22% net optimism

↓-1pts on last week ↓-4pts on last year

19 Jun 2026

Peace deals and falling petrol prices should have lifted the mood, yet relief barely lands – after years of shocks, one danger fading just makes room to brace for the next.

The Iran story captures it. The share expecting the conflict’s effects to last six months or more fell from 53% to 32% in a week, and petrol has started easing. We have permission to move on. What’s missing is any confidence that life will stay on course.

Closer to home, fear keeps climbing. Anxiety about the job market and political unrest both rise, and people hear plenty about what might happen with little sense of who will guide them through it.

As one person put it, “changing the PM isn’t fixing any problems.”

That uncertainty carries a sharp sense of unfairness. High prices, NHS waits and weak leadership top the list of things that feel broken, with the rich-poor divide close behind. Among families earning under £50,000, more than seven in ten want greater income equality. So news of the world’s first trillionaire lands like a slap in the face.

The strain pulls us apart too. Meet-ups in homes have fallen at every major occasion this year, and Father’s Day looks set to follow – more expect to spend it alone, fewer expect to see Dad.

This isn’t a falling-out. It’s a quiet drift of low energy and delayed plans.

Yet the appetite for warmth has grown. The share saying a hug at the right moment would lift them this summer has risen nine points to 41%, with family meals and making someone laugh gaining too. The World Cup is stirring slowly – England’s four-goal opener has people watching live again. It’s a pulse, not a fever, but a confident run could turn it into the shared momentum we’ve been missing.

So what should brands do?

• Make relief easy to accept – create low-effort reasons to connect.
• Show fairness through pricing, access and treatment – because the world increasingly feels stacked against us.
• Help good intentions become actual time together – Big promises will bounce off. Small proof will travel.

Source: Konfidant Mood of the Nation, 19 June 2026, base 2,041