members of the Royal Family. 

Meanwhile, just 15 per cent say they should resume royal duties. The rest are split between thinking they should remain private citizens and, of course, simply not caring. Conservatives are the most protective of the Royal Family as over six in 10 (62 per cent) think Harry and Meghan should remain private citizens. 

On the question of security, Britons have a clear answer. Seven in 10 say the couple should pay for it themselves, 13 per cent say the King should and eight per cent say taxpayers should foot the bill. Labour voters are the most sympathetic as three in 10 (29 per cent) say either the King or the taxpayer should pay but even here, 63 per cent say Harry and Meghan should pay for it themselves.

What makes Britain’s support for Ukraine so exceptional?

Harry and Meghan are not the only public figures who have been travelling this week. Monday marked Andy Burnham’s first official visit to Ukraine and also Ukrainian Independence Day. This served as a useful reminder of the special role that Ukraine has played in British politics in recent years.

We wrote about this back in December, but the lack of polarisation on Ukraine in the UK is still just as striking. In fact despite Reform UK voters being the least likely to sympathise with Ukraine, they are still more likely to do so than the *average* voter in France, Germany, Poland and the United States.

Checking in on attitudes to Ukraine this month and support remains remarkably high. Two in three Britons (67 per cent) believe it is important to us here in the UK that Ukraine wins versus ten per cent who view it as unimportant. That number who think what happens in Ukraine matters to Britain has been consistently between three quarters and two thirds since the war began. 

What’s arguably more surprising is that Britons’ support for Ukraine remains high even in the face of trade-offs. Britons go so far as to say we should maintain Russian sanctions even at the cost of higher energy bills - only 22 per cent think the trade-off isn’t worth it. Again, support for Ukraine is a non-partisan issue. Across all parties, majorities say sanctions should be maintained including 59 per cent of Reform voters. It’s difficult to think of another issue where Britons don’t pick the ‘lower cost of living’ end of a trade-off that is pitted against it. 

Thank you very much for reading! We’d love to hear your ideas for some fun polling, remember you can email us at hello@moreincommon.com.

If you haven’t had a chance to catch up on this week’s episode of The Opinion Brief Podcast, you can find it here:

All the best,

Luke