The poll asked what people think the Tories stand for

The latest opinion polls have Labour sitting around 20 points ahead of the Tories, with Keir Starmer heading for a landslide majority at the next general election.

A new poll conducted by Redfield & Wilton Strategies gives us some indication as to why that might be. The polling firm asked voters what they think the Conservative Party under Rishi Sunak stands for and released the results as a word cloud.

The largest words (ie. the responses that most people gave), were ‘don’t know’, ‘the rich’, ‘corruption’, ‘nothing’ and ‘lies’. Among the other bigger words were ‘self-interest’, ‘greed’, ‘incompetence’ and ‘uselessness’. That’s hardly a ringing endorsement…

By contrast, the Labour Party under Keir Starmer has been given a slightly better verdict from the public. ‘Don’t know’ and ‘nothing’ were also large when the public were asked what Labour stands for. However words and phrases that were also offered frequently were ‘the people’, ‘the working class’, ‘change’, ‘fairness’, ‘equality’, ‘hope’, ‘the poor’, ‘better NHS’ and ‘honesty’.

It’s not all good news for Labour, though. When Redfield & Wilton asked what will change if Labour needs the next election, ‘don’t know’ and ‘nothing’ were the most common response, with ‘not much’ not far behind. ‘Change for the worse’ and ‘absolutely nothing’ were also relatively common responses. Despite this, there were a number of positive responses to the question, with ‘the economy’, ‘everything’, ‘economic improvement’, ‘better NHS’, ‘cost of living crisis’ and ‘better for working class people’ appearing as larger phrases on the word cloud.

Chris Jarvis is head of strategy and development at Left Foot Forward

Image credit: Simon Dawson / Number 10 – Creative Commons

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