Lazy journalists and politicians often reach for shorthand labels to depict the voters Labour needs to woo: Essex men, Worcester women, soccer mums, Mondeo dads. In the 1980s and early 1990s, these labels captured an underlying truth. Labour was missing out badly on southern England’s growing, upwardly mobile middle classes. Today, however, fresh YouGov research suggests that Labour’s task between now and the coming general election is not essentially to do with demography, geography or social class. It is squarely to do with politics.

During the week of this June’s European elections, YouGov questioned more than 32,000 electors about their political attitudes. We wanted to understand why the big parties, and Labour in particular, were so unpopular, and the small parties doing so well. Of course, that election was a second-order contest fought under proportional representation – a contest that could have been designed to encourage protest voting. But it also gave us an opportunity to gather robust data about the voters who have deserted Labour since 2005.

Because we know a lot about our panel members, we know with a fair level of accuracy which of them voted Labour at the last general election. We are not relying on hazy memories four years later. So when we ask them how they would vote in a general election held today, we can separate out the ‘loyal’ Labour voters (Labour in 2005, Labour now) from ‘lost’ Labour voters (Labour in 2005, not Labour now). In our large June survey (when the party’s support was at its nadir: just 22% said they would vote Labour in an early general election), we obtained the views of more than 5,000 loyal Labour voters and more than 4,000 lost Labour voters.

The views of those 4,000 hold the key to Labour’s chances of avoiding a heavy defeat next spring. There may be other groups Labour should also woo: first-time voters, and those who deserted Labour last time because of Iraq or tuition fees; but, realistically, these groups will make much difference in only a handful of seats, such as university towns and constituencies with a large Muslim electorate. The far larger task is to regain the trust of those who have deserted Labour in the past four years.

What does our research tell us about these voters? The first thing is that their demographic profile is much the same as that of loyal Labour voters: by age, gender, income, social class and region. For those who look hard at the data, there are some modest differences: for example, lost Labour voters are slightly more likely to be working-class women. But these differences are too small to warrant building a whole election strategy on demographic targeting. The big differences between lost and loyal Labour voters are essentially political.

The table shows the key findings. Compared with loyal Labour voters, the lost Labour voters are less likely to describe themselves as left-of-centre, less likely to read anti-Tory papers such as the Mirror and Guardian and – not surprisingly – far less likely to want a Brown-led Labour government. Yet unlike the mid-90s, when many Tories switched directly to Tony Blair and New Labour, only a minority of today’s lost Labour voters have fallen in love with today’s opposition. Just 11% of them place themselves on the right of centre, and only 38% of them would prefer a Cameron-led government. And, given the fact that this forced-choice question did not give voters a chance to ‘vote’ for a Clegg-led government or any of the other minor parties, that 38% overstates the proportion who positively like the Tories and their leader.

Indeed, only 27% of lost Labour voters think the Tories currently ‘care about the concerns of people like me’. True, this compares with an even smaller number, 15%, who say the Tories used to care; so Cameron has made some inroads. The striking thing, though, is how little he appeals to lost Labour voters, not how much he appeals to them.

So, the over-riding fact about most lost Labour voters is that they have been repelled by the government, not attracted by the Conservatives. This is starkly underlined by the finding that fully 78% of them say Labour used to care about their concerns; but just 14% think the party still does. This is a collapse of staggering proportions. The past 12 years have seen the minimum wage, winter fuel allowance, tax credits, Sure Start, NHS Direct, less crime, less child poverty, more jobs and many more teachers, nurses and doctors – and yet Labour has failed utterly to weave these into a compelling narrative of social achievement. One of the most urgent tasks between now and next spring is to get that story out, and get it believed. This can’t be left to the election campaign: it takes months to change public perceptions. Indeed, we can only hope we are not already too late to start.

But that is not the only task that must be accomplished if lost Labour voters are to be wooed back. Our survey provides clear evidence that many of these voters are disenchanted not only with the government but with all who wield power and influence in Britain today. Look at the figures for trust: lost Labour voters are less likely than loyal Labour voters to trust judges, senior police officers, trade union leaders, local government officials and senior civil servants.

They are also far more likely to think most British politicians ‘are personally corrupt’, far more likely to think the main parties are all much alike, and far less optimistic about the future for their families. I think these things are linked: the typical lost Labour voter is worried for their family, and feels let down by the political system as a whole. Labour gets it in the neck, partly because we happen to be in government as these feelings grow more intense, and partly because it is a core part of Labour’s offer to the electorate that we believe in the power and responsibility of the public realm to solve, or create the conditions in which others can solve, the big social and economic problems of the day. When the state is seen to fail, it is bad news for a party that proclaims the role of the state.

The sense of alienation emerges in other ways: lost Labour voters are more concerned about immigration, more hostile to the EU and more convinced that Labour sets a low priority for helping pensioners, the poor and, above all, ‘ordinary working people’.

It is often, and rightly, said that elections tend to revolve around hope versus fear, the future versus the past, keep going versus time for a change. In the coming election it is now clear that something else is also at stake: Labour’s reputation for being honest, caring, competent and in touch. That reputation has sunk to alarmingly low levels, as has the reputation of politics itself. The party’s chance of making a real fight of the coming election depends in large measure on whether these can be revived.