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August 24, 2024 - 1:30pm
It has not been an easy first 50 days as prime minister for Keir Starmer — and the polls are starting to show it.
Several recent surveys suggest that the Labour leader has gone down in the public’s estimation. Recent Ipsos data has Starmer’s net approval rating down to an unenthusiastic 0, from +7 just after the election. What’s more, 52% of Brits polled believe the country is headed in the wrong direction, compared to only 22% who view the current direction of the UK positively.
Starmer was criticised for what many felt was a slow approach to dealing with the riots which began after last month’s Southport stabbings, failing to call an emergency Cobra meeting until a week after the first instance of civil unrest. Though an Opinium poll for the Observer found that 43% of voters approved of Starmer’s handling of the riots compared to 30% who disapproved, the same survey revealed that 29% had a more negative view of the Government than when it was elected six weeks previously. Only 24% had developed a more positive view of Starmer’s ministry.
Meanwhile, when YouGov polling from 17-19 August asked whether Brits approved of the Government’s record so far only 26% approved, down three points since 29 July. Of those polled, 47% disapproved, up 16 points.
Although Starmer’s honeymoon period appears to have ended, it should be added that he was never too popular to begin with. In May, analysis from the Guardian of Ipsos data showed that he was roughly as popular as Ed Miliband was towards the end of his ill-fated spell as Labour leader in 2015. Ben Page, the polling company’s chief executive, said at the time: “Starmer’s personal ratings are the lowest Ipsos has ever seen for an opposition leader who is so far ahead in the overall voting intention.”
However, the same pollster found that Starmer finished his first week in power as popular as Boris Johnson was during the height of the Covid-19 vaccine rollout. With 36% saying the new PM was doing a good job from 12-15 July, a mere 14% thought he was doing poorly. This compares favourably to the 57% who thought Rishi Sunak was doing a bad job in Downing Street before he called the election.
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SubscribeAll these opinion polls are completely worthless, as the only poll that actually matters is the one that occurred on Jul 4th, which gave Labour a massive majority on the basis of only 20% of those eligible to vote voting for them.
We have seen a massive further lurch towards totalitarianism in the past 7 weeks and opinion polls are not going to do anything to stop it going further (eg with an Islamophobia law now promised which was not in the King’s speech) and certainly won’t reverse it.
All freedom loving people, who also love this country, are going to need to stand together through NON violent means, if we do not want to see what little freedom we have left completely removed over the next 5 years. We have already seen that the use of violence just strengthens the totalitarians’ hand allowing them to introduce yet more tyrannical measures in the name of protecting us from ourselves.
I’m not sure they are entirely worthless (the polls that is, the politicians are another matter). The 22% who think the UK is going in the right direction pretty much aligns with percentage that voted labour – 20%.
They may provide interesting insights but by worthless I mean they will make no difference to the direction we go in. The US system uses approval ratings quite a bit to modify on policy; the UK system has no mechanism by which they matter at all.
What can we practically do though?
He never had any popularity in the first place. Where I live, deep in Labour Red Wall country, he is at best not trusted due to his multiple positions on every issue, or often a lot worse.
It is no surprise that Labour managed such a small share of the vote in such perfect circumstances. It will get worse unless and until any of the front bench or Starmer himself show any signs of realising that they are now in government, and that their job is no longer to have cosy Tory bashing interviews on the BBC.
The Tories earned their evisceration, but compared to this floundering lot, even they looked competent.
If you have a mortgage, get it fixed while you can. Labour are going to tax and spend like drunken sailors , and rates are heading North.
‘If you have a mortgage, get it fixed while you can’
Or get a job as a train driver.
However, the same pollster found that Starmer finished his first week in power as popular as Boris Johnson was during the height of the Covid-19 vaccine rollout.
