Lord Ashcroft: "It feels like we are going backwards": My focus groups with Labour voters on six months of Starmer

Lord Ashcroft: "It feels like we are going backwards": My focus groups with Labour voters on six months of Starmer

Lord Ashcroft KCMG PC is an international businessman, philanthropist, author, and pollster. For more information on his work, visit lordashcroft.com.  For my first focus groups of 2025 we went to Bolton, Rochdale, Stoke and Nuneaton to hear how different kinds of Labour voter – loyalists, first-timers and defectors from the Conservatives – have enjoyed their first six months of Starmer. Asked to sum up their view of the Labour government in a w…

"It feels like we're going backwards": My focus groups on six months of Starmer - Lord Ashcroft Polls

For my first focus groups of 2025 we went to Bolton, Rochdale, Stoke and Nuneaton to hear how different kinds of Labour voter – loyalists, first-timers and defectors from the Conservatives – have enjoyed their first six months of Starmer. Asked to sum up their view of the Labour government in a word, the kindest responses were “pending”, “trying”, “ill-prepared”, “lacklustre” and “slow”. We also heard “rubbish”, “diabolical”, “disaster̶...