Verdicts · Governance
What the UK thinks about governance
Settled referendums
90
since Jun 2026
Votes cast
12,178
all time, on governance
This week
2,241
votes · 4 referendums settled
Written opinions
435
all time, left by voters
This week's opinion highlightThe most respected opinion this week
“Yes, tired of the control they have. It should be government who make and act. Tony Blair destroyed the UK 20 years ago with these quangos”
Lixhul, debating Yes on “Should Quangos be scrapped?” · read the thread →
8
Respects
Most respected on governance this week
- 1.BenL19 respects
- 2.Slawomir11 respects
- 3.HardCompact11 respects
- 4.Jonathan10 respects
- 5.JohnnyBoy8 respects
Who answered this week
The 778 placed voters lean Centre Right overall.
H. Left5%
Left19%
C. Left8%
Centre8%
C. Right10%
Right42%
H. Right7%
Regions this week
South EastC. Right
ScotlandCentre
LondonCentre
South WestC. Right
North WestC. Right
YorkshireC. Right
East of EnglandC. Right
North EastC. Right
West MidlandsC. Right
East MidlandsCentre
WalesC. Right
Northern IrelandRight
Votes each week
2,241so far this week
48227 Jul
1,2483 Aug
64410 Aug
1,42517 Aug
1,06624 Aug
2,24131 Aug
All-time governance highlights
Biggest landslide
YES 97%
Should lobbying be made completely transparent?
97% of 589 votes went the same way.
Closest result
NO 50%
Should the UK government pursue deeper devolution to drive economic growth?
Decided by 1 vote.
Most debated
YES 51%
Was the "emergency alerts" regarding fire risks an abuse of power?
26 written opinions.
This week
4 settled · 2,241 votes
0% YES
Majority for
NO 25%
567 votes
0 skipped
by @SwiftBench35⏱ Ended 4 Sept 2026
Is tightening rules on mega-donors essential to restore trust in UK democracy?
The verdict
“One person, one vote, not one pound, one vote” was the line that carried the room: Yes won by three to one, while even some No voters drew a line at million-pound giving and argued for transparency rather than a blanket ban.
0% YES
Majority for
NO 3%
589 votes
0 skipped
by @Alwi⏱ Ended 3 Sept 2026
Should lobbying be made completely transparent?
The verdict
“Hidden influence is a larger one”: the platform’s vote backed complete lobbying transparency by an overwhelming margin, while the No side left no argument on the page. The case was as much for exposing—or abolishing—lobbying as regulating it.
0% YES
Majority for
NO 16%
588 votes
0 skipped
by @Jonathan⏱ Ended 3 Sept 2026
Should MPs be banned from expensing their energy bills?
The verdict
“Insulation from the meter is not representation,” ran the sharpest Yes argument; Yes won with more than four votes in five, as the No side mostly sought limits rather than repeal.
0% YES
Majority for
NO 22%
497 votes
0 skipped
by @stewartdawe⏱ Ended 1 Sept 2026
Should Quangos be scrapped?
The verdict
“Government is here to govern and take full responsibility for results” captured a vote for abolition that was less a policy debate than a demand for someone, somewhere, to own the decision.
Last week
3 settled · 1,066 votes
0% YES
Majority for
NO 27%
392 votes
0 skipped
by @transparent⏱ Ended 27 Aug 2026
Should the UK introduce a cap on individual donations to political parties?
The verdict
Yes won decisively on a cap for individual political donations, but the chamber’s sharpest instinct was broader: if money is to be restrained, unions and organisations must face the same test.
0% NO
Majority against
YES 27%
367 votes
0 skipped
by @DavidSandilands⏱ Ended 26 Aug 2026
Should council tax be replaced by income and inheritance tax rises to maintain current local funding?
The verdict
A proposed tax swap left council tax standing, with the chamber’s sharpest No voice warning it would “run out of people to punitively tax”; the striking part was how little anyone defended the status quo.
