Swing voters care most about the cost of living – and don’t trust Starmer to save them

New polling suggests that ‘persuadable’ voters have their doubts about Labour making them better off, John Rentoul writes

The vast majority of people feel nothing in Britain works any more and they just don’t think any politician can fix it (PA)

I have seen some exclusive polling of swing voters from a campaign called the New Britain Project. It suggests that “persuadable” voters don’t think Labour will do better on the cost of living than the Tories, and that they don’t know what Labour stands for, thinking it “just opposes” for the sake of it.

The poll is interesting because it focuses on people who say they intend to vote at the next election, but who haven’t decided how they will vote. It asked them: “What would be your main hesitations if any about voting Labour?” The most common reason, selected by 47 per cent of the group, was: “I’m worried they won’t be able to do a better job than the Tories at sorting out the cost of living crisis.”