New polling by More in Common continues to find the trend of narrower, though still majority delivering, leads for Labour.
Dominance of cost of living and the NHS explains why it remains challenging for the Conservatives to close the gap even further. Britons still overwhelmingly rank the cost of living as the top issue facing the country today, while concern about the NHS has reached its highest levels since we began the tracker almost 18 months ago.
Three quarters of the public (74 per cent) selected 'cost of living' as one of the biggest issues facing the country. This has remained stable since March and while it hasn’t deteriorated over the last month, it remains at an incredibly high level of public concern. ‘Supporting the NHS’ as a top issue is down slightly from March but remains a top two issue for the public.
As with our polling in March, every segment of the British public has the cost of living as their top issue and supporting the NHS as their second. It underlines the fact that these concerns transcend party divides and the path to victory in 2024 for both major parties can only be by performing better on these top issues.
Some of the narrowing on the top-line voting intention may be explained by the fact that the public do not currently trust either party - 69 per cent of the public say they do not trust the Conservatives, while 63 per cent of the public do not trust the Labour Party. In contrast, 72 per cent of the public do trust the NHS - which helps explains where public sympathies lie as the junior doctors strike continues.
While Labour remains 14 points ahead in our polling, enough for a comfortable majority, it’s clear their lead is narrower than it was at the start of the year. While our polling shows that the public no longer trust the Tories, it’s also apparent that they haven’t been yet convinced they can trust the Labour Party to sort out the big issues facing the country: the cost of living and the NHS. For Labour to win a majority next year, they need to convince the country they’ve got a plan, and fast.
Luke Tryl, UK Director