Eighty-four percent of Britons believe public services are in poor condition as the July 4 snap election looms. After 14 years in power, only 11 percent of Britons prefer Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives to handle them, according to a YouGov survey. The figure for the Labour opposition, projected to win the election by a wide margin, stands at 34 percent.
Nigel Farage’s Reform Party is remarkably close to the Conservatives despite having no record in government, at eight percent. This puts Reform ahead of the Liberal Democrats, who have a pedigree stretching back to the 19th century and were part of a coalition government from 2010 to 2015, on five percent. Reform has double the support of the far-left Greens, on four percent.
Ninety percent of survey respondents said the socialized National Health Service is in poor condition. Eighty-four percent think social care is inadequate, and 77 percent think schools are inadequate. Transportation services, including trains (75 percent) and buses (53 percent), also have low approval ratings.
A plurality of 43 percent believe the armed forces are dysfunctional, compared to 30 percent who hold a more positive view. Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) scandals are damaging the military’s reputation, with the Royal Air Force (RAF) having been found to have unlawfully discriminated against white men in 2023—although nobody was punished.
Seventy-one percent believe policing services are flawed, with 74 percent having a negative view of the courts and justice system. Incidents of bias are also harming the forces of law and order, such as when officers pepper-sprayed independent journalist and anti-grooming gangs activist Tommy Robinson and unlawfully arrested him while he covered a march against anti-Semitism in London.
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