Dr Patrick English interview

Will Barber-Taylor: Hello, and welcome to this Centre Think Tank interview series. As always, I am your host, Will Barber-Taylor. In this episode, I am delighted to be joined by Patrick English, Associate Director in the Political and Social Research team at YouGov and YouGov spokesperson on political research. Welcome to the interview, Patrick.

Patrick English: Thanks for having me on. I am really happy to be here.

Will Barber-Taylor: It is great to have you on. The first thing that I would like to ask you about is the current state of polling. At the moment, we are seeing Conservatives losing support to both Labour and the Liberal Democrats in polling. Some Conservatives will say that this is just midterm blues, and that they will be able to get their poll lead back at a later date, whereas Labour and the Liberal Democrats are saying that this is a turning point and that they are on track to make significant gains at the next general election. In terms of the position of the major parties in relation to polling at the moment, what are we seeing? Is it too early to tell whether this is a change towards Labour and the Liberal Democrats? Or could it just be a blip, as some Conservatives are hoping for and arguing that it is?

Patrick English: I think a very pertinent question right now is, what is this Labour polling lead and how sticky is it? At the moment, the polls will give you anything between a 3-point and a 12-point lead for Labour. We are getting quite some divergence in the polls because of the varying experiments that are currently going on in the industry, first of all, about how you treat people who answer “do not know” to vote intention questions and secondly, about how you model turnout and response. So there is quite some variation, but a consistent theme across all the polling is that Labour do have a lead, which stands, if you are looking at a normal distribution, probably anywhere around 6–7%.

However, we are in the midterm, and governments always suffer in the midterm. Governments always drop in the polls, and the main opposition party always gets ahead. Sometimes that lead can be up to 20% for opposition parties. So, if we are looking at it in the context of whether this is a big sticky lead that Labour are going to walk into the next general election with? Probably not, because we have seen parties at 20% that then go on to lose the next general election as the opposition party. Removing incumbents is difficult; it gets slightly easier the longer they have been in. But of course, with modern British politics, the Conservative Party of the past two years is extraordinarily different from the Conservative Party of 2010. And that is as true with the people who are in it as with the voters who support it. So it is a different electoral coalition, a different set of people. You might even argue that it is a different party.

However, this polling at the moment is much more than the midterm blues. It is not simply a blip. It has been sustained since January, and the poll ratings for the Conservatives and for Boris Johnson have been slipping steadily, coming down for about a year now. What is underpinning all of this is not a simple frustration with policy or boredom with the incumbents, as traditional midterm blues seems to be. It is very much character-based. It is about Boris Johnson and how unpopular he is with the electorate and with a significant portion of 2019 Conservative voters, anywhere between 13% and 40% thinks he should go.

Now that is a big number of your own voters who backed you two and a half years ago, now saying that they think that you should get out. This is very much something more than midterm blues. However, if we look historically at where Labour are right now in the general election cycle, we would in any other circumstance say that is not enough to say that they are going to win the next election or indeed that the Liberal Democrats are going to go on and have a fantastic election.

We need to see a little bit more, a bigger polling lead, if that is going to sustain through. When we ask voting intention questions right now, a lot of people interpret them as ‘Do I like the government, yes or no?’, whereas when we come to elections, the question flips and becomes ‘who do I want to run the country? Do I like the opposition?’,  a much different question. Labour needs a polling lead of the size and stickiness that will survive that transition, that flip in the question, and deliver them a general election result. Based on the numbers right now, I do not think that is by any stretch of the imagination guaranteed.

Will Barber-Taylor: Absolutely. We have mentioned the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats there. One thing that has been proposed by the Liberal Democrats is some electoral pact, whether it be a formal or an informal pact between Labour and the Liberal Democrats. That seems to have, in terms of tactical voting, helped both parties in Wakefield and Tiverton and Honiton. Do you think that this is something that could realistically work in a general election, given that tactical voting did not particularly help Labour and the Liberal Democrats at the last election, where it was certainly promoted quite a bit?