0% YES
Majority for
NO 43%
307 votes
0 skipped
by @sonbae⏱ Ended 24 Aug 2026
Should any criminal conviction disqualify someone from serving as an MP?
The verdict
The chamber chose a blanket bar on convicted MPs, even as the room’s written debate mostly warned against blanket bans. The strongest Yes voice said there were “sufficient competent people without convictions” — a tidy answer to a messy question.
Every governance verdict
- YES 75%Is tightening rules on mega-donors essential to restore trust in UK democracy?“One person, one vote, not one pound, one vote” was the line that carried the room: Yes won by three to one, while even some No voters drew a line at million-pound giving and argued for transparency rather than a blanket ban.
- YES 97%Should lobbying be made completely transparent?“Hidden influence is a larger one”: the platform’s vote backed complete lobbying transparency by an overwhelming margin, while the No side left no argument on the page. The case was as much for exposing—or abolishing—lobbying as regulating it.
- YES 84%Should MPs be banned from expensing their energy bills?“Insulation from the meter is not representation,” ran the sharpest Yes argument; Yes won with more than four votes in five, as the No side mostly sought limits rather than repeal.
- YES 78%Should Quangos be scrapped?“Government is here to govern and take full responsibility for results” captured a vote for abolition that was less a policy debate than a demand for someone, somewhere, to own the decision.
- YES 73%Should the UK introduce a cap on individual donations to political parties?Yes won decisively on a cap for individual political donations, but the chamber’s sharpest instinct was broader: if money is to be restrained, unions and organisations must face the same test.
- NO 73%Should council tax be replaced by income and inheritance tax rises to maintain current local funding?A proposed tax swap left council tax standing, with the chamber’s sharpest No voice warning it would “run out of people to punitively tax”; the striking part was how little anyone defended the status quo.
- YES 57%Should any criminal conviction disqualify someone from serving as an MP?The chamber chose a blanket bar on convicted MPs, even as the room’s written debate mostly warned against blanket bans. The strongest Yes voice said there were “sufficient competent people without convictions” — a tidy answer to a messy question.
- YES 87%Should foreign governments be banned from all forms of funding or support for Westminster APPGs?“Our politicians should be governing for our benefit” captured the floor’s mood as Yes carried the question by nearly seven to one — an emphatic verdict, with No barely making the argument.
- YES 87%Should UK local government be reformed so poor performing officers are identified and placed on improvement plans?Poor performance was handed to management, not mercy: Yes won nearly nine votes in ten, while the floor’s sharpest warning was about “sacking the poor bldy infantry while ignoring the General”.
- YES 74%Should MPs be banned from all second jobs except for maintaining professional qualifications?“Any side jobs are a distraction,” the floor’s strongest Yes case said. That demand for undivided attention carried the room, while the losing side’s warnings about expertise and a self-contained political class went largely unanswered.
- YES 73%Should we stop taxpayer money funding expensive AI slop for politicians, billionaires and media companies?A room that wanted public money out of “AI slop” nevertheless rated the strongest arguments against the motion: “Look past the horribly leading question.”
- YES 51%Was the "emergency alerts" regarding fire risks an abuse of power?A near-dead-heat verdict turned on whether a wildfire warning protected the public or debased the meaning of an emergency alert. The sharpest Yes voices feared that once the phones cry wolf, people switch them off.
- YES 83%Does Scotland benefit from being part of the UK?“The question should be does the UK benefit from Scotland being a part of it,” one voter wrote; the debate then delivered an emphatic answer, with every posted argument coming from the Yes side.
- YES 86%Are our UK streets stained with vape shops and barbershops?A high street once prized for variety is now described as “all coffee shops, tattoo parlours, nail bars, vape and phone repair shops”. Yes carried the motion decisively, but the debate was less about vapes than whether an ugly symptom had been mistaken for its cause.
- YES 79%Is the UK economy in serious trouble?“We’re in a £3 trillion debt hole, nuff said” was the bluntest summary of a Yes victory: the chamber gave the diagnosis nearly four voices to one, and offered no No argument at all.
