Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Main parties seem rather old and tired, say voters

Perhaps there’s nothing wrong with negative campaigning (though surely there’s something a bit wrong about being inaccurate). But when parties pontificate about crafting messages of hope and avoiding smears and falsehood, before plumping for the latter, can they really be surprised that overall voters are a bit cheesed off with mainstream politics?

All the parties negatively campaign against negative campaigning, accusing the others of doing something that they too are doing, and hoping that no-one notices. Well, voters do seem to notice. They’re also not particularly thrilled with any of the parties.

While the Tories might be pleased that the first YouGov poll after the Budget puts them two points ahead of Labour, both parties might want to pay attention to some of the other questions in that survey. Those polled were asked which party the following statement applied to the most: ‘It seems rather old and tired’.

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