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To be honest, Jonson fucked up at this moment
That he’s popular at all, with anyone, is utterly baffling. This is a completely hollow man. As DPP he put his career before the safety of tens of thousands of young girls (Please don’t give me that “he didn’t know” bollix. Of course he did), in Parliament he ruthlessly betrayed a colleague who was supposed to be his friend, he has repeatedly adjusted his views on a wide range of topics depending on who he is speaking to, made promises he must have known he was going to break as soon as he took office and, on taking office, has showered his public sector clients with money the country doesn’t have, whilst taking it away from some of the country’s most vulnerable people and throwing a small army of quite harmless people into prison whilst releasing a horde of criminals. I was going to say he’s as bad as his mentor Blair, but I’m beginning to think he’s worse, if such a thing is conceivable.
All of that might be true, but at least he’s done his best to distance himself from socialism.
Labour hasn’t been socialist since the 1940s. It exists to expand the state and reward the middle class professionals who live off it. Which it does. Lavishly. Statism is not socialism.
That’s a bit like saying, “That Mr Hitler might have done some bad things, but he did love dogs and nature”
And he would apparently not use private health care even if his wife or children were at death’s door and screaming in agony. Nobody respects him for that.
And no-one believes that, either. ‘Sirs’ take advantage of Private everything.
He was never in. Only 1 in 5 of those adults eligible to vote in the UK voted Labour, and 33.7% of those who actually did vote. Which means that 66% of voters are sitting there ready to metaphorically give him a good kicking. So no surprises when they do? Particularly given the many faux pas. Reeves in particular seems to have had a political bypass. Winter payment cuts with knowledge that energy price cap was due to be announced within 4 weeks a woeful own goal. Expecting many more. Meanwhile, long may we live in ugly housing whilst our campuses continue to be dominated by cancellation culture and DIE grant funding. The latter now having an impact on our institution’s citations (the lifeblood of academic excellence) which in turn will ompact our global QS rankings (we’re in the top 10). Fancy that. Who couldn’t have worked out that without heretics your cutting edge research becomes salami sliced imitation.
You forget the terrible effect his ‘reforms’ will have on schools – state as well as private. There’ll be nobody left with the knowledge and skills necessary to go to university by the time he’s finished.
Still 5 more years of National Socialist Starmereich… What a perfectly ghastly, tiresome and tedious, chippy little man- he so reminds me of a rather pompous butler.
Polls, COBRA, blah blah blah.
No wonder Government is hopeless when anyone takes any notice of this garbage. That’s how we end up with clowns like this guy Starmer, and the last bunch.
The only time we had a PM who did what they believed was needed irrespective of all this **** was Mrs Thatcher. If only we could find another one.
I think the phrase “teenage scribblers” was once used…by a reforming Chancellor who then went totally off piste and shadowed the D-mark
Mr Starmer needs to realise that he is governing all the people not just those who think like him. His lack of interest in why some people are rioting does not gel with how he discussed wanting to know more what lay behind the BLM movement. His movement on free speech should make everyone worried. Hugely disappointed by their start – along with Rachel’s assessment of the state finances then choosing to throw money at the public sector. Those two statements don’t gel even if we agree the public sector needs fixing.
“50 days in, Keir Starmer’s popularity has slumped”.
Shock horror! Did anyone with half a brain really expect anything else?
Starmer doesn’t appear to be especially popular even in his own constituency (Holborn and St Pancras).
In the 2017 GE, he received 41,343 votes, or 70% of the votes cast.
In the 2019 GE, he received 36,641 votes, or 64% of the votes cast.
In the 2024 GE, he received 18,884 votes, or 49% of the votes cast – and this in an election that would inevitably also elect the future Prime Minister.
2024 represents just 45.7% of his 2017 result, and pretty much half the votes he received in 2019 – if he continues at this rate, he’ll lose his deposit in the next GE.
Just think, if his constituency had made a bit more of an effort, Labour would have been forced find a credible PM!
One knows instinctively that Rachel Reeves is either incompetent, or mendacious in her analysis of current economic circumstances – it is binary. Or that Yvette Cooper’s flared nostrils herald a statement of moral certainty which is devoid of insight, depth and nuance. One could go through the entire front bench on a similar basis, but reach the same general conclusion that Starmer exercises control without authority, is not interested in what he can inspire but in what he can ban, and will change his principles at the drop of a hat. Who could make sense of a single word he spoke when he was the shadow minister for Brexit under Corbyn?
From famous “civil rights attorney” to tyrant in a few short weeks….