Latest news with #MoreinCommon
Spectator
2 days ago
- Business
- Spectator
Welfare U-turn: is Keir in control?
Keir Starmer has performed a screeching about-turn on his flagship welfare reforms, all in the hope of quelling the rebellion from more than 120 MPs who have been promised 'massive concessions' over concerns about disability benefits. These include moderating the bill to make it easier for people with multiple impairments to claim disability benefits, and offering to protect Personal Independence Payments (PIP) for all existing claimants for ever – to ensure there would be no detriment from the reforms for existing claimants, a key concern of the welfare rebels. But new claimants will be affected, as ministers desperately try to stop ever-spiralling disability and sickness welfare spending climbing to £100 billion by 2030. It means another big U-turn for Starmer – and another hole in the Treasury's finances. Early estimates suggest that the welfare bill climbdown could cost £2 billion: money which Rachel Reeves will now have to find elsewhere. Can Starmer recover? Oscar Edmondson speaks to James Heale and Luke Tryl, director of More in Common. Produced by Oscar Edmondson.
New Statesman
3 days ago
- Politics
- New Statesman
The phantom threat of Corbyn 2.0
Photo byA More in Common poll shared with my colleague George Eaton in his Morning Call newsletter considers how a hypothetical Jeremy Corbyn-led party would perform at the polls. It suggests the 'JC Party' would receive 10 per cent of the vote in an election held today, cutting into Labour by three points, and the Greens by four. Labour is four points behind Reform right now, but with the new JC Party on the scene Labour would end up seven points behind. In 2018 to 2019 I commissioned a lot of hypothetical surveys about Brexit. I drafted scenarios and put them to the public. How would you vote if Brexit was delayed? How would you feel if Theresa May was still prime minister and delayed Brexit? How would you vote if hard Brexit were on the ballot? It was unreliable stuff because it all depended on hypothetical prompts, taking the respondents too far from material reality. The biggest flaw with More in Common's survey is simple: the Jeremy Corbyn Party isn't real; it hasn't accrued baggage; we don't know who its hypothetical candidates would be or how badly organised it might be. Respondents wouldn't approach the survey in the same manner as they would at the time when it came to cast the ballot. Prompting it as Corbyn-led too can be both a blessing and a curse. It's asking voters whether they'd vote for Corbyn were he on the ballot. It's making a genuine left alternative a personality contest. That tells you something about how popular Corbyn is. But it doesn't tell you what you want it to tell you: the real appetite for a left alternative. Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe I am struggling to think of any moment in recent history where hypothetical polling bore out in reality. In 2019 the poorly named, poorly branded, poorly organised Independent Group got off the ground to pretty favourable opinion polls: even before they announced they announced the would contest elections, it was sitting at 10-15 per cent. It ended up winning 3 per cent in the Euro elections a month later. It was a dud. When the stakes were real and the party had time to reveal its colours it just wasn't so popular anymore. This 10 per cent for Corbyn tells us there's an appetite for something with a high profile name attached. But like with the Independent Group – later Change UK – its raison d'etre may be eaten up by parties already in situ. Like the Lib Dems did with Brexit in 2019, the Greens may do as The Left Flank in 2025. It's notable that most of the hypothetical damage a Corbyn party does is not to Labour, but the Greens. Which brings us to my final point. The appeal of the Greens is not the same as the appeal of a left alternative. Green success in a not insubstantial number of locales comes off not being a hyper-left force, but a hyper-localist, hyper-environmental force. There's a good argument that deprioritising that in favour of leftism will net it new support in the immediacy. But not without possible losses. It becomes muddy. [See also: These disability benefit cuts are about to bury Labour] Related
Spectator
13-06-2025
- Politics
- Spectator
Tackling child poverty may prove a vote winner for Farage
In news bound to make Keir Starmer nervous, voters in 121 Labour-held constituencies with high rates of child poverty are reportedly prepared to support Nigel Farage at the next election and hand their seats to Reform. This shock projection, via the Financial Times and More in Common polling, came less than a fortnight after the Reform party leader declared that he would scrap the two-child benefit cap. Could it be that limiting benefits to families with two children, a policy once so popular with the public, has lost its appeal? Farage is winning over swathes of Labour's heartland in part because he has smelled a vote-winner: removing the two-child benefit cap may play to Reform's natalist agenda, but being seen to battle child poverty will make a fatherly Farage popular across the country's disadvantaged areas. While the government stalls on publishing its child poverty strategy, alarming stats have brought home to parents in the poorest areas just how badly their children are faring. No matter their race, ethnicity, number of siblings or parents' party allegiance, children born in areas such as Blackpool or Knowsley (both with some of the highest proportions of disadvantaged neighbourhoods among local authorities) are less likely to achieve good developmental goals by the age of five.
Channel 4
11-06-2025
- Business
- Channel 4
Will Reeves' spending review turbocharge or tank UK economy?
Rachel Reeves has unveiled her long-awaited spending review, with the NHS and defence seeing the most gains while many other departments face cuts – so, is this the kind of spending programme that will transform the UK economy and help Keir Starmer see off the threat of Nigel Farage's Reform UK? In this special episode of The Fourcast, Krishnan Guru-Murthy is joined by our Economics Correspondent Helia Ebrahimi and Luke Tryl, the director of the More in Common polling company.
Spectator
30-05-2025
- Politics
- Spectator
What will save the Tories? The economy, or Robert Jenrick?
Lots to discuss today: Robert Jenrick takes on TfL, a Nazi jibe from the attorney general and allegations of shoplifting made against our own Michael Simmons. But we start with Keir Starmer's big speech yesterday, where the theme was 'get Nigel', after polling from More in Common showed that framing the election as a two-horse race could be beneficial to Labour. They are attempting to cut the Tories out altogether but, in response, the Conservatives plan to use fiscal credibility as the battleground to crawl back up the polls. Will the economy save the Tories? Elsewhere, Robert Jenrick is the star of the week after a video of him reprimanding fare-dodgers on the Tube went viral, racking up more than ten million views on X. He seems to have struck a chord both within his party and with the public more generally, who are growing tired of our low-trust society and the blight of petty crime. Is Jenrick the one to tackle 'Scuzz Nation'? Oscar Edmondson speaks to James Heale and Michael Simmons. Produced by Oscar Edmondson.
