Introduction

The 2015 general election is likely to be the election that opinion pollsters prefer to forget. The unexpected election of a majority Conservative government represented the most significant failure of UK opinion polling since the 1992 general election. Whether the failure of many of the polls to predict a Conservative majority is attributed to sampling error, shy Tories or some other reason may, or may not, be revealed by the British Polling Council inquiry, which was announced shortly after the election. However, a broader assessment of public attitudes towards central parts of government policy on public spending and welfare does perhaps suggest that the political climate was conducive to a Conservative victory in 2015, and perhaps more so than in 2010.

Several studies have highlighted a hardening of public attitudes towards the poor in recent years, and towards the unemployed in particular. This began under the previous Labour government and continued under the coalition (Taylor-Gooby, 2013; Baumberg, 2014; Hills, 2015). This chapter will examine public attitudes towards social policies, focusing in particular on those adopted by the Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition and Conservative governments elected since 2010. It argues that while there is considerable evidence for a hardening of public attitudes towards benefits recipients, the public remain committed to state provision in a range of areas, and that evidence of public support for benefit cuts should be seen in the context of other areas of public concern, such as inequality. The chapter draws on British Social Attitudes data to examine long-term trends in attitudes towards public expenditure and the role of state in welfare provision. The annual British Social Attitudes survey has tracked changes in public support for state-funded provision in a wide range of areas since 1983, and is widely regarding as having high methodological standards. The chapter also deploys public opinion polling data from a range of polling organisations, most notably, Ipsos MORI and YouGov, to examine the public's response to more recent changes. While such polls may perhaps be less accurate than has previously been assumed, they remain the best data we have on public attitudes towards recent developments, and also provide more frequent snapshots that allow for more detailed tracking of trends than annual surveys such as British Social Attitudes.