Patrick English: Yes, I think that is a very important point. In the 2019 general election, we saw opportunities certainly for Labour and Liberal Democrat voters to tactically vote for one another, and it did not really happen. We also saw a very formal, very public pact between Liberal Democrats, the Greens and Plaid Cymru in Unite to Remain. There is no real evidence that it helped any parties at all. It certainly did not give them any seat wins that they would not have gotten otherwise.

Voters are very complex creatures. You can not simply say to a voter who supports the Liberal Democrats:  “The Liberal Democrats are out, go vote for Labour now”, because some will say that they are more on the Conservative end of the spectrum. So you might find that some people go from Liberal Democrats to Conservatives rather than from Liberal Democrats to Labour.

I think that tactical voting is something we do not usually pick up in general elections. We have seen a lot of it lately, as you mentioned, in the by-elections and the local elections, and also in the Scottish Parliament elections last year. There is a lot of evidence that the best-placed unionist party was receiving quite a lot of tactical votes against the Scottish National Party at the constituency level.

I think it is something that is coming more into the voter psyche, but we are starting from a very low baseline. If we are looking for arrangements or ideas that might help the Liberal Democrats and Labour to take extra seats against the Conservatives, the most effective way to do that is probably through non-aggression pacts rather than trumpeting formal arrangements. These come with their own risks, do not always work anyway, and there is limited evidence historically that it benefits you all that much.

I think certainly some non-aggression pacts and very early voter education. The Liberal Democrats are traditionally quite good at that, with their bar charts and campaign materials. The message they are conveying is often fairly sound and quite well received by voters, particularly in those by-election contests. I think there is probably some merit to be had in some arrangement along those lines. However, a formal pact is very risky, and there is no evidence that the reward that is potentially on offer is worth the risk.

Will Barber-Taylor: Now, something that the Liberal Democrats have been suggesting would be part of any deal between them and the Labour Party if there was a hung parliament or a minority Labour administration, would be support for proportional representation or some form of change to the voting system. What is your sense of how much voters know about the suggestions around changing the voting system, and how popular they are with those voters who know about them? Do you think that there is any real enthusiasm at the moment for some large-scale change to the way that we vote in general elections?

Patrick English: Very good question. There are three of them there. One is whether people are enthusiastic about change. Another is how popular the things that people might be enthusiastic about are. And then lastly, is there political will for it?

What I would say is that those who are aware of the various opportunities for different voting systems tend to be quite favourable toward them. That is because they are the people who are very politically engaged. They tend to be the people who are frustrated with the current system and, therefore, have sought out alternatives. They are also people with very high political interests and engagement across the board.

Those people do tend to be quite open and quite supportive of alternative voting measures. Generally speaking, if you go to the public and offer a fairer voting system or one which reflects the votes across the country, people are generally very supportive of that. However, this does not mean that, as we saw with the alternative vote referendum, they are willing to go to the polls or to parties and demand this.

I think any referendum or any campaign which focuses exclusively on changing the voting system would have quite a tough time turning enough people out who are on the fence or do not know about these issues in support of a change in the voting system.

Any change in British politics is a hard sell; you have to have a very strong case for it. So certainly, I think there is this scope and this manoeuvre, and that there is no great enthusiasm for the current British political system. The British public does not think that politics works well, does not trust politicians, and does not trust politics in general. If you come at it from the angle of “You do not like the system, here is an idea that might help improve and change it,” there might be some traction. But if you ask the flat-out question in a referendum,” Would you like to change to a new voting system?”, I think the Alternative Vote referendum in 2011 and the current polling evidence would give you a shot in the arm for thinking that there is going to be a clamour for a sudden change. But there are routes to it, and definitely avenues open through public opinion and the way it could be framed to make that case.

