Government Relaunch Week – What the Voters Think

This was supposed to be the week of the dreaded Government relaunch.

Following last week’s drama in Downing Street which saw the Prime Minister’s close aides, Dominic Cummings and Lee Cain leave their jobs, Boris Johnson had been determined to show that this meant a fresh approach from him personally and the Government more widely. However, as all former Prime Minister’s would attest, relaunching a party whilst in government is no easy feat, and so it proved for Mr Johnson.

Putting aside the issue of being required to self-isolate after coming into contact with a backbench MP who tested positive for COVID, the Prime Minister’s week got off to a bad start. Scottish devolution, the PM argued during a Zoom meeting with Conservative MPs from the north of England, had been a “disaster”.  Whilst Downing Street sought to argue afterwards that he was referring to the SNP’s approach to devolution, the damage had already been done with a furious reaction from many across Scotland.

The Scottish Conservative Leader, Douglas Ross, was forced to describe the argument as a “distraction”, before going on to declare that devolution itself was “not the problem” but the SNP’s “obsession”, in his words, with independence. Ross said that he would be speaking to Boris Johnson about his reported remarks.

Then came the news that that Government was considering a public sector pay freeze  in the middle of a pandemic during which the country has seen how much it relies on said public servants.

By the end of the week, Anti-Bullying Week no less, the Prime Minister gave the Home Secretary, Priti Patel, his full support, despite an inquiry having found her to have breached the ministerial code for “unintentionally” engaging in bullying behaviour against civil servants.

To compound the problem, backbench Conservatives were encouraged to speak up in support of the Home Secretary. One wonders how they must now been feeling, having spent so much political capital defending Ms Patel, only to read in today’s Sunday Times that the Prime Minister is considering moving her in a cabinet reshuffle anyway.

Add to that rumblings of political cronyism around the way COVID related contracts have been handed out, and news that around 70 Conservative MPs have concerns about the Government’s plans for tougher tiered restrictions when the current national lockdown ends on 2nd December, and one would be forgiven for having completed missed the Government’s relaunch.

In such circumstances the Labour Party would normally have been looking on with a slight smile on its face at the state of the Government. That might have happened had it not been for the splits within the party that were laid bare for all to see this week.

Having been suspended by Keir Starmer over his response to the Equalities and Human Rights Commission’s report into the party’s handling of accusations of anti-Semitism, the former Labour Party Leader, Jeremy Corbyn, was allowed back into the party by a committee of Labour’s ruling National Executive Committee. But having made restoring confidence in the party among the Jewish community a priority, Starmer refused to let Corbyn receive the Labour Whip again. It means that whilst Mr Corbyn is a Labour party member, he is not a Labour MP.

The move provoked a furious backlash from Corbyn supporting MPs and party members, with one MP, Ian Lavery refusing to rule out mounting a leadership challenge to Keir Starmer in response.

So where does this leave public opinion as we head into another important week, the week of the Chancellor’s Spending Review?

In respect of the bullying allegations against Priti Patel, a snap survey by YouGov found that 46% believed she should resign, with 20% saying she should not.

When it comes to the future of the Union, whilst the poll was carried out before the Prime Minister’s remarks on devolution, data compiled by Ipsos Mori for BBC Scotland, showed the extent to which the public north of the border have such disregard for the Prime Minister.

Asked how well or badly the Prime Minister and Scotland’s First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, have handled the pandemic, just 19% said the Prime Minister had handled it well, with 62% saying baldy. In contrast, 74% said the First Minister had handled the pandemic well, with just 13% saying badly.  The same pattern can be seen in the attitudes of Scots to the way the UK Government as a whole, compared to the Scottish Government, has handled the pandemic.

And what of the political battle in Westminster?  According to Opinium’s latest data in respect of voting intention, the Conservatives are on 41%, up 3 points from a few weeks ago whilst Labour has fallen 4 points to 38%.  Opinium notes: “This continues the pattern since August of the two parties trading first place with neither opening up a significant lead but does bring to an end a nearly two month run in which Labour was ahead of, or at parity with, the Conservatives.”

Keir Starmer has also lost his narrow lead over Boris Johnson when those questioned were asked who the best Prime Minister would be. Starmer is on 30%, down 3 points from two weeks ago, with Johnson on 31%, unchanged since the last time Opinium asked this question.  Opinium notes also that: “Among 2019 Labour voters there is another slight drop for Starmer, 69% chose him as best Prime Minister two weeks ago vs. 65% now.”

With reports suggesting that relaxed COVID-19 rules around families gathering for a few days over the festive period might need to be followed by harder lockdown in January, by a margin of 54% to 33% respondents said they preferred a ‘lockdown Christmas’ with looser restrictions in January.  

When it comes to a potential trade deal between the EU and the UK, Opinium summaries its findings as follows:

“When we lay out the four broad possible Brexit end-states, we first ask what a person’s first choice is. We then show the options they didn’t choose and ask whether they would find each one acceptable or unacceptable.

"This shows us that most peoples’ preference, aside from re-joining the EU, is for a trade deal of some kind with ‘leaving with no deal’ both the least popular first choice and least acceptable second choice as an end state.”

It goes on to note that 45% expect there to be no trade deal agreed between the EU and the UK and that netted together, “53% of these voters would therefore blame UK government figures vs. 33% blaming the European side.”

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