- NO 65%Will an MP openly refer to a Refnation verdict in a House of Commons debate before the end of the year?The room backed No, but the liveliest case was for Refnation itself: “MPs and the media just don't talk or understand about the things the voters do.”
- YES 87%Should UK universities and charities declare all foreign donations over £50,000 on a public register within 28 days?A near-consensus backed disclosure, while the only hesitation came from supporters who thought the deadline too tight and the rule too narrow.
- YES 54%Would Reform UK's policies better serve Britain than Labour's?The floor gave Reform a narrow Yes, but its own best line was “a plague on both their houses”: a verdict that sounded more like impatience with Labour than confidence in Reform.
- YES 80%Should the public have a way to recall elected officials?“We already do” captured the winning side’s awkward truth: recall exists, but voters here still wanted a broader power. The sharpest warning came from those who feared activists would weaponise it.
- YES 85%Should government ministers declare all criminal convictions including spent ones?“Transparency is a necessity to have a healthy democracy” carried the room: Yes won decisively, with the strongest voices treating spent convictions as a question of public trust.
Show all 90 verdicts ↓
- YES 58%Should alcohol be banned from the Palace of Westminster?The floor's most-respected No voice supplied the sharpest joke — “Need to be half pis sed to sit through some of the discussions in parliament” — as Westminster's drinking culture lost the vote.
- YES 85%Should people convicted of serious criminal offences be permanently barred from serving as MPs or local councillors?A permanent ban on serious offenders holding elected office swept through the chamber by more than four to one, yet the most-respected voices on the winning side spent their energy not on the principle but on its loophole: nobody could agree what "serious" means.
- YES 55%Should the October Budget move money and power out of Westminster to every UK postcode?A narrow but decisive verdict, this: the chamber backed shifting money and power away from Westminster by 55 to 45, yet the case that carried it was less about devolution's promise than Westminster's failure.
- YES 57%Does growing government regulation signal a shift to banning anything not explicitly permitted?A narrow majority here answered its own question in the affirmative, deciding that Britain's regulatory drift is indeed tilting from "everything allowed unless banned" toward the reverse — even though only one voter bothered to make the case against.
- YES 58%Do you support a council tax and stamp duty replacement with a 0.48% tax on homes?A clean win for the 0.48% property tax masks a floor that argued mostly against it — reform carried the day on the numbers even as the loudest, most-respected voices worried about who gets caught out.
- NO 63%Is Sadiq Khan right that falling crime proves London is safe?Two to one, the chamber told Sadiq Khan his own statistics were not enough to win the argument, rejecting the claim that falling headline crime figures prove London is safe.
- TIEDShould security for MPs' staff be urgently tightened following physical attacks and abuse?A dead heat, six votes apiece, on a question with a real body count behind it: staff who work for MPs report threats, racist and sexist abuse, and clinical-level distress in numbers that would trigger action in almost any other workplace, yet the chamber here split exactly down the middle on whether that adds up to an urgent case for tighter security.
- NO 57%Should the Prime Minister regularly work from outside London?A fictional Prime Minister's symbolic dash to No10 North was meant to settle the question of where power should sit, but the chamber left it unsettled, splitting close enough that "should the PM work from outside London" carried by only 14 points of 30 votes cast.
- YES 62%Would scrapping the digital ID scheme help Andy Burnham prioritise the cost of living?Age did most of the talking here: the youngest voters backed scrapping digital ID almost as one, while the over-65s were the only group to reject it, leaving Burnham's redirection of £1.8 billion toward living costs endorsed two-to-one overall but far from settled across generations.
- YES 60%Should the BBC Licence be scrapped and replaced by a subscription service?The chamber decided the licence fee has outlived its argument, backing a switch to subscription by a clear three-to-two margin even as the strongest voice against it made the case that a smaller, meaner BBC would be the price of that convenience.
