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Steve Akehurst

@steveakehurst.bsky.social
3.7K followers 685 following 990 posts

Politics, policy, public attitudes. Work in polling and comms. Director, Persuasion UK. ex- Shelter, civil service and various other things. 🏳️‍🌈 persuasionuk.org/about strongmessagehere.substack.com

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Steve Akehurst @steveakehurst.bsky.social · 6h
Also a bit notable that there isn’t much wrestling with why voters went from Con to Lab or Lib Dem beyond ‘too much psychodrama’. Not much on neutralising weaknesses on public services. But generally better pitched to those voters than her early years as leader tbf.
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Steve Akehurst @steveakehurst.bsky.social · 6h
Strongest Badenoch bits: - line on EU (‘do we really want to do all this again’) will resonate - distance with Reform on Englishness/ racism - bits on youth unemployment, welfare, property taxes Main downside: quite heavy on partisan attacks which test voter patience after a while
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Steve Akehurst @steveakehurst.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Thanks! Good q. Survation ran some questions for Mandate & ~50% say they saw it but honestly ppl do notoriously exaggerate their own engagement so not a perfect measure (none such exists!). In terms of real world impact, polling VI & favourables in next few days! cdn.survation.com/wp-content/u...
cdn.survation.com
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Reposted by Steve Akehurst
James Heale @jaheale.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Morgan always worth reading:
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Steve Akehurst @steveakehurst.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
“I was talking to my flatmate…” “Why’s he flat, what happened?” received with overwhelming hostility but I remain undeterred👍
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Steve Akehurst @steveakehurst.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Yes fair - who actually sees it and also how more competitive info environments play out clearly matters for real life VI. But I think important that this stuff has fairly large potential
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Steve Akehurst @steveakehurst.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
No they just got told he gave a speech. The point was to compare to people who were not exposed in any meaningful way.
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Steve Akehurst @steveakehurst.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
😂
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Steve Akehurst @steveakehurst.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Should have said here: for these reasons, this obviously cannot predict what polls will show next year or even next week. And yes delivery matters too. What it shows is more the upper-end potential of Burnham as a leader/Burnhamism as a project. What plays out in reality will ofc be more contested
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Steve Akehurst @steveakehurst.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
noted re: decay effects! will see how pricey it is. On charisma, yes and am curious how much 'emotionalism' can overcome deliverism not least as there's still quite a big gap between signalling and substance atm on Burnhamism, and CoL is about to get worse etc and so on.
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Steve Akehurst @steveakehurst.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
control saw text saying 'burnham has given a speech to conference' or whatever, no vid. But if we showed them a video of another speech he'd done, it's hard to disentangle how ppl respond to him vs the substance of what he's saying, so it's not a good control imo
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Steve Akehurst @steveakehurst.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
yeh. I think worth acknowledging also the clip went on for a long time and was uniformly positive for him really. But i think this tells you that 40-41% is about the maximum possible vote available to Lab, as we saw in 2017 (just the right got even higher !).
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Steve Akehurst @steveakehurst.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
we'll see i guess...but yes, as noted in the thread, it's an important caveat
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Steve Akehurst @steveakehurst.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
i think frankly the thing that will matter here is whether 'a cut to pensions/an end to triple lock' prevails or whether Burnham's 'a smaller increase to fund something good' does so. Am optimistic on the latter given bully pulpit and Burnham's own comms abilities.
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Steve Akehurst @steveakehurst.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
entirely fair enough! did my best but always tricky with paired statements. Only thing i'd say it's not super different to support/oppose questions. Would never say it's the final word, and framing matters hugely; what govt is doing is sellable imo. Agree more in-depth message testing is needed!
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Steve Akehurst @steveakehurst.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Ok, that’s the thread! Please do share on if you found it useful. Tables up soon. Here are the videos we tested: tinyurl.com/BurnhamConfC... @convergent-opinion.bsky.social @fintan-smith.bsky.social
tinyurl.com
POST Conf Test - Google Drive
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Steve Akehurst @steveakehurst.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Nevertheless, it does show us something important: people like Burnham even more when they’re exposed to him; many of his core themes & arguments carry people and can push up his numbers and vote share. The ownership agenda esp - if delivered - could be really powerful for him.
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Steve Akehurst @steveakehurst.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Ok, some obvious and important methodological caveats before Lab folk get too excited. Obviously we are forcibly exposing people to Burnham’s speech here, unfiltered and uncontested. In reality, most will not pay that sort of attention! Plus of course persuasion effects will decay. But…
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Steve Akehurst @steveakehurst.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
finally, we independently tested the whole BBC News at Six TV package on the speech, since this sort of thing is how more voters would actually experience the speech in reality. All the major metrics increased significantly! Impressive.
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Steve Akehurst @steveakehurst.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Some persuasion effects on policy: Burnham’s arguments moved more people to support national care service funded by triple lock change, as well as water. (the changes in other areas here weren’t stat significant, though already high). The PM as 'political teacher'.
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Steve Akehurst @steveakehurst.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Similar result on best PM - some chunky lifts
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Steve Akehurst @steveakehurst.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Among whom did most of this change come from? Fairly across the board but biggest impact was among those he's gaining from generally: more progressive voters, northern voters. Though bump in favourabilities in Scotland (Brexit potent here) & Wales matters given under-performance here in polling.
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Steve Akehurst @steveakehurst.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
How about voting intention? All videos pushed up Labour VI, but three stood out: economic power/control, water nationalisation and social care/triple lock clip, boosting it by 8-10 points! This is *genuinely impressive* for such a test, esp in an age of cynicism to politicians.
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Steve Akehurst @steveakehurst.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
First finding: all clips we tested raised Burnham’s NET favorables by a lot, essentially doubling them. But the public control/ownership themes in particular really smashed it. This is, once again, Burnham’s best performing bit imo. See it consistently in qual and quant.
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Steve Akehurst @steveakehurst.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Quickly on how we did this: we used an RCT, splitting 3000+ voters into 8 groups: 7 saw one clip from Burnham’s speech, a control group saw nothing. At the end we see how exposure to different clips changes attitudes, if at all. Done yesterday via @convergent-opinion.bsky.social
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Steve Akehurst @steveakehurst.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
NEW: How does Burnham’s conference speech land with voters when they see it it? In short, very well it seems. A thread on some new video testing of the PM’s speech among voters by @persuasionuk.bsky.social Top line findings and some caveats below! 🧵👇
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Steve Akehurst @steveakehurst.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
here's a few variations of a support/oppose question if you prefer that instead then. Pretty consistent. This is not to say Burnham's change will be unpopular because it does indeed depend on how it's framed to people in media and so on. But triple lock is popular, worth just acknowledging it.
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Steve Akehurst @steveakehurst.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Am just trying to measure the existing gut instinct there. If you want to do more you have to more in depth research, which I’m sure will be done
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Steve Akehurst @steveakehurst.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Voters are allowed opinions too and whether they like or dislike something shapes politics a lot in a democracy. Sorry we don’t live in some technocratic dystopia where your mates decide everything between them!
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Steve Akehurst @steveakehurst.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
They pretty much reflect standard support/oppose numbers on the triple lock tbh so I think this is a bit of cope on your part. What arguments would you like me to test instead?
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Steve Akehurst @steveakehurst.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
I will try those but am almost certain both (or at least second) will be too technical and you’ll get a lot of don’t know!
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Reposted by Steve Akehurst
Steve Akehurst @steveakehurst.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
this is a good catch, thank you - the headline figure and past vote figures are correct but the age breaks got messed up somehow. Here they are. Will retweet this for clarity! Apols for the confusion.
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Steve Akehurst @steveakehurst.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
this is a good catch, thank you - the headline figure and past vote figures are correct but the age breaks got messed up somehow. Here they are. Will retweet this for clarity! Apols for the confusion.
