News

The Times

19 May 2025

Britons feel detached from society and distrustful of strangers

Britons feel disconnected from society, wary of other people and worried about community tensions, according to a survey.

A poll of more than 13,000 British adults found that 50 per cent said they felt disengaged and 44 per cent said that they sometimes felt like a stranger in their own country.

The study marks the inception of a national project, This Place Matters, focused on strengthening social bonds and backed by the UCL Policy Lab, the campaign group Citizens UK and More In Common.

The Independent

17 May 2025

Talks over winter fuel payment U-turn ‘intensify’ as Labour bids to repair relationship with voters

The change is more widely known than any of Labour’s other policies, while around two-thirds of voters dislike it.

Luke Tryl, executive director of polling organisation More In Common, has described it as Labour’s “original sin” and said it had a major impact on the party’s disastrous performance in this month’s elections.

The Spectator

8 May 2025

Welcome to Scuzz Nation

Public anger with the visible decline has been a major factor in driving voters to Reform, according to the pollster Luke Tryl of More in Common. He argues: ‘One of people’s big frustrations is that when it comes to things like fly-tipping, vandalism and shoplifting, it feels like there’s no consequence. Those who do the right thing feel like mugs for doing so.’ In focus groups just before the elections he recorded voters across every background describing the country as ‘a shambles’, ‘effed up’ and in decline. Seven in ten voters will tell you the country is getting worse.

The Times

4 May 2025

Nigel Farage has blown apart two-party politics. Here’s what’s next

Luke Tryl of the pollsters More in Common, who ran focus groups in Runcorn on Friday night for the campaign group 38 Degrees with voters who switched from Labour to Reform, said: “We heard three things that ought to be a wake-up call for the government.

First a determination to give the government a kick up the backside. Second real anger over the decision to means-test the winter fuel allowance and restrict disability benefits. Third, a feeling in this election at least it was worth rolling the dice on Nigel Farage.”

Vicky, a supermarket assistant, was typical of those who see little change from a Labour government: “I’m getting up at half past four in the morning, going to work. I’ve got a mortgage and stuff on my own, but I don’t live now. I just survive.”

the i

2 May 2025

Four key areas on Nigel Farage's Reform UK hitlist

Pollsters have said the local elections show that Reform is a rising political power that both Labour and the Conservatives need to watch out for.

Anouschka Rajah, research and analysis manager at polling group More in Common, said Thursday’s results will give the party “the confidence to expand their horizons for where they might be able to make gains at the next general election”.

“The rulebook has been ripped up,” she said. “It doesn’t seem like Reform has to live within the box that we like to put them in.”