Robin’s story of the year – the hope in social attitudes

Perhaps the one universal view among commentators is that in 2025 Britain moved sharply to the right and social attitudes went with it. This seems to be confirmed by a number of trends, but in fact, if you look not very far below this surface, you'll find out it is a more hopeful picture.

Let's just start with the headline trend – the rise in Reform. This is seen as all-conquering, but it isn't that simple at all. The idea that there is a mass shift from the left to the right belies the real data. In fact, the current combined levels of support for the Tories and Reform at the moment are significantly lower than the support Boris Johnson got in 2019. 

The evidence of left-right shifting is limited. In reality, this is more like 'the radicalisation of Tory voters' than anything else. And Reform's position is far from strong or stable. In fact its voters are made up of five district blocks. They break into two broad groups – right-wingers and the really pissed off.

The right-wingers, in turn, break down as wealthy southerners and working-class Tories – and their interests and attitudes are very different. They cannot be kept happy in the same ways. The other three groups have almost nothing in common other than a mistrust of mainstream politics. Some of them don't profile like Reform voters at all. Reform may not hold together.

But even more importantly, this breakdown in trust in the centre of politics also isn't quite what it looks like. For example, study after study shows that Trump voters may be right-wing culturally and socially, but their economic agenda would once have been considered far left. Socialist ideas are becoming mainstream in a way that is greatly confusing neoliberals.

The one area where there has been a shift to the right is immigration, but that is not quite what it seems, either. There has been an absolute deluge of anti-immigrant content on social media and very little in the political realm to challenge it. As we showed a few weeks ago, people say it is an important issue nationally, but not to them personally.

This is really significant and suggests there is a strong element of 'social cue' there, people saying what they think they're meant to say. It suggests there is a very real opportunity to basically stop talking about immigration if a strong narrative on things that actually matter to people can be developed.

But fundamentally, behind all of this, one reality stands: we are more liberal now than we've ever been, and we keep getting more liberal. Even young men in Trump's America are getting more liberal in their personal lives. It just isn't true that we're swinging to the right.

What is happening is that our social attitudes are becoming more liberal, but our political attitudes are becoming angrier, and that anger is being directed to the right because the left does not yet have effective messaging or an effective messenger. But a lot of that discontent would be more naturally on the left.

Put simply, forget what you've been told. We are not surging to the right, even though the right-supporting media would like you to believe that. We've just lost confidence in the centre, which is a good thing for the left. As a population, we're becoming more liberal and tolerant all the time.

So there is every hope for the future – if we pay attention.