Starmer Sweeps Up The Votes At Supermarkets

As a new poll says Waitrose is the only major supermarket with majority Conservative shoppers, Katie Rosseinsky asks what food baskets potentially reveal about a person's politics

-  Katie Rosseinsky

The last bastion of unshakeable Tory support? The aisles of Waitrose, apparently. According to a new poll, the shop, which sells gooseberry fool and halloumi in its “essentials” range, is now the only major supermarket with a majority of Conservative customers. Researchers at GlobalData found that Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Lidl, Aldi and Morrisons have all swung to Labour since a previous poll in 2019, with upmarket online retailer Ocado now claiming the highest proportion of Labour voters (closely followed by Lidl and Iceland, whose boss Richard Walker recently publicly switched allegiances from Tory to Labour).

Keir Starmer’s party, it seems, has pulled off a real supermarket sweep in the years since the last general election, when it could only count on majority support from shoppers at Asda, Iceland and the Co-op. “If supermarkets were seats, Labour would be on course for a landslide victory,” claimed GlobalData’s lead retail analyst, Zoe Mills. Meanwhile, Reform has apparently overtaken the Liberal Democrats to become the third most popular choice in all supermarkets bar Sainsbury’s, and Aldi and Marks & Spencer have the biggest share of Green voters. Rishi Sunak, of course, is so astronomically wealthy that he probably wouldn’t think twice about doing the big shop at Fortnum & Mason or in Harrods’ food hall – although he might have trouble using contactless payment at the till.