Key takeaways
- YouGov showed respondents photos of seven politicians, including leaders of five major nationwide parties and asked them to name them in an open text box
- Sir Ed Davey, who became Lib Dem leader in 2020, was recognised by 37% of Britons
- Nigel Farage (89%) and Andy Burnham (83%) are the most widely recognised of the seven
Despite being the leader of the Liberal Democrats for over six years, Sir Ed Davey is still only recognised from a photograph by 37% of Britons. This figure is identical to when we asked last year, albeit using a different methodology*.
Ed Davey’s lack of recognition does not necessarily prevent people from voting for the Lib Dems. Only 49% of the people who voted Lib Dem in the 2024 general election were able to recognise Ed Davey from the photo.
Nigel Farage (89%) and Andy Burnham (83%) are the best known of the seven we asked about, while Kemi Badenoch is recognised by two thirds of Britons (66%).
Zack Polanski was recognised by 46% of Britons. The people who could identify him from a photo tend to be younger; 64% of 18-24-year-olds were able to recognise the Green Party leader compared to 43-45% among other age groups.
Just 28% recognised chancellor John Healey, and 62% said they didn't know who he was. His opposite number, Andrew Griffith, Shadow Chancellor since the end of August, was recognised by only 4%.
To conduct this research, YouGov showed respondents photos of seven senior politicians and asked them to type each person's name. To sort the responses, we used YouGov Recogniser, a new AI-assisted tool that helps our researchers code large volumes of open-text responses quickly and consistently. It combines deterministic rules with codebooks drafted with AI and approved by our researchers, and recognises misspellings and partial names, so every answer is coded in the same way.
The tool can recognise a person’s full name, with small spelling mistakes allowed, and counts that as “full recognition”. If a respondent gave the surname or first name alone, initials or a widely used nickname, that counts as “partial recognition”. In this survey, Kemi Badenoch has the largest “partial recognition” share at 18%.
Anyone who gave a politician's full name (allowing small spelling mistakes) or part of it, such as a surname, first name or widely used nickname, is counted as recognising them. A job title alone does not count as recognising the politician.
*Last year’s survey used a different methodology, and did not use the Recogniser tool to code the responses
Methodology
- Respondents saw photos of seven politicians, one at a time in random order, and typed each person's name or selected “Don't know”. Coding open text involves some judgement, so a small share of answers could reasonably be coded differently.
- Sample size: An online survey of 2,355 adults aged 18+ living in Great Britain
- Fieldwork: 27-28 October 2026
- Commissioned by: YouGov
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Photo: Getty
