In an article published shortly before the 2010 general election, Bochel and Defty (2010) observed that if Cameron was to succeed where several of his predecessors had failed, this would represent a marked shift in public attitudes towards the Conservative Party. It might also, they added, indicate a significant shift in public attitudes towards the role of the state. The uncertain outcome of the 2010 election suggests that Cameron's success in changing public perceptions of the Conservative Party is far from clear, and also raises questions about the degree of public support for significant reform of the role of the state.

This chapter examines public attitudes towards social policy in the light of the 2010 general election. The first section draws on data from British Social Attitudes surveys to assess whether what some have identified as a rightward shift in public attitudes may have created a climate of opinion in which the election of a Conservative government became more likely. It then draws upon more recent public opinion data to assess public attitudes towards Conservative policies in the runup to and following the 2010 general election.

A climate for change? Public attitudes towards welfare and the role of the state

Surveys of public opinion such as the annual British Social Attitudes survey, which began in 1983, suggest that since 1997 there has been a change in public attitudes towards the role of the state. A number of studies have identified a decline in public support for state provision and the redistribution of wealth, and a hardening of public attitudes towards welfare recipients in particular (Sefton, 2005; Taylor-Gooby and Martin, 2008; Curtice, 2010a). This has led some to suggest that the public's attitudes have become more closely aligned with Conservative policies than in the recent past, and may have made the election of a Conservative government in 2010 more likely. Most notably, in a series of articles in the run-up to the 2010 general election, John Curtice (2010b, p 328) predicted that ‘the 2010 election campaign will be fought against a very different climate of public opinion from that which prevailed when Labour first came to power in 1997’, and that, as a result, ‘the public may now be inclined to give a relatively warm reception to a traditional Conservative message of less government and less tax’ (Curtice, 2009, p 179).