Five Years of Unprecedented Challenges: The impact of the 2019-2024 Parliament on public opinion

In this edition of British Social Attitudes, we assess what impact the last five years has had on the landscape of public attitudes. The 2019-2024 Parliament has witnessed unprecedented economic and political turmoil. The COVID-19 pandemic, the Russia-Ukraine war, and the associated ‘cost of living crisis’ have adversely impacted living standards and the economy. Public services have struggled to recover too. Meanwhile, two Prime Ministers were ousted from office. In this chapter, we assess what impact the experience of the last five years has had on the landscape of public attitudes. Has public opinion been significantly reshaped, or will politicians campaigning on the election trail find themselves in familiar territory? Will the next government be attempting to implement its policy agenda against a largely unchanged backcloth, or will it be facing an electorate with very different social and economic hopes and expectations? In short, is there reason to believe that the 2019-2024 Parliament could prove an epoch-defining moment in British public opinion – or despite everything, does the picture now look much the same as it did before 2019? We attempt to answer these questions in four main sections. First, we assess trends in attitudes towards public services and the taxes that are needed to pay for them. Second, we consider public opinion towards some of the consequences of the economic challenges faced by the country over the last few years, that is, inequality, the role of trade unions and housing. Thereafter, we assess attitudes towards what are sometimes termed ‘cultural’ issues such as Brexit and immigration. Finally, we consider what effect this period of economic and political turmoil has had on attitudes towards the country’s political institutions. We conclude by pulling together our findings to assess whether the public mood in Britain is markedly different now from what it was five years ago.