Will Barber-Taylor: Absolutely. One thing that has also been brought up in recent times, and particularly in the run-up to the last general election, was the idea of a new centrist party, a party that was in some way separate from Labour or the Liberal Democrats. And of course, there were all sorts of groups in the run-up to the 2019 general election: Change UK or The Independent Group for Change, The Independent Group, Renew and so on. Do you think that there was ever enough public support for a new centrist party like theirs? Or do you think that they were always doomed to fail from the start?

Patrick English: Great question. Support can mean many things. I believe when Change UK first burst onto the scene, the poll that was taken after they arrived had them on about 15% of the vote intention. That is not insignificant; that is the same proportion of the vote that the UK Independence Party were looking at around the peak of their powers in elections. So if that were to be replicated and concentrated geographically better than the UK Independence Party vote, similar to the Liberal Democrat vote currently, there certainly would be scope and a place for that party in British politics. The problem is, the public is not satisfied with the current state of democracy, the current parties are not particularly popular, there is no politician who has a massive positive rating, and there is no great enthusiasm for what is on offer right now.

I think the political system and the apparatus around it, such as the way we discuss this in the media, and even the polling, make it very difficult for a new party to come in and enter the fray to make effective change. The UK Independence Party would probably be the last great example of a party that was able to do that. But of course, they were not a new party at that time. They have been around for a while, like their predecessor party. They just managed to latch onto an issue and become a vehicle for voters who were very frustrated with that and wanted a new type of politics.

I think for a centrist party to come through, do better and consistently win seats and not fall away into the abyss as soon as a single issue is resolved, there would need to be some hot-button thorny issue on that centrist plane that you could really tap into. They would have to make a campaign around it to create a vote and representation appeal that says, “Look, we are the party that is there for you on this issue.”

On Brexit, this was very difficult to do because you already had parties such as the Liberal Democrats, the Greens, and then belatedly Labour, who were saying, “We are the party of Remain.” That made it very difficult for Change UK to have an appeal that made sense to voters. Theirs then simply became, “We are also for change and for Remain. And, we are also not the same as those other people that you do not like because of anti-Semitism or being too left-wing.”

The voters would look at that and say: “yeah maybe, but we already have the Liberal Democrats. The left thing does not bother me too much. I am going to vote Green”, which is what a lot of centre-right voters were doing, particularly in council elections.

Do I think all new parties are doomed to fail? No. I think that is not a truism. However, there has to be a very certain set of specific conditions for a new party to emerge, particularly a new party of the centre. This is the ground that, perhaps until Clegg’s time, and from 2010, 2016 and up until now, parties are always clamouring for that anyway.

I do not think they were always doomed to fail. I think that just the job they had, and the job any party has, is finding a new appeal on the scene,e which is incredibly difficult simply because of the way our politics are set up. That is probably also in no small part down to the voting system. But it makes it incredibly difficult for new parties to come in and make any real waves.

Will Barber-Taylor: Yeah, absolutely. Now, I would like to turn to some more policy issues. Grammar schools enjoy a certain, quite high level of public support, even though it is often very difficult for children to get into them. Why do you think that there is this public support for grammar schools when there is this divergence between the number of people who support them and the number of people whose children manage to get into grammar schools?

Patrick English: Great question. We do polling on grammar schools, and what we tend to find is that there is no real support for the abolition of grammar schools. What we also find is that people tend to believe that they do make a difference and offer an opportunity for children to do better. We also find that people tend to believe that if they went to a grammar school, when they did not, their life would have been improved by now.

I think what I would put the support for grammar schools down to is that the public genuinely believes that they offer a better route through education, a better education overall. Therefore, they do not want to deny that or take it away. They say, “Even if I do not get into it and my child does not get into it, maybe their children will get into it. Or rather, my friends’ children will get into it, and it offers them a better route through education.”

I think British public opinion and British politics more broadly in society do view themselves as quite meritocratic. If you work hard, if you do your best, if you take opportunities, you will be rewarded. I think grammar schools are a function of that in the British public opinion ethos. If you like that, if your kid is smart, if they work hard, they apply themselves, they get into grammar school, and that gives them a leg up in life.

From the quality point of view, you might say that it is quite problematic. But overall, let us say the vibe of British public opinion,  of British society, this is not something they prioritise too much. It is much more about the meritocratic state. Grammar schools represent a component of that which the British public does not particularly fancy getting rid of.

Will Barber-Taylor: Do you think that there is a distinction in the way that people view grammar schools, private schools, and public schools? In the sense that there is an emphasis on grammar schools being more meritocratic and allowing people to climb up the ladder of education and the ladder of society, whereas private schools, public schools are often seen as just an enclave of the rich, which you can simply buy your way into rather than achieving entrance. Is there a distinction then between the two in the way that people think about them?

Patrick English: Yes, certainly private schools and private school education are viewed more dimly than grammar schools for precisely the reasons you outline, which is that you can buy into them. Which is not necessarily at all down to hard work or doing well, but simply to resources. This goes outside of that meritocratic progress, work hard, pull yourself up by the bootstraps attitude that surrounds British public opinion. So I would say that is certainly true.

Will Barber-Taylor: I would like to turn to the monarchy and the royal family because this year has been the jubilee year. The Queen has celebrated another jubilee. I was wondering about support for republicanism. Republicanism is obviously at the moment not something that is greatly supported in the UK in comparison to the monarchy. Do you think that this is something that is tied up specifically with the Queen as an individual, this lack of support for republicanism, or do you think that this is a sign that regardless of who the monarchy i,s there will always be a general favour towards them as opposed to republicanism? Or do you think that that is something that could quite easily change?

Patrick English: I think there is a baseline monarchist tradition in the British public right now, which you would not be surprised to find out correlates quite strongly with age. The older you are, the more likely you are to support the monarchy, regardless of who the monarch is. But certainly, the younger you go down the scale, it does appear to be much more driven by the current monarch, Queen Elizabeth II, who is very popular, who can cross generational divides with her appeal and is generally not seen as offensive or problematic by any subsection of society, broadly speaking.

I do think that will change with the change of monarch. We can see this in the polling data. Hypothetical questions are always very tricky, and people tend to work with their own opinions and preferences when considering hypothetical questions. However, when we ask, to what extent would you continue to support or oppose a monarchy or be in favour of abolishing the monarchy if we put King Charles III in there, for example, or some other monarch, we do see support for abolition or support for abolition to increase, or support for abolition to reduce.

So there certainly is a baseline level, but the current monarch, Queen Elizabeth II,  brings that right up through her appeal. I think, as and when the monarch is changed, there will be renewed discussion and a reset of public opinion on this issue,e without that figurehead that can cross generations and cross social groups with popularity. I think the conversation will move a couple of steps along at that point. For now, there is absolutely no appetite for the abolition of the monarchy, and there is, while certainly some members of the royal family are deeply unpopular, fairly strong support for them.

Will Barber-Taylor: I would like to now briefly turn to the issue of Brexit. Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has recently made a major speech setting out his vision of what the Labour Party should do in relation to Brexit. And of course, there are continual discussions over the Northern Ireland protocol and attempts by the government to change the position that Northern Ireland has with the European Union and the rest of the UK. How popular is Brexit at the moment, compared to a potential second referendum and Britain potentially rejoining the European Union?. What is your sense in terms of the public’s general mood regarding Brexit? Is it perhaps a failure, but linked to the incumbent government rather than the idea as a whole? Or is it viewed as a failure overall, and perhaps there should be some reversal of it?

Patrick English: Good questions. I think three sorts of public opinion data will answer that. One is that people think that Brexit is going badly. Undoubtedly, they think it has been a failure so far. It has not improved their lives. And the current arrangements of Brexit and the way it is being handled by the government are very poor indeed. By a margin of around 60 to 30, we find that people think it is going badly as opposed to well.

Secondly, we are seeing a slightly increasing lead for Brexit being the wrong thing to do versus the right thing to do in our tracker question. We repeatedly ask the question, as we do with our government doing well or badly in handling Brexit, “Do you think Brexit was the right or the wrong thing to do?” We are seeing wrong now with about 10 to 12 points, maybe even 15 points. That has opened up and emerged this year.