- NO 54%Should Burnham run part of his government from a "Northern Number 10" in Manchester?The chamber gave Andy Burnham's Manchester experiment a narrow but clear rebuff, with No prevailing by eight points on a question that was less about geography than about whether devolution built from Downing Street is devolution at all.
- NO 65%Should the UK merge its science department into the business department?Nearly two to one against, voters here rejected the idea that science can simply be filed under business, treating DSIT's abolition less as machinery-of-government tidying and more as a demotion of a portfolio they think deserves its own seat at the cabinet table.
- YES 67%Will GOV.UK Wallet and One Login become de facto digital ID despite scrapping the national scheme?The chamber's scepticism about scrapping digital ID turned out to be scepticism about the scrapping itself: two-thirds of voters here reckon the infrastructure will become de facto national ID whatever ministers call it, a verdict on function creep rather than on Burnham's climbdown.
- YES 54%Should all national and regional official publications be in English, Welsh, and Braille only?This was a narrow win dressed up as a mandate: a chamber split down the middle on paper reaching a verdict that would strip translation from every language except Welsh and Braille, with the young the only group to resist it in any numbers.
- YES 69%Should the UK adopt a structured cross-government strategy for digital sovereignty?A chamber otherwise inclined to treat national tech dependence as a live strategic risk still found its softest enthusiasm among the 35-44s, who split almost evenly, as voters backed a formal cross-government digital sovereignty strategy by better than two to one.
- YES 88%Should the UK spend more on domestic issues than international commitments?Domestic priority beat international solidarity almost without a fight, as voters here backed a UK-first spending instinct by a landslide of near nine to one — though the over-65s, the generation that lived through Britain's postwar global commitments, were markedly more reluctant to say so than anyone younger.
- YES 66%Should England move towards a more rules-based, plan-led planning system like those in continental Europe?Reforming how England builds turned out to be one of the easier calls the chamber has made this year, with two in three voters backing a shift toward the rules-based, plan-led systems of France, Germany and the Netherlands — even as the country's largest single age bracket split clean down the middle on it.
- YES 86%Was scrapping digital ID the right call?Scrapping digital ID found almost nobody willing to defend it on this floor, with every age band and every woman who voted lining up behind Burnham's decision to shelve the scheme in favour of the electricity VAT cut.
- NO 50%Should the UK government pursue deeper devolution to drive economic growth?A vote this evenly cleft could hardly have delivered a cleaner non-verdict: on Burnham's pitch for deeper devolution without a fresh constitutional fight, the chamber split down to the last ballot, No prevailing by a single vote of 121 cast.
- YES 85%Should Andy Burnham scrap the government digital ID programme and expand North Sea oil and gas drilling?A verdict this lopsided in a chamber this small still carries a signal: scrapping digital ID and unleashing more North Sea drilling found the floor almost of one mind, with 11 of the 13 who voted backing Burnham's opening gambit, even as the handful of women present pulled the other way.
- NO 55%Should the UK maintain its sector-by-sector approach to AI regulation rather than adopt the EU's comprehensive AI Act?With just eleven votes cast and barely a whisker separating the sides, this was less a verdict than a shrug: a chamber this narrowly split, and this small, suggests Britain's light-touch AI approach commands no settled consensus even among those minded to weigh in.
- YES 63%If everyone wins, does nobody win in politics?A chamber asked to weigh consensus against conflict came down hard for conflict, with almost two in three voters here concluding that politics without losers is politics without decisions — though the middle-aged did most of the deciding, not the young.
- NO 60%Did Starmer leave the country a better place than he found it?A brief, unloved premiership got a brief, unloved verdict: two in five voters here credited Keir Starmer with leaving Britain better than he found it, but a clear majority marked his short tenure down as a net loss.
- NO 74%Should MPs be allowed second jobs?Nearly three to one, the chamber came down against MPs moonlighting, a verdict striking mainly for how little it divided by age, gender or anything else — this was as close to consensus as a self-selecting sample gets.