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Steve Akehurst @steveakehurst.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
What pro or anti arguments would you like to test? I did my best to capture the most prevalent ones, in as neutral a way as I could. But open to doing more if you have some ideas.
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Steve Akehurst @steveakehurst.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
It’s pretty popular honestly no matter how you ask the question
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Steve Akehurst @steveakehurst.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
One theory here might be that winter fuel allowance - though small - was ripping ‘real money’ out of real people’s pockets right now. Whereas a smaller increase in the future is less tangible and thus less electorally toxic.
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Steve Akehurst @steveakehurst.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
A counter point: up to now there’s been a big, probably inevitable, gap between the signalling of Burnhamism and the substance. Does the substance rise over time to meet the signalling, does the signalling ebb over time or does he just vibe it out forever?!
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Steve Akehurst @steveakehurst.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Definitely one of most self-confident & coherent speeches from a political leader in recent years. The full range of Burnhamism there - public control, political reform, social care - plus a gamble on triple lock. Something for every bit of the Labour’s electoral coalition
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Steve Akehurst @steveakehurst.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
There is no doubt most voters - across generations- start from a position of supporting triple lock. Far more so than SW1. Probably Burnham's approach (frame it as double lock, give something back, push change into future) is the best possible persuasion play. Still a gamble, i think winnable.
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Steve Akehurst @steveakehurst.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
You can do focus groups with the most depressed, disengaged and cynical swing voters in the electorate and they’ll still be absolutely unequivocal on Thames, energy companies etc. There is some real rage there built up in recent years.
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Steve Akehurst @steveakehurst.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
This theme around control - the loss of accountability and agency in the face of spiralling cost - is still easily the most powerful thread of Burnhamism among target voters. Comes up across so many issue areas. Delivery is another thing ofc, but it’s powerful territory.
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Steve Akehurst @steveakehurst.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Yes tho somewhat underrated that honestly there weren’t THAT many Con/Lib switchers in Blue Wall last time it was mostly bloc efficiency from Libs. That said ofc you need to stay positive with 10-15% of Cons at least.
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Steve Akehurst @steveakehurst.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
For this reason, while the Budget will obviously be a big moment, provided they avoid really big errors i'd personally back Burnham's popularity to sustain itself over the next year at least, even if things get tougher economically. But he's still lacking one or two big things to define by. End!
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Steve Akehurst @steveakehurst.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Does more help for the north mean less help for elsewhere? Mostly people are chilled out, but worth keeping an eye on the 'South' number here especially among Lab 2024 voters (more anti Lab voters in South generally so 'all voters' number skewed by that a bit).
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Steve Akehurst @steveakehurst.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
One advantage is he doesn't have his fingerprints on cost of living, in the way Starmer did pretty quickly with winter fuel allowance. People mostly blame outside forces or profiteering, at least for now.
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Steve Akehurst @steveakehurst.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
In short, his popularity seems mostly based on the fact many people just instinctively like him as a person. His time as Mayor helped this with some too. You can see all this in the prompted list question:
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Steve Akehurst @steveakehurst.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Odd juxtaposition here tho: ask people to write a thing they've noticed or liked that he's done and there's still a lot of shrugging. On a rough count, even 30% who told us they like him can't then name anything specific (!). You see this in groups also. Still mostly undefined.
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Steve Akehurst @steveakehurst.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Firstly, Burnham is legitimately popular - across the majority of the Labour coalition. This is real and not to be sniffed at. He is still largely drawing his polling bounce from progressive voters, who see him as more left wing than Starmer.
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Steve Akehurst @steveakehurst.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
NEW: With the first day of Labour conference upon us, here are a few random interesting things i've noticed in @persuasionuk.bsky.social polling recently. Featuring: the Andy Burnham vibe emporium, the cost of living blame game and north vs south.
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Marie Le Conte @youngvulgarian.marieleconte.com · 27/09/2026
oh we've got a classic one today
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