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And, for historical interest, there is the 2019 version and the 2021 version.
The traditional left-right axis has served as a framework for understanding the British public and their political leanings for decades. However, after several years shaped by radical cultural debates, persistent economic weakness, and issues of freedom and authority, voters are more divided, and their political opinions have become more complex and harder to track.
Many people now hold views that cut across traditional party lines, such as supporting increased funding for public services while simultaneously maintaining conservative views on immigration or national security. The traditional Labour-Conservative divide has collapsed as voters increasingly hold a mix of views that no longer fit neatly on the left or right.
Several parties are now competing for the same pool of voters, making the political landscape more competitive and fragmented. For parties trying to win or retain seats, identifying how voters cluster around shared attitudes, rather than party labels, is essential. Following on from our earlier work, Electoral Calculus has measured the public's political attitudes across three axes: economic, cultural, and liberty. We then used cluster analysis to group people into seven political tribes that we believe represent the UK population.
The three axes and their two sides of each one are shown in this table:
| Axis | Left side | Right side |
|---|---|---|
| Economic | Left-wing Higher taxes and spending, government borrowing, state control, generous benefits and suspicion of capitalism | Right-wing Lower taxes and spending, fiscal discipline, free markets, lower benefits, and pro-capitalist. |
| Cultural | Leftist Pro-Multiculturalism, pro-immigration, pro-ECHR, political correct, anti-colonial | Rightist Pro-British culture, anti-immigration, leave ECHR, not PC or woke, proud of Britain |
| Liberty | Regulated Government surveillance, compulsory vaccines, planning controls, schools over parents, restrictions on groups | Free Less surveillance, no compulsory medicines, freedom to build, parents over schools, free association |
Everyone in the country will have a position on each of these three axes. Their position might be at either of the extreme ends, or closer to the middle. And people can have different positions on each axis. Someone can be both left-wing economically but culturally right-wing, just as another person can be culturally leftish but economically right-wing.
You can see details of the questions asked in Section 4.
To make sense of all this data, we have to group similar people together. One way of doing this is called "clustering" or cluster analysis, which divides the population into tribes (or clusters). In each tribe, its members have fairly similar political views.
Electoral Calculus prepared three-dimensional scores for each respondent, and ran clustering analysis on the results. This produced seven political tribes of the British electorate. They are:
| Tribe | Economic | Cultural | Liberty |
|---|---|---|---|
| Strong Left | Very Left-wing | Very Leftist | Mildly Regulated |
| Centrist | Mildly left-wing | Mildly Leftist | Neutral |
| Hands Off | Neutral | Neutral | Very Free |
| Somewhere | Neutral | Very Rightist | Neutral |
| Paternalist | Right-wing | Rightist | Very Regulated |
| Kind Capitalist | Very Right-wing | Mildly Leftist | Neutral |
| Strong Right | Very Right-wing | Very Rightist | Free |
The Strong Left are often young, university educated renters who see politics as a moral mission. Deeply sceptical of capitalism, they want a world without hard borders and believe the government has a responsibility to take an active, and sometimes forceful role in defending social equality.
Committed and outspoken, their values are non-negotiable, campaigning for the changes they believe in without compromise. They're the core of the Greens and the radical wing of Labour with Zack Polanski and Jeremy Corbyn as their spiritual guides.
Centrists are broadly middle-of-the-road voters, school-educated and politically unflashy. They sit near the centre on economics and culture, tilting slightly left. Many do not vote, and those who do tend to lean a little towards Labour, taking Tony Blair as their spiritual guide, representing mildly progressive centrism.
The Hands Off tribe are often middle-aged, working-class women who could not care less about politics as long as it stays off their doorstep.
Many don't have strong party loyalties and are less interested in politicians and their campaigns, seeing voting as optional at best. They just want politicians to naff off and leave them to get on with their own lives. However, if they do cast their ballot, it's probably not for the Conservatives. Their spiritual guide is Brenda from Bristol, who, when hearing about the 2017 snap general election said, "I can't stand this, there's too much politics going on at the moment".
The Somewheres are usually working-class men who hold centrist economic views but are culturally quite right wing. In the 2024 general election they mostly voted for the Conservatives and Reform.
Proud of British culture and its colonial past, they worry that immigration and multiculturalism are eroding the traditions and values they grew up with. They are strong Brexit supporters who want to tighten the borders and restrict immigration. Their spiritual leader is Nigel Farage, pint in hand, cheering for Britain as they remember it.
Economically and culturally conservative, they are the quiet voice of authority who believe in order, rules and hierarchy. Often retired and settled, they see discipline as a duty and are comfortable directing others.
Many voted to leave the EU, want the UK to withdraw from the ECHR and see government surveillance as a necessary tool to keep the public safe. Theresa May is their spiritual guide, traditional, stiff-upper-lipped and firm. The kind of person who makes you feel that sometimes dad knows best.
Kind Capitalists have a clear right-wing economic outlook with a culturally moderate perspective. Often London-based, affluent, married, and university-educated, they run their lives with quiet competence and would prefer the government to focus on fiscal discipline while keeping socially tolerant views that lean slightly left. They backed Remain and tend to vote Conservative or Liberal Democrat. David Cameron and Rory Stewart represent this tribe. The calm capitalist who wants free markets and leftish social values.
