Are you better off? The impact of personal finances on elections

This Thursday sees a raft of local elections in the UK. As I have explained already, there are a lot of factors at play in these, with only *some* of them being local issues themselves. For a start, sometimes it has more to do with which specific areas are up for grabs (i.e. if it is in an area you did well in 4 years previously, it could be that you make limited gains, and the headlines become about a lack of success for your party). The saying is that all politics is local, and that is partially true, but to an extent this locality may be more about individual experiences, as I will go on to explain.

Recent polling has found the Conservatives behind in every area of policy and Boris Johnson trailing Keir Starmer across almost every personal characteristic. This is, obviously, very bad news. Whilst the Conservatives have trailed in the polls before, their leaders have often had leads in polls like 'who would make a better Prime Minister?', and the Tories have generally, except for a while under Tony Blair, had a strong lead in terms of voters' views of the economic competence of the parties, while Labour have generally had a better reputation with voters for their handling of public services such as the NHS.

What may be making a huge difference is the personal impact that recent economic changes have had on ordinary voters. This can be most notably seen in two key ways - recent tax changes that increase the National Insurance payments for a huge proportion of the population, and more obviously the huge increase to the cost of gas and electricity that have come in from April. Often people may view the economy as good or bad, but these changes mean that everyone has had a direct impact from these changes, and, rightly or wrongly, many people will blame this impact on the government.

Ronald Reagan famously asked voters "are you better off than 4 years ago?" back in 1980. It was a powerful question, which cut through to how they felt the direction of the country was impacting them. Keiran Pedley in the New Statesman points out the huge level of pessimism voters are feeling about the economy. Most expect things to get worse, in terms of petrol and energy costs, and this includes 51% of those who voted Conservative in 2019. The Tories have to convince voters that they should back them, despite the current way they are perceived and despite the impacts that the general public are feeling. This, and other scandals surrounding Rishi Sunak, have already seemingly destroyed him as a potential successor to Boris Johnson.

Boris Johnson, up to now, has been a consistent winner. Labour are not universally trusted on the economy (2019 Tory voters only marginally think Labour would do better), but are in a strong position. His record is going to be seriously tested on May 5th.