The figures are not dramatic considering how unpopular Brexit is as a policy issue right now, how unpopular the government is and all of the well-publicised problems with Brexit. We have not seen a massive change in public opinion for quite some time, and generational replacement alone can explain some of that shift. So there has not been a huge number of people changing their minds on Brexit, which is key to the third question of public opinion,  which is that there is no appetite in the electorate to rejoin the European Union.

Certainly, Keir Starmer’s instincts on putting that quite front and centre and plain spoken is a good one in terms of where public opinion is right now. If a party went into a general election campaign to rejoin the European Union, a national party seeking to win the election, it would not go down well. Certainly not with all those Leave voters in the North and Midlands who deserted the Labour Party either to not vote or to go vote for the Brexit Party or the Conservatives.

The public opinion is certainly not anti-Brexit insofar as they are clamouring to rejoin the European Union, but it is certainly anti-the Brexit we currently have. We have not pulled too specifically on various elements of Brexit deals or Brexit policies, because then you get into territory that most voters have much better things to do than sit and think about the things we would love them to do in a poll. You would just get lots of ‘do not know’ answers.

The government’s tactic right now to perhaps push an even harder Brexit or to get rid of some of the ties would not align too well with what we are seeing in the polls right now. We ask people about problems with Brexit, and they answer that they think it is making them poorer. They think it has made a lot of the problems that they are facing worse.

So, a Brexit solution which puts up even more barriers or makes those problems even more difficult is not going to tap into the frustration with the public right now. The public wants to see, if not reversals, some rearrangements of various protocols and various accesses or inaccesses to various European features that will make things a bit smoother and their lives a bit easier, particularly with the cost-of-living crisis.

So I think that is where the middle ground is at the moment that the Labour Party should be looking for, which is certainly not rejoining the European Union. But if there are things that they can do around the edges, which chip away at the lower-level frustrations and the economic facets of the problems that people are facing with Brexit, that would be a popular move. But it is going to be tricky.

Will Barber-Taylor: Absolutely. We are coming towards the end of the interview, Patrick. Thank you once again for coming on. I have one final question for you. You would be conducting all sorts of polls at YouGov. Mainly, your responsibilities are related to political and social issues. But, if you could compel the public to give their honest opinion to just one polling question, it does not matter how absurd it is or how insane the potential responses are- what question would you desperately want to know everybody in Britain’s opinion on?

Patrick English: I like that. That is very good. We do have a process in YouGov where we ask left-field questions, and often they are the source of the debate, either within the team or on Twitter.

We have had some good ones in the past. I have got to cut this short, because I do not want to be too boring here. I do not want to ask a political one either, because that is too predictable. So we are ruling out boring and politics. What do I like to ask? I am going to go for a nice one.

I want to know if people could play any instrument in the world, what would it be? Because I imagine you would get some real left-field ones there, like those massive tuba things. I would want to play one of those, just be able to walk down the high street playing some ridiculous tunes on a tuba.

So, I love to know what percentage of people pick a guitar or drums or if you would get some wacky ones like hobos and stuff like that. That would be quite a fun one. How many people want to be rock stars, and how many people want to be musical hipsters?

Will Barber-Taylor: I think that would be an excellent question. Hopefully, one that you will be able to ask soon. I am sure you would get some really interesting responses to that.

Thank you once again for coming on, Patrick. If people want to find out more about you and the work that you do, where should they go?

Patrick English: The best two places would be my YouGov profile page. If you just Google my name and YouGov, it should come up, and that will list all of the research articles I have ever done for YouGov. You can also follow me on Twitter, at @PME_politics. I am fairly active there. Fairly to very, depending on who you ask and tend to post a lot. Thank you so much for having me on. It has been great fun.

Will Barber-Taylor: It has been excellent having you on, thanks once again.

Note: This interview has been edited for grammar, clarity, and flow. The original recording is the final and definitive version.