A new poll has revealed 30% of people who said they will be forced to cut back this Christmas will sacrifice presents for children.
The poll, by research experts Omnisis, found that 62% of people said they would cut spending this year to make ends meet, with only 13% saying they would be spending as usual.
Of that 62%, 30% said they’d sacrifice presents for children; 71% would reduce presents for adults; 55% would cut back on sweet treats; 49% on food, with 47% saying they’d avoid events and pantomimes and 42% cutting travel.
Meanwhile, as strike action brought further disruption to the UK’s transport networks this week, we asked how people felt - with 63% supporting workers’ right to strike and only 19% saying they did not support the right to strike.
A majority (59%) of people felt the rail unions and government had not done enough to avert the strikes, with only 19% saying they had done all they could.
Interestingly, on the question of government legislation to ban strike action, there was polarised opinion - with 35% of people saying the government is right to consider it and 33% against it.
Finally, in our weekly voter intention tracker, it was double delight for Labour as it extended its lead over the Conservatives to 21 points (Labour on 47%, Conservatives on 26%) and celebrated victory in the Stretford and Urmston by-election:
Our other weekly trackers showed:
- Sir Keir Starmer (33%) leapfrogged Rishi Sunak (30%) as voters’ preferred PM
- The Prime Minister’s approval rating fell by seven points this week to 31%
- Our re-join the EU tracker was frozen solid - 58% saying we should rejoin the European Union and 42% saying we should stay out.
The latest Omnisis poll, conducted on 15th December 2022, questioned 1,216 people and is weighted to a nationally representative population.
Brian Cooper, Managing Director of Omnisis, said: “There is no question that the cost of living crisis is biting hard into Britons at the moment. It was interesting to discover the high number of people who are planning to make cuts and to see exactly where those cuts would be made. It’s going to be a tough Christmas for many families, that’s for sure.
“It was also insightful to see how people feel about strike action and government plans to introduce anti-strike legislation. Whilst most support the right to strike, as it stands at the moment, there was almost a 50/50 split on whether the government is right to legislate against it in future.
“What continues to be clear from our research is that people are struggling and families are being forced to make hard decisions, especially as their biggest concerns continue to be the economy on 62%; inflation on 61%; the NHS and healthcare on 59% and then poverty and inequality on 40%.”
The full data is here: https://omnisis.co.uk/poll-results/vi-14-results-16-12-2022/
Image Credit: Nenad Stojkovic, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons