🧵Do culture wars they benefit politicians who engage in them? New More in Common research for 38 Degrees deploys a series of public opinion experiments & finds politicians have more to lose than gain, and risk appearing desperate, increasing cynicism & alienating swing voters

Our first experiment gave voters a series of campaign leaflets headlines to find out which voters were most likely to read on. MaxDiff analysis then shows leaflets leading on culture war topics were generally *far less likely* to be read than those on bread/butter issues

Our second experiment used an RCT format, voters were presented with either a Labour core message (the NHS) a Labour culture war message (attacking racist classist elite), a Tory core message (the economy) or a Tory culture war message (attacking woke blob) and a control group.

For Labour, while the culture war message increases likelihood to vote Labour among existing supporters, it decreases support among voters overall & erodes satisfaction in politics. The NHS message on the other hand increases trust in Labour & likely support across the electorate

For the Tories the results are more stark, the woke blob messaging significantly reduces likelihood to vote Conservative vs the economic messaging, even among existing supporters vs the economy messaging - which also sees higher net satisfaction with politics.

So why this reaction? In part it's because voters think politicians are being cynical. They aren't averse to discussing divisive issues and think when most people talk about them it's because they care about them - but that politicians only talk about them for attention.

Again this isn't about taking issues off the table, people expect politicians to deal with tricky/hotly contested issues, but they expect them to do so in a way that genuinely tries to resolve them - asked what people wanted from politicians integrity, honesty and trust come top.

On the Conservative side their recent gothic style advert suggesting that London had become crime ridden and empty under a Labour mayor went down badly with voters in the swing seat of Calder Valley, who all thought it looked a bit desperate.

Another reason they don't resonate is that lots of the terminology and language used in these debates is alien to voters and largely very online/elite. Only among our progressive activist segment could a significant proportion feel they could explain what culture wars mean.