- YES 63%Should the digital ID scheme be scrapped for good?The chamber came down decisively for scrapping the scheme, though the one age band split clean down the middle was the 25-34s, the very cohort most fluent in digital services and most exposed to how they might be policed.
- NO 73%Do you believe that most politicians are honest?On a question that barely needed asking, the chamber answered anyway, and near enough three in four said no, most politicians are not honest.
- NO 59%Will Andy Burnham make a better prime minister than Keir Starmer?Skepticism, not enthusiasm, greeted Britain's newest prime minister on the platform, where the chamber declined to bless Andy Burnham as an upgrade on Keir Starmer by roughly two to one against. There was little generational excitement to soften that verdict: the middle-aged, from the mid-40s through the early 60s, were the most resistant of all, while it was men who split closer to even and women who turned against Burnham more decisively, suggesting the doubt cut across the usual Labour coalition rather than sitting neatly on one flank.
- YES 78%Does trial by media undermine fair justice in the UK?Every age band on the platform lined up in near-identical agreement, which is the real signal here: this was not a generational argument but something closer to consensus, with four in five voters across the board judging that trial by media corrupts fair process, on a night when the age split barely moved the number a single point. The gender read cuts differently, and more sharply, than any age gap. Men here backed the "yes" case emphatically, while the small group of women who voted split straight down the middle — suggesting the sexes are simply not reading the same coverage, or not trusting it the same way, when it comes to judging whether the press has replaced the courtroom.
- YES 69%Did Dale Vince receive favourable government contracts in return for his donations to Labour?A chamber that skews older and male, and leans towards suspicion of political money more than most, decided by two to one that Dale Vince's Labour donations look like pay-for-access — with 76 of 110 voters siding against the "just following the rules" defence.
- YES 61%Does the Right ownership majority control of Newspapers and media influence British politics too much?This was a verdict delivered in a U-shape rather than a straight line, with the chamber's youngest and oldest voters converging on the same complaint about press power while the middle generations, those who came of political age through the New Labour and coalition years, held back.
- NO 65%Has the UK government listened to its indigenous people and their concerns over the last 30 years?The chamber delivered a rout rather than a debate, with two in three voters here saying no government has genuinely heeded the concerns raised over three decades of demographic change, immigration and community cohesion.
- NO 56%Should the GLA and Mayor of London be abolished?The capital's own devolution settlement survived a scare, with voters rejecting abolition of the GLA and Mayor by a narrower margin than the 44-56 split suggests, given how firmly the youngest Londoners-in-waiting rallied to keep it.
- NO 82%Should the UK provide round-the-clock security to all 650 MPs at a cost of up to £100m?Even the age group most sympathetic to blanket protection, the 55-64s, still broke against it by nearly two to one — a sign that scepticism here was about proportion, not principle, as voters rejected a flat £100m fix by five to one.
- YES 57%Should there be a bank holiday if England win the world cup?A comfortable if not landslide Yes to a free day off for footballing glory, carried by youthful optimism while the over-65s, perhaps mindful of 1966 heartbreak repeated, were the only group to say no.
- YES 80%Should the UK government prioritise economic growth and national security in its new space strategy?Rarely does a question about space policy land so firmly on earth: four in five voters here backed prioritising growth and security in orbit, with barely a wobble across the generations.
- YES 56%Should the government launch a campaign urging Britons to prepare for crises like extreme weather and cyber-attacks?A narrow yes conceals a stark generational split: the young were nearly unanimous for preparedness campaigns, while the middle-aged 35-44s rejected the idea outright, and the older middle years stayed split down the middle.
- YES 79%Should UKRI halve the time it takes to process grant applications?Rare for a bureaucratic process question to unite a chamber, but this one nearly did — four in five voters backing UKRI's plan to halve grant processing times, with scepticism confined to a handful of dissenters scattered across every age group.
- NO 72%Does the UK AI Security Institute have sufficient powers to protect against AI harms?Nearly three to one, and across every age band from Gen Z to pensioners, the chamber concluded that Britain's flagship AI watchdog is a monitor without a muzzle — a verdict on the institution's design as much as its intent.
- NO 77%Does the normal voter actually understand the realities of politics?There is a bleak irony in a question about voter competence being answered, three to one, with a vote of no confidence in the voter — the public's own verdict on itself was damning, and it hardened with age.
- YES 68%Should politicians be held legally accountable for failing to fulfill specific, costed campaign promises?Britain's appetite for punishing broken promises turns out to have little to do with age and quite a lot to do with gender: two to one for criminalising failed manifesto pledges overall, but women backed it almost unanimously while men were closer to a coin toss.
- YES 62%Should the UK ban unlicensed overseas casinos from sponsoring football clubs?A ban on offshore casino sponsorships carried comfortably, but the sharpest line in the chamber wasn't age, it was gender — men backed it roughly two to one while women were narrowly against.
- YES 58%Should individual political donations be limited to £10k?A cap that unions can sidestep at scale still won comfortably among the under-45s but ran aground with the 55-64s, who alone voted it down, splitting a modest 58% Yes with a sharp generational fault line.
- YES 59%Would a one-year £100,000 cap on donations from new overseas voters curb foreign influence?A cap on Reform's crypto-billionaire benefactors passed comfortably, 53 to 37, but the enthusiasm was oddly generational — the 25-34s backed it four to one while their elders and juniors alike hovered near a coin toss.
- YES 67%Is US Vice President JD Vance right that British politics is broken?There is something almost bracing about a British audience agreeing with an American vice president's diagnosis of their own politics, and by two to one they did, however grudgingly the older half signed on.
- NO 80%Has the UK government listened to its indigenous people and their concerns over the last 30 years?Four in five voters here rejected the premise entirely, with No winning by 60 points across every age band and both sexes — a rare instance of near-consensus on a question designed to provoke division.
- YES 61%Should MPs and Lords debate Parliament's £3bn refurbishment options by the end of 2026?On a question that sounds like pure procedure, the chamber split by generation rather than politics: the 55-64s all but demanded MPs get on with it, while the over-65s, who'll live longest with the bill, turned against a debate by the end of 2026.
- NO 70%Is Andy Burnham's 'good growth' plan a genuine improvement on Boris Johnson's levelling up?Voters here treated Burnham's rebrand with the same weary scepticism they'd apply to Johnson's original, delivering a two-to-one no that suggests devolution rhetoric alone no longer moves sceptics of levelling up.
- NO 51%Should Andy Burnham call a general election if he becomes Labour leader?A near dead heat that hides real fracture lines: the youngest voters overwhelmingly wanted an election Burnham has ruled out, while the 45-54s backed his caution most strongly of any group.
- YES 78%Should all lobbying of ministers, aides and senior officials be publicly declared?Voters here reached for sunlight over secrecy, backing a full lobbying register by better than three to one, though the youngest in the room were the only ones genuinely split on it.
- YES 81%Should pubs be allowed to open at 1am for England games?Even a nation famous for its licensing pedantry can find consensus when England are in the last 16: voters backed extending pub hours to 1am by four to one, with only the youngest holding out.
- YES 74%Is the UK too London-centric?Nearly three to one, voters here declared the UK too London-centric, a verdict so evenly spread across generations that it looks less like a grievance and more like settled consensus.
- YES 52%Will devolution to the English regions increase growth and productivity?Yes scraped home by four points, but the real story is age, not devolution economics: 25-34s backed it 61-39 while the 55-64s rejected it 33-67, a near mirror image within the same 75-vote chamber.
- YES 68%Does the UK need to update its mobile market regulatory framework?Yes carried the vote comfortably, but the coalition behind it was starkly generational and gendered — near-unanimous among the middle-aged and male, split down the middle among women.
- NO 55%Should Scotland introduce a mansion tax doubling council tax on homes over £2m?No to the mansion tax, but narrowly — 31 to 25 — with the closeness masking a sharp generational split: 25-34s rejected it 8-14 while 45-54s backed it 6-1.
- NO 60%Should data centres be allowed to opt into the NSIP regime for faster planning approval?Voters here rejected fast-tracking data centres through the NSIP regime, 26 to 17, but the topline hides a stark gender gulf: men split almost evenly while women opposed it by 8 to 1.
- YES 80%Should the government introduce planning reforms to cut pre-application time by up to 12 months?A decisive 80% Yes, but the enthusiasm cooled steadily with age and split sharply by gender, with women on the platform tied 3-3 while men backed the reform 28-5.
- YES 76%Should England and Wales police leadership undergo an ethical reset and root-and-branch modernisation?Voters backed root-and-branch reform of police leadership by 76% to 24%, though the 35-44 bracket split almost down the middle even as every other cohort ran heavily in favour.
- YES 57%Should the government review the use of non-corporate communication channels by public bodies?Yes carried the day narrowly, 57 to 43, but the chamber split hard by age: younger voters under 35 were split or against, while the 55-64 bracket backed the review by 70 per cent.
- YES 65%Should Nigel Farage be investigated by the parliamentary standards commissioner over his meeting with the Bank of England governor?Yes carried the chamber 20-11, but the vote's real fault line was age, not gender: younger voters (16-34) broke heavily for an investigation while the 55-64 bracket split down the middle.
- YES 59%Should the UK devolve more powers from Westminster to regional mayors and councils?Devolution won comfortably, 59-41, but the coalition behind it was lopsided by age: 35-44 and 55-64 year-olds backed it by roughly two to one, while 25-34s were the only group to lean No.
- YES 57%Should the UK move more power to the regions, using the success of areas like Manchester as a model?Yes carried the day 20-15, but the only age group with real weight, the 25-34s, did the heavy lifting: 11 of their 17 votes backed devolution, while the older cohorts leaned no.
- YES 58%Should the government stop awarding large consultancy contracts to meet its £1.2bn savings target?A narrow-ish win for cutting consultancy contracts masks a sharp generational split: the youngest voters were the only cohort to back the consultants, while every older bracket swung firmly the other way.
- YES 77%Do politicians, particularly on the far right and far left, put too much emphasis on the bad parts of the UK?A decisive 77% said yes: politicians of all stripes, not just the extremes, are accused of talking Britain down. Agreement held firm across every age band and both genders, from 25-34s to the small cohort of over-65s.
- YES 78%Has the UK become a joke country with 7 prime ministers in 10 years?Voters here delivered a landslide verdict of national embarrassment: 78% called Britain a "joke country" over its revolving-door premiership, with barely a flicker of disagreement across age or gender.
- NO 52%Should Andy Burnham's Greater Manchester model be used as a blueprint for national government?No won by a whisker: 12 votes to 11 out of 23, a one-vote margin that makes this the closest possible verdict on devolving Whitehall to the town halls.
- NO 67%Should a new No 10 unit be based in Manchester?No won it, 14 votes to 7, as the chamber declined to send a No 10 unit north to Manchester despite Andy Burnham's devolution pledge, with only the 25-34s (4 of 8) evenly split on the idea.
- NO 52%Should power be shifted from London to the regions?A near dead heat on devolution, 17 votes to 16, but the closeness masks a sharp gender split: men backed the shift to the regions 60-40, women rejected it nearly two to one.
- YES 52%Should Andy Burnham pursue the biggest transfer of power out of Whitehall in modern times?Yes squeaked it, 15 votes to 14, on a question that split almost every group down the middle except one: the youngest voters, who broke decisively for handing Whitehall's power to Burnham.
- YES 58%Is the United Kingdom ungovernable?Voters here declared Britain ungovernable by 58 to 42, a clear but not crushing verdict, carried above all by the 25-34s who made up more than half the chamber and split 57% yes.
- NO 63%Should the Barnett formula for funding Wales and Scotland remain unchanged?No won it, 12-7, on a small chamber of just 19 registered voters — a clear if hardly overwhelming rejection of the status quo Andy Burnham now says he'd preserve.