A combination of focus groups and polling (4,000 people) is used to describe a “respect agenda” – which in essence suggests that the public does not feel respected by politics and national institutions, and may be withholding or rethinking their own respect in return.

The issue, as we so often see with “concept” polling, is one of definition. Many of the questions use the idea of respect – or even worse, how much respect someone deserves or does not deserve – without ever really unpacking any of the assumptions and meaning bound up in a framing like this.

The closest we get to this is an assertion that respect involves an understanding and appreciation of personal contributions to society, though this is mashed in with a shopping list of what the public wants from leaders (empathy, authenticity, honesty) – basically the position that to understand someone you really have to share their background. The top “ask” for a political leader is that they have a parent who worked in a working class job (35 per cent), and went to a comprehensive school (25 per cent). Some 14 per cent felt that a leader should not have been to university, though 6 per cent feel a leader should have gone to Oxford or Cambridge.

The story More in Common seems to want to tell from the findings cleaves to an “elites” narrative that casts the interests of “ordinary people” against an amorphous and changing group of other actors. Those in charge (in “positions of power and authority”) treat people who are unemployed or working class “less seriously” (according to 70 per cent of the sample), whereas those who have a degree (58 per cent), or have been to private school (61 per cent) or are rich (69 per cent) are treated more seriously.

We need to balance this message against aspiration – as the report notes most aspire to make more money, and to get their children access to opportunities – but the message of the report is one that will be familiar – the public feels blue-collar workers don’t get the respect they deserve, where as lawyers, CEOs, and academics overwhelmingly do.

(What is “the respect they deserve”? Again, we don’t get a definition – it is perfectly possible that a respondent may feel that someone “deserves” no respect, and thus by default gets more respect than they deserve.)

This “respect” lens is then used to identify policies that would be most likely to make the public feel respected, with easier-to-get GP appointments (47 per cent) and an increased minimum wage (39 per cent) leading the usual shopping list. Abolishing university fees sits at just 23 per cent, below more getting more working class people in parliament (27 per cent) but above abolishing all fuel taxes (20 per cent).

On dual axes of “respect people like me” and “trust” universities make a respectable showing, in the mid-ranges of net-positives on both sides (just ahead of the police and the court, and doing substantially better than “big business” and the Conservative Party.

So what can we do about it? We are told:

The overarching lesson for how institutions can show they respect the public is to do the job they’re meant to do, genuinely listen, and engage with people’s concerns and eliminate a “computer says no” mentality. In this way, rebuilding trust and respect involves practical and visible steps rather than responding to highly elite cultural or ideological debates.

This doesn’t feel like a big ask, but it isn’t entirely satisfactory (which of the many jobs that universities are meant to do is the one that needs to be done here?). The idea of practical and visible steps (as contrasted against cultural or ideological debates) is welcome but curious, given the pervasive idea of an “elite” that is on the other sides of these supposed debates.