The riots: what the polls tell us

Welcome to the 121th edition of The Week in Polls (TWIP) which returns to more sombre topics with a round-up of recent polling on the riots.

Then it’s a summary of the latest national voting intention polls¹ followed by, for paid-for subscribers, 10 insights from the last week’s polling and analysis. (If you’re a free subscriber, sign up for a free trial here to see what you’re missing.)

First though this week’s raised eyebrow of psephological doubt is triggered by Larry the Cat, who pointed out that Matt Goodwin had been cherry-picking some polling data. (If you do want more on Matt Goodwin, here’s what I made of his book.)

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Polling on the riots

Public opinion in reaction to events such as the recent riots often moves on as initial reactions fade and initial information is supplemented. It is also, even when thinking solely of riots, hard to distinguish between those that have long-term impact (think 1981) or those that pass without such a legacy (think 2011).

But even with those caveats noted, looking at the hard evidence on where public opinion currently stands is an important counter-balance to the proliferation of exuberant certainty in instant reactions. So let’s dive in to the data we have so far.

Things started off with one in three supporting “the protests” but with much less support for “the unrest”:

Moreover, a few days in, people overall judge the events as having been “mostly riots”:

No surprise then that few thought the unrest justified:

There was a clear partisan split in responses, with Reform voters much more supportive of protests, even unrest, than others:

(As an aside, results such as these also show the dangers for the Conservatives of a ‘unite the right’ approach to the party’s future, as that is an approach which could take the Conservatives further away from where the rest of public opinion sits.)

Those carrying out “unrest” get a big thumbs down from the public, with terms such as “thugs”, “idiots” and “rioters” popular picks to describe them:

Again, Reform voters are much more sympathetic:

Reform voters are also the outlier in thinking that those involved are standing up for Britain rather than shaming Britain:

As for where people think responsibility rests, there’s a wide range of causes picked by people with some common patterns across party lines but a significant variation over the perceived role of immigration policy:

That high rating for far-right groups also comes through in the increasing concern over the threat they pose:

Reform voters and, to a lesser extent, Conservative voters see things differently:

Turning to how the government is handling matters, it’s a pretty traditional partisan split:

(That last question, about “politicians in general”, seems of very limited use to me. Starmer and Farage, for example, are both politicians. So when answering the question which of one, both or neither of them do people have in mind?)

There has been a concurrent (and likely consequential) fall in Nigel Farage’s ratings following his comments on the riots,

That fall echoes something found in other research during the general election:

Although it is worth adding that some people have quite extreme views of what counts as being “far right”, with 14% including in that voting for the Conservative Party:

While there is plenty of, say, David Gauke’s views that I disagree with, I think it fair to say that using the same label to lump together those with those of, say, Nick Griffin, fails both accuracy and helpfulness tests.

Meanwhile, Starmer’s ratings continued their ‘reasonable but not brilliant’ course (a course that did not stop him winning a landslide, of course):

(It is a similar story with YouGov.)

People are more positive about how the police have handled things:

(Note the fieldwork dates too; I would expect these numbers for the police to improve if there is not another large outbreak of rioting.)

People also want the police’s response to be tougher:

Note again the outlier nature of some Reform party support, with those voters being the most likely to complain of the police being too tough on criminals, which is not the usual pattern. It also comes through in Reform voters being less keen on sending rioters to jail than, for example, Lib Dem voters:

This also means that Reform voters are those most opposed to ideas such as those who are convicted losing benefits or council housing:

Going back to that overall desire for a tougher response from the police, this support is lower for a range of tougher measures now than it was in 2011 in the face of those riots:

Moreover, it is social media companies, rather than the police, that the public thinks are doing badly in their response so far:

Finally, some international context:

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National voting intention polls

A thin table so far as I have reset it to include only post-general election voting intention polls:

For more details and updates through the week, see my daily updated table here and for all the historic figures, including Parliamentary by-election polls, see PollBase.

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Last week’s edition

How did the MRPs cope with the Liberal Democrats?

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Green voters less keen on wind farms than Labour or Lib Dems, and other polling news

The following 10 findings from the most recent polls and analysis are for paying subscribers only, but you can sign up for a free trial to read them straight away.