• Survey: Ipsos
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  • Britons still split over whether King Charles is in touch with ordinary people, but more positive than in the past

Britons still split over whether King Charles is in touch with ordinary people, but more positive than in the past

New polling by Ipsos ahead of the Coronation reveals that 43% think King Charles is out of touch with ordinary people, though this is fewer than before he became King
  • Fewer people see King Charles as out of touch with ordinary people than did in November 2021
  • The public are more likely to disagree the Prince and Princess of Wales are out of touch

New Ipsos polling finds that almost half (47%) believe the Royal Family are out of touch with ordinary people, compared to a third (33%) who disagree with this statement. 
But the public are less likely to say that King Charles is out of touch than they were before he became King. Nevertheless, two in five (43%) still agree he is out of touch with ordinary people (down 7 percentage points since November 2021 when he was Prince of Wales), while 36% disagree (+6). 

The public continue to be more likely to disagree than to agree that the Prince and Princess of Wales are out-of-touch with ordinary people, although fewer disagree than in November 2021. A third (32%) say they are out of touch (+6), compared to almost half (46%) who disagree (-10).

43% say King Charles is out of touch with ordinary people, 47% say the Royal Family is out of touch

The public were also asked to decide which of a list of descriptions fitted both King Charles, and also which fitted the Royal Family in general. In both cases, the most-picked description was “privileged” (applied by 37% to the King and 42% to the Royal Family). 

Almost two in five (38%) said the Royal Family is “important to Britain”, compared to 30% who said the same of King Charles. Around a quarter chose to describe both King Charles (29%) and the Royal Family (28%) as “hard working”, and almost as many as “highly respected” (25% and 27% respectively). One in five said King Charles is “intelligent” (21%) and “concerned about people in real need” (19%). 

King Charles III and the Royal Family in general were most likely to be thought of as privileged (37%, 42%), important to Britain (30%, 38%), hard working (29%, 28%), and highly respected (25%, 27%).

Kelly Beaver MBE, Chief Executive of Ipsos, UK and Ireland, said: 

There has been a drop in the number of Britons that say King Charles is out of touch with ordinary people, so whilst there is still a significant way to go for our new King to be seen as 'a man of the people', there is no denying this will be good news for King Charles ahead of his Coronation this weekend.

Technical note

These data are from three representative quota samples interviewed by Ipsos in Great Britain: 

  • A sample of 1,079 adults aged 18-75 were interviewed on the online Omnibus 31st March – 1st April 2023. 
  • A sample of 1,008 adults aged 18+ were interviewed by telephone on the CATI Omnibus 5th-11th April 2023. 

Data are weighted to match the profile of the population. All polls are subject to a wide range of potential sources of error.

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