Despair may be the real winner of this election

Labour are likely to benefit most from the Conservatives’ woes, but ITV News UK Editor Paul Brand hasn't found people flocking to the party with any great enthusiasm

One of the privileges of being a journalist is getting people to waive their privacy and talk about who they’re going to vote for at each election.

Nobody is obliged of course – what happens on voting day is between you and the ballot box.

But in previous elections, you’d be surprised by how many people want to volunteer their choice.

Remember the singing of “Oh Jeremy Corbyn” in 2017, or the chants of “Boris, Boris, Boris!” in 2019.

Voters generally get into the spirit of elections and, like the Euros or the Olympics this summer, want to tell you which team they support.

But not so much this time. At least not to the same degree.

In fact, the most striking thing for me about this election isn’t the rise of Reform or the multitude of mistakes by the Conservative Party. It’s the fact that none of it seems to have enthused anyone to drastically change their mind.

Voters are utterly fed up with politics.

Wherever I’ve travelled during our Fight for ’24 reports, it’s not that voters don’t care or aren’t interested.

It’s that they have totally lost faith – at least in the two main parties – to do anything to drastically improve their lives.

Pairing the current polling with what we’ve found speaking to small groups of voters on the ground, it’s fair to say people know what they don’t want.

There’s not much appetite – it wouldn’t seem – for another Conservative government.

That’s partly to be expected after any party has been in government for 14 years.

But what’s far less clear, is what people do want instead.

Labour are likely to benefit most from the Conservatives’ woes – as for the best part of a century they’ve been the main alternative.

But generally speaking, we haven’t found people flocking to Labour with any great enthusiasm, even though they are expected to emerge victorious.

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Voters are sceptical that things will change.

You can see that in the data we’ve obtained from the British Election Study.

When people are asked whether the Conservatives will solve the issues they face, very few say yes.

Just 5% think the Tories can address immigration, for example.

Labour do undoubtedly score better - 22% trust them on immigration.

But by far the biggest winner is a third option – that ‘neither of the parties’ will fix the big issues.

For example, 74% of people think neither the Conservatives nor Labour will address immigration.

That’s a pretty damning plague on both their houses.

Our elections analyst Jane Green told us: “That’s pretty devastating, going into [an] election with low expectations, low confidence, and really, a low sense of hope that these issues can really be resolved by any incoming government.”

It benefits – to some extent – the smaller parties, like Reform and the Lib Dems, perhaps even the Greens, who may pick up seats at this election.

But in our experience, it doesn’t make for an enthused or inspired electorate in general.

At a barbecue in Blackpool, we found something burning beneath the smell of burgers.

The voters we gathered together here all had a blazing frustration with politics.

“It's horrible to watch, isn't it?" said one about the campaign.

“I'm confused, depressed and embarrassed by the way this election has built up steam," said another.

“The anger that we've got in terms of the Conservatives and Labour, it's just been too back and forth, back and forth, but for years and years and years now, and that needs to change," one man told me.

“People are being really quiet about who they're going to vote for. They'll say, 'oh, I don't know'. But they're angry at both. They're really angry at Labour and they're really angry at the Conservatives,” said another woman.

One voter who said he’ll stick with the Conservatives received a round of laughter from the others.

“Wow. It's the first person I've heard say that in weeks!” said the woman opposite him.

Some told me they will vote Reform UK in order to make a point.

“It's a protest, isn't it? We’re all so angry, we’re like, ‘stuff you all!’," said one woman, before the group broke out into debate about whether that would be a ‘wasted vote’.

The Labour Party is generally expected to benefit from Reform UK, which poses an existential risk to the Conservative Party at this election.

But longer term, if Reform UK get a foothold, Labour may face a challenge too.

In Southport, which has been Lib Dem and Conservative over the years, but may go Labour at this election, we found voters unsure about what Keir Starmer would do differently.

“I was excited about Jeremy Corbyn," one voter told me. “But these don't seem much different to the Tories," she added, sounding frustrated.

Another man told me he’ll vote Lib Dem, but raged: “It's a game to an awful lot of them. And as, as long as they win, it doesn't matter whether it's a local level or national level, what anybody does, it's a game.”

The most concerning thing we heard is that some will be put off voting altogether.

One younger voter told me she felt completely uninspired to go out and put a cross next to any name.

“There should be a way to connect with our generation," she said. “Because in reality, we should really be voting. We’re the ones that it's for, really. It's our future.”

Tens of millions of futures are at stake this week.

Yet despite the power to choose our direction, many lack any enthusiasm that the country is about to significantly change course.

Have you heard our new podcast Talking Politics? Every day in the run-up to the election Tom, Robert and Anushka dig into the biggest issues dominating the political agenda…