The public sector has never been more critical or more complex than it is today.

Leading into tomorrow from EY explores the issues facing the public sector.

From navigating the risk landscape to exploring how AI is transforming government,

we share actionable insights from those leading change.

Each episode features government and public sector leaders offering inspiration and

practical strategies for peers across the globe. Download leading into tomorrow wherever you get your

podcasts. Now, party conference season is here with reform gathering in Birmingham this weekend,

and it's a crucial chance for the parties to define how they're seen by the public.

To help us understand what voters outside the Westminster bubble, or indeed the party conference bubble,

really make of it all, we are reconvening the Times Radio

Focus Group with the help of the polling firm JL Partners. We are starting with Reform UK, and today

we're going to hear from a group who voted in lots of different ways in 2024, some Labour, some Tory,

some reform, and a couple of Lib Dems and SMP voters too. What they all have in common, though,

is that they've all said they're at least considering voting for reform at the next general election. We want to understand what's attracted them to Nigel Farage's party, what will get them over the line, and whether the other parties can win them back. While the focus group was run by Guy Miscamble from Jail Partners, and he joins me now. Guy, hello. Hello, thanks for having me. Thanks very much for being with us. To start with, we always ask this question. Explain to us what a focus group is and what a

focus group is not. Sure. So a focus group is a way of connecting with and understanding what the

public think about a particular issue. And there's a number of different ways that you can do that.

You can run a survey. You can just wander around the street talking to people. But a focus group is recruiting a representative

group of people, in this case representative of people who are considering voting for reform,

getting them in a room for an hour and a half, two hours, and really teasing into and understanding

what they're thinking about the state of the country,

about politics, about individual people and about their behavior. Now, you can use these for anything.

You know, we run focus groups on what people think about ice cream or about trainers, but the

...