The Strong Right are older, often retired, Christian men who own their homes and value personal freedom. They want low taxes, strong borders, and the government kept firmly out of their lives, believing surveillance and control over citizens should be limited wherever possible.
This tribe is the biggest group of hardcore Brexit supporters and while they were strong Conservative voters in 2019, they have started to shift more towards Reform. Proudly British and convinced that political correctness has gone too far, they take inspiration from Margaret Thatcher and Jacob Rees-Mogg.
The 2D chart below shows where the seven political tribes land across the three axes. The x-axis shows economic views, from left-wing to right-wing. The y-axis shows cultural views from leftish to rightish. The third axis, liberty, is shown by colour, with green marking those whose values align more with personal freedom and red marking those with more regulated attitudes.
For most people, their cultural views broadly line up with their economic views, so the tribes tend to sit in a similar left to right place on both axes. The Strong Left and Strong Right, true to their names, land exactly where you would expect. Only two tribes break this pattern. The Somewheres care more about cultural issues than the economy, while the Kind Capitalists are right-wing economically but have more leftish social views.
On the chart, the liberty axis is shown by colour, with red for voters most comfortable with regulation, orange for the middle ground, and green for those who favour individual freedom.
We can also look at the tribes in 3D political space. The 3D chart below shows each tribe as a sphere. The volume of each sphere is proportional to the size of the tribe in the population. The position of the centre of the sphere shows the Economic, Cultural and Liberty scores of the tribe's centre. The economic axis is the red one, running from 'left' to 'right'. The cultural axis is blue, running from the 'leftist' to 'rightist'. The liberty axis is green running from 'Regulated' to 'Free'.
You can view the 3D chart from any angle by left-clicking anywhere on the chart and dragging your mouse. The original rotational view can be resumed by double-clicking anywhere on the chart.
Please press the 'Show Diagonal' button to display the diagonal line from goes from the left/leftist/controlled corner across to the right/rightist/free corner. Traditional political theory suggests that people and tribes should be found on this (magenta) diagonal line. This line represents the standard one-dimensional political spectrum from 'full left' to 'full right'. It is often simplistically assumed that people can only have views which are somewhere on this line. But reality is more complicated.
We polled the public to measure their attitudes, asking fifteen questions across the three axes which we use to map each respondent's overall position in 3D space.
We asked the British public fifteen questions to gain a clearer understanding of where people stand on the country's main political views. We began with around 70 questions and then narrowed them down to a shortlist of "golden" questions that showed an individual's score on each axis.
On the economy, the public were asked about the role of the state, fiscal discipline, free markets, welfare, and views of capitalism. When asked whether they would rather have a smaller government with lower taxes and fewer services, or a bigger government with higher taxes and more services, the economic left tends to choose the bigger state, and the economic right prefers a smaller government with lower taxes.
The public were then asked what their view was on government spending. Those who are economically right-wing believe the government should spend no more than it receives in taxes, while those who are economically left-wing are more comfortable with government borrowing.
They were also asked about welfare. Economically right-wing voters think that there are too many people dependent on government support that should be supporting themselves. On the left of the economic axis are those who disagree. Seeing capitalism and free markets as a good way of organising the economy places people on the right of the economic axis, while those on the left are more sceptical.
We asked the public five cultural questions that covered multiculturalism, immigration, international treaties, political correctness, and Britain's past. On multiculturalism, we asked whether it has been helpful or hurtful in the UK. Culturally leftish voters mostly view multiculturalism as a positive, while rightish voters are more likely to think it has made society worse. On immigration, the cultural right back much stricter controls to limit who enters the UK, while those who are on the cultural left of the axis tend to prefer the government to have a more open approach towards immigration.
Left and right-wing divides on national sovereignty carry through to views on the ECHR. When asked whether Britain should stay in or leave the European Convention on Human Rights, those who are more culturally conservative back leaving, while left-wing voters back staying in.
Asked whether political correctness has gone too far in the UK, right-wing voters are much more comfortable saying yes, while left-wing voters disagree. Lastly, we asked if the UK should be proud or ashamed of its colonial past. Those on the right of the cultural axis believe that we should be proud, and those on the left are ashamed.
We also looked at personal liberty, measuring how far voters are willing to let the government control people's lives and how much personal freedom they want to keep. There are some voters more comfortable with regulation, and other who favour individual freedom.
Asked whether there is too much government surveillance, those who see it as a necessary tool for public safety sit on the regulated end of the liberty axis, while those who think there is too much and want less intrusion are placed on the free end.
If a person leans towards compulsory vaccination measures, they land on the regulated end of the liberty axis, while those who reject compulsory measures and prioritise personal choice appear at the free end. Another question asked whether schools or parents should get the final say on a child's welfare. Those on the regulated side chose schools over parents, and those on the free side picked the opposite. Finally, we asked whether people should be free to join any group regardless of what it stands for. Those who believe there should be restrictions on joining certain groups are on the regulated end, and supporting freedom of association places people on the free end.
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