Did Covid-19 push public opinion in a more left-wing direction?
The landmark British Social Attitudes survey reveals a public more aware of inequality and sympathetic to welfare. But pollster John Curtice warns this isn’t a “reset moment”.
On the anniversary of the first lockdown, I wrote a piece for the New Statesman magazine about how far the pandemic was “resetting” our relationship with work, leisure, welfare and care.
I spoke to a range of people whose lives and values had changed wholesale in the age of Covid-19: a businesswoman who had earned a six-figure salary at a bluechip company now relying on Universal Credit; an events executive who had been furloughed – paid to do nothing – for a year; a CEO who had given all his staff a four-day week.
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