Labour, the nanny state and the political mandate to intervene

Disposable vapes are to be banned. Smokers will not be able to light up outside the hospital door. And, at some point in the parliament, we can expect new laws prohibiting the next generation from being able to legally buy cigarettes.

But is there a mandate for the government to intervene into peoples’ lives? The charge of ‘nanny state’ is being thrown at the government (who are actually only moving on the commitments set out in the party’s manifesto in July). As policy moves to reality, is their likely to be resistance – or is this a form of intervention that most voters can stomach?

Stonehaven 's data science team Luke Betham Negus Woldegiorgis Conor Campbell Ariane Lion-Giustiniani Tom Welborn has taken a deep dive into the attitudes of voters. Broadly speaking there are four segments of the electorate when it comes to government intervention in our lives: Libertarians (8%); Soft Sceptics (30%); The Moderate (37%) and Interventionists (24%). Their names reflect their outlooks but you can read more about them here.

What emerged from the research is that while there is divergence on levels of support for intervention within the groups, there are some broad national trends that transcend the groups. As the image below shows, there is huge variation in support for action. Ranging from strong opposition to being told to exercise more, how much screen time you should have or how much you should gamble; to strong support for greater regulation on single use plastic, nutritional labelling and better regulation of fast food companies.

It seems voters are happy to support measures that indirectly intervene in public health (via regulation) but less so when it comes to directly being effected by government on a personal level.

The anomaly here though seems to be on smoking and vaping.

We tested a range of smoking related interventions to see how different measures are received – and this is what we found out.

• Over two thirds (68%) support a smoking ban, which aims to progressively reduce the availability of tobacco products, particularly for younger generations. 16% oppose and 16% neither oppose or support.
• 59% support a ban on smoking near hospitals, even if outdoors should be banned. 10% are neutral and 30% oppose. A smaller mandate but a majority.
• Over two thirds (67%) support implement stricter controls on tobacco and vaping product sales with 15% opposing and 18% neutral.

So while the debate goes on, we can conclude a couple of important things from our research for those in the public health space.

First, that the charge of ‘nanny state’ (as a pejorative) is not one that is politically damaging when it comes to most measures to reduce smoking (even at the level of the individual) - though beer gardens (we didn't test), could be a different kettle of fish.

And second, that support for action tends to favour regulation over individual mandates and that the issue on which the government might choose to intervene, will have a big impact on levels of support from the voters.

To find out more about our ‘nanny state’ research, please get in touch!