New poll finds only privileged people will vote for Labour - but why?

[ProudAmberTurtle]

This is a new IPSOS poll. It finds that among the least well off in society, support for Labour has collapsed - it's now just 10%.

Even among people who are 'just about coping' financially, they're a distant fourth in the polls, and would be wiped out if it was just them voting.

But - here's what might be surprising - among wealthy people they are first in the polls, in fact their lead is so big that if only rich people could vote, it would be a landslide for Labour.

Any thoughts as to why it is now that only the most privileged people in society are voting Labour?

https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/ct/news/documents/2026-04/Ipsos%20Apr%202026_Political%20Monitor%20charts_Public.pdf

I can't see how that can be true. I mean reform have been quite vocal about cutting benefits. Why would people on benefits vote for them.
I suppose if they are worried about the illegal immigrants or poor policing re shoplifting/antisocial behaviour they might think they would rather do without some benefits and get the country sorted elsewhere.
Or these could be the people who work full time and get benefits as well but are still struggling. They might figure they will still be better off under reform as full time workers if the tax rate gets cut.

Voting on one issue is not a bad thing. If the major political parties said they would remove women’s access to safe abortions I’d be voting for the one that wouldn’t.

I didn’t vote for Brexit and I wouldn’t vote reform, however I live in a highly deprived working class town with asylum seeker hotels. The impact that this has had has caused so much damage to an already struggling town - mainly safety, particularly for women and children.

Safety will trump a lot of things for people - more so even than health care or benefits. So I understand the mindset. Reform is not the answer, but people are feeling desperate.

That being said, my heart goes out to people fleeing war and persecution. I cannot imagine what that’s like.

That's the trouble. People who usually vote Tory (me) are turning away from them. I just don't think there current leader has got what it takes.

So who do we vote for. I think reform will pick up some of these votes.

Actually that is why I am considering reform. The NHS does need changed and yes it is going to involve some pain but the current system is not working is it.
We need a new system even if that involves us all paying a bit for it. I bet the number of missed appointments drops dramatically when people have to part with cash to see someone.

There is a new party 'Restore Britain' who you can't vote for yet but hopefully you will be able to for the next general election. They have got down as one of their policies to change the triple lock to a double lock.

I am going to guess it is a lot of parents who have kids in Grammars who feel their friends with kids in private education have been bought down a peg or two. The champagne socialists who tutor their kids and pretend they are just "naturally bright".

The most worrying thing about these threads and our current political system is who is going to actually bite the bullet and do something about the decline of the UK. I mean every month we borrow to pay our bills. Our debt gets bigger, the rate the market charges us gets higher and so the following month it's even worse.

We can be the most caring country in the whole world and want to help people with benefits and the likes but guess what. To do that - we are borrowing more money.
So at what point will the politicians actually sit up and say right listen up people. The UK is in deep shit. We are broke, in debt, growing inflation, poor growth, huge benefit bill and most of our 'wealth' is housing. Things have to change now. We are a poor country so you are all on your own. Earn money or die. I mean 80 years ago there was no NHS or welfare. So you saw a doctor if you could afford it otherwise you went without. I mean that is literally what happened and yes people did die in the streets.

The UK used to be wealthy. The UK is no longer wealthy but is still spending like it is.

They either take action now and have a chance of turning things round or they wait till it's too late and the IMF do it for them. Then benefits will be cut anyway. So that is coming whether we like it or not and quite honestly I think the politicians will be relieved as they can say 'Oh horrible bad IMF making us stop all your benefits'

Serious economists have actually been talking about this for a while now.
I mean do you remember when Greece needed bailed out not that long ago (less than twenty years ago) and we all felt sorry for them. Well now we (the UK) has to pay higher interest rates than Greece as the markets think we are higher risk. Now let that sink in for a while.

The number of preventable deaths will go up as people decide not to pay for getting that persistent cough checked out. And disabled people will be disproportionately adversely affected because we tend to see the doctor more.

The missed appointments rate at my private dentist is comparable to that at my NHS GP. People miss appointments because they are ill, or their child is ill, or they clean forget (which can be disability-related, oh hi autism and ADHD), or their carer is ill and can't take them, or the bus doesn't turn up... Not because they wake up that morning and think "I don't feel like going to the doctor after all".

They have got down as one of their policies to change the triple lock to a double lock.

Sadly, Restore are anti-immigration loons that make Reform look like they are holding welcome banners at Folkestone by comparison. They talk about reversing legal immigration. Where do they think that a large proportion of our NHS, university, and agricultural workforces come from? This is a great shame, because the pension bill is bankrupting the nation and abolishing triple lock would help with that, but I won't vote for a party that wants my colleagues to go back to their original countries.

I can't see how that can be true. I mean reform have been quite vocal about cutting benefits. Why would people on benefits vote for them

Do you know which constituency in Britain is most dependent on benefits? Clacton.

Talk about turkeys voting for christmas...

As someone who runs clinics it’s worth pointing out too that when someone misses an appointment to be honest I just get on with the 101 other things I have to do on my to list or can give a little bit of precious extra time to the other patients I’m seeing that day so definetely isn’t like twiddling thumbs during the missed appointments. Is hassle when constantly having to chase someone then find time to rearrange to see them etc though, always helps hugely if we can have advance notice, even if just 5 minutes but the more
the better as may be able to slot in someone else who we really needed to see. I definetely agree about people mote likely to be reluctant to seek treatment if they need to pay for it, I remember years ago living on next to nothing but getting really ill before getting treatment due to the cost of the prescription charge. Even now in an ideal world there are issues I’d like to get a specialist private consultation on for my children but we just can’t afford it

Yes I agree with you re doctors and disabled people.

However no matter how sorry we feel for any group of people we cannot continue to borrow money to pay for things.
At some point that has to stop and worse, be reversed. There is no way round that. People will have to get used to the idea that they live in a country in decline with little or no safety net.

Thus we should start trying to fix it now while we still have a chance but that is going to involve growing the economy and spending money on things which help the country grow. So apprentices for young people = good as they hopefully start their own companies and pay tax. Money spent on investing in industries to create jobs and wealth = good. Money paid to people to not work = bad and we shouldn't do it. Not very kind, not very nice but that is what we are facing.

To be honest given the financial state of the UK we are all turkeys waiting to see which political party is going to shove us in the oven. We can bury our heads in the sand for a while longer no doubt but I am certainly trying to plan for what to do if the state pension is cut or phased out. Anyone reliant on benefits etc should be doing the same.

Actually that is why I am considering reform. The NHS does need changed and yes it is going to involve some pain but the current system is not working is it. We need a new system even if that involves us all paying a bit for it. I bet the number of missed appointments drops dramatically when people have to part with cash to see someone

I agree the NHS isn’t working but Reform won’t replace it with something better.

So at what point will the politicians actually sit up and say right listen up people. The UK is in deep shit. We are broke, in debt, growing inflation, poor growth, huge benefit bill and most of our 'wealth' is housing. Things have to change now.

We are but imo it needs cross party consensus because it will take years to fix & a lot of those fixes won’t be evident for years. A lot of the public don’t want that & want to see change now. People are angry that labour didn’t get the economy growing in a year despite years of little growth post financial crash. It’s ludicrous

Actually that is why I am considering reform. The NHS does need changed and yes it is going to involve some pain but the current system is not working is it. We need a new system even if that involves us all paying a bit for it. I bet the number of missed appointments drops dramatically when people have to part with cash to see someone

I agree the NHS isn’t working but Reform won’t replace it with something better.

So at what point will the politicians actually sit up and say right listen up people. The UK is in deep shit. We are broke, in debt, growing inflation, poor growth, huge benefit bill and most of our 'wealth' is housing. Things have to change now.

We are but imo it needs cross party consensus because it will take years to fix & a lot of those fixes won’t be evident for years. A lot of the public don’t want that & want to see change now. People are angry that labour didn’t get the economy growing in a year despite years of little growth post financial crash. It’s ludicrous

Money paid to people to not work = bad and we shouldn't do it.

Which is why we should abolish the triple lock.

I'm voting Green 💚

I think the point though is that the UK can no longer afford the NHS and they certainly can afford 'better' if by that you mean a better system that is still free at point of use. That's why what we end up with will be 'worse' in so far as we have to pay at least something towards it.

I think people would have accepted labour not succeeding in all areas yet as you are correct they have only been in for 2 years. However in that time they have made things quite a bit worse. Our borrowing is higher, but we don't really have anything to show for it as it has gone on our increased welfare. By making decisions and then cancelling them they have shown themselves to be weak and unable to make difficult decisions. I actually think KS is probably a very decent man trying to do a difficult job but he just does not have the balls to run the country.

Yes I agree the state pension will need to be changed. They should start with the triple lock and just increase it by say inflation each year.
Then they should continue to increase pension age to about 70. This will have to be done over a time period.
By freezing personal allowances the state pension will soon be getting taxed and so eroded that way.
As the boomers die off, the draw on state pension will get smaller with each generation coming through as each generation gets smaller ie less kids being born.
If things are really bad they could freeze the state pension which means it will not increase each year and so by virtue of this will eventually become worthless.
However this gradual process will give people time to make alternative plans.

I may however be too optimistic. If politicians don't act and we do end up with markets unwilling to lend to the UK/IMF bailing us out, they may well bring in something more sudden and drastic.

If we spent more on preventative healthcare and treated conditions that stop people from working promptly, we could have a better NHS at lower net cost to the nation.

Having people on the sick awaiting treatment is expensive. So is leaving conditions untreated until they get to crisis point.

yes you are absolutely right. It would take a ton of money though to 'catch up' to a place where everybody had their operations and nobody was waiting. Then assuming all those people went back to work and taxes started to rise then yes you would hope the money spent on the NHS would be paid by in taxes.

However how does a broke country fix it when they are struggling even to pay for the woeful system it is becoming now.

It's become a bit of a vicious circle hasn't it. We are too broke to fix the NHS to get people back to work because we keep having to pay them benefits.

Its really simple and I dont get why people dont understand it or cant see it.

The lower your wage/ lower your job (awful phrase but its late and I cant think of a PC term - you know what I mean); the more likely you are to be working with / competing with immigrants for work and the more likely you are to live somewhere which looks completely different to what it did 20 - even 10 years ago.

Simultaneously; lower income people also have aspiration to be home owners and get on. And many of them are. Yet they get no help with that. Whilst you have people who are living in rental getting everything paid.

The third, and not least important point. Is that when you really are on the breadline you just want things to be stable. Increasing wages, increasing benefits also causes inflation. And then you have council mergers across the country changing council tax too. Prices increasing all over the place. It’s chaos atm. Not necessarily labours fault any of these points. But as someone with a take home of 5.5k that’s 1k short of our costs atm I honestly do not know how people are surviving. They probably aren’t. So they have nothing to lose at this point.

If you’re poor you are not just worrying about no holiday this year or cancelling a streaming service you are living cheek by jowl and compering for resources at the bottom of the pile. With money comes the luxury of being able to afford to vote with a more in their view refined conscience.

I thought this was due to low income = lower educational level = more susceptible to Reform’s ‘politics’.

The lower your wage/ lower your job (awful phrase but its late and I cant think of a PC term - you know what I mean); the more likely you are to be working with / competing with immigrants for work

NHS consultants and university academics would both beg to differ. Our healthcare and higher education sectors both have large numbers of immigrant workers who are well-paid.

The visa system doesn't allow for immigrants to move here to work unless there's a shortage of staff with the relevant skllls. The notable exception is agricultural seasonal workers, because the work requires living on the farm in caravans and that's incompatible with social housing tenancy agreements, so it's impossible to get British workers to take those jobs.

Those dark-skinned young men you see riding electric bicycles for Deliveroo with their faces covered have been smuggled here by organised criminals and are working for less than NMW as fake "substitute couriers" using farmed accounts. Likewise, the dark-skinned young men working at impossibly-cheap hand car washes, which your local taxi driver uses near-daily and doesn't report to the police even as he prepares to vote Reform on Thursday in the hope of Farage deporting the very people who wash his car. British people, being entitled to means-tested benefits, aren't competing for these illegal "jobs" because we have the option of staying on benefits and holding out for legal ones.

I don’t know why you are talking about dark skinned people. I haven’t said anything about anyone’s race. Black people are not the incoming demographic in the area I live in.

If you want me to specify it’s a little bit of everyone. Black people still a minority here though.

You can say oh it’s impossible. I don’t know how they do it or what their individual entry routes are. And not everyone is new. People have been moving to the U.K. for a long time. This hasn’t happened overnight.

But it’s clearly happened otherwise everyone wouldn’t be kicking off about it. And if you can’t see it. It’s probably because you don’t live and work where your lives intertwine. Doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened.