Labour won a landslide majority in July 2024 on a platform of economic stability, NHS recovery, clean energy, and workers’ rights. With the party now polling at just 18% — well below its 33.7% general election share — the gap between expectation and delivery is the central story of British politics. We examine the record against the promises.
What Labour Has Delivered
The Employment Rights Bill was Labour’s flagship legislative achievement in its first year. It introduced day-one employment rights, strengthened trade union recognition procedures, and extended protections against unfair dismissal. The bill passed in 2025 and represents a genuine delivery of a core manifesto commitment. Business groups opposed several provisions, but polling shows the legislation is broadly popular: 61% of voters support stronger employment rights.
GB Energy was established as a public body, fulfilling the manifesto pledge of a publicly owned clean energy company. Free breakfast clubs have been piloted in primary schools, with a national rollout underway. Planning reform to unlock housebuilding has advanced through Parliament, and the government can point to increased planning permissions as an early indicator. These are genuine, if partial, deliveries on concrete commitments.
The Winter Fuel Cut: The Defining Breach
The decision to means-test the winter fuel payment — removing it from millions of pensioners who had been led to believe it was protected — proved the most damaging single decision of the Starmer government’s first year. Polling from September 2025 showed 71% of voters opposed the cut, including 54% of Labour’s own 2024 voters. The decision was framed as fiscally necessary but was widely experienced as a broken promise.
The political damage was compounded by the manner of the announcement, which came with little preparation and was seen as contradicting pre-election assurances from Labour frontbenchers about protecting pensioner benefits. By the end of 2025, pensioner voting intention had shifted dramatically: older voters, who had split more evenly in 2024 than in previous elections, moved decisively toward Reform UK and the Conservatives.
NHS: Progress or Managed Decline?
The NHS was the dominant issue of the 2024 campaign, and Labour promised to “get the NHS back on its feet” with 40,000 extra appointments per week. By early 2026, waiting lists had reduced from their 2023 peak but remained historically high. The 18-week referral-to-treatment target, a key benchmark, is being met in some trusts but missed in the majority. Polling on the NHS consistently shows voters see some improvement but do not feel the crisis has been resolved.
The government points to increased NHS funding, a new workforce plan, and rising appointment numbers. Critics note that the improvements are incremental against a structural backdrop of an ageing population, staff shortages, and primary care strain that require multi-decade solutions. Voter satisfaction with the NHS sits at 32% in the most recent Ipsos monitor — an improvement from the 24% low of 2023 but far below Labour’s implicit promise of transformation.
Voter Perceptions: The Promise vs Reality Gap
When asked to evaluate the government’s record, voters apply both a factual and an emotional test. Even where Labour can demonstrate delivery — on employment rights, planning, clean energy investment — voters often do not feel the improvement in their daily lives. The cost of living crisis, which remained acute through 2025, means the material backdrop for government performance evaluations remained unfavourable throughout the first parliament.
An April 2026 YouGov survey found 32% of voters saying Labour had kept its most important promises, 48% saying it had broken or watered them down, and 20% saying it was too early to judge. Among 2024 Labour voters, 41% said they were “disappointed but not surprised” — a politically dangerous combination that suggests voters are not angry enough to blame the party but not satisfied enough to defend it.
Can Labour Recover Before 2029?
The central question for Labour strategists is whether 18% in mid-2026 represents a manageable soft-support contraction or the beginning of a structural collapse. Governing parties typically recover from mid-term lows if the economy improves and visible public services get better. The government’s fiscal strategy, which prioritises stability over stimulus, has kept borrowing costs low but limited the capacity for popular spending announcements.
The 2029 election remains within reach for Labour, particularly given the FPTP system’s tendency to insulate governing parties from proportional collapse. But the party needs at least 30–32% to retain a majority, requiring the recovery of around 12–14 points from current levels. Historical precedent suggests this is achievable but not automatic. The polls tracker will be the key indicator to watch.