Are Allegations of Sleaze Cutting Through to the Public?

After a week in which Boris Johnson’s Government has been accused of being inherently sleazy, how much cut through is it having on the public?

On Thursday, YouGov published polling for The Times suggesting that it might be causing damage to the Conservatives. Having questioned people on Wednesday 3rd and Thursday 4th November (which included time after the Commons vote to change the system for dealing with standards issues which has caused such controversy) it put the Conservatives on 36% when it comes to headline voting intentions, just 1 percentage point ahead of Labour. This represented a fall of 3 points in the Conservatives’ share of the vote compared to the week before. Labour meanwhile increased its share by 2 points.

Yesterday JL Partners published the results of a survey carried out on the 4th November for the Daily Mail which found that 46% felt the Conservative party was sleazy, compared to just 17% who felt the same about Labour. Similarly, asked to choose who, out of Boris Johnson and Sir Keir Starmer they felt was the sleaziest, 53% said the Prime Minister compared to 20% who said the Labour leader. However, despite these figures, by 41% to 27% respondents still felt the Prime Minister was doing a better job than Keir Starmer.

Opinium’s polling for The Observer carried out between 5th and 6th November found gave the Conservatives, as with with YouGov’s poll, a 1-point lead over Labour. The Conservatives are, according to this data, on 37%, down 3 points since last week whilst Labour is up 1 point on 36%.

It goes on to note that: “Boris Johnson’s approval rating has fallen to its lowest ever, a net score of -20 (down from -16 last week).”

Whilst 22% said they felt Boris Johnson was “clean and honest”, down 8 points from April, 47% felt that he was corrupt, up 5 points. The figures were similar for the Conservative Party more broadly. 22% felt it was clean and honest, down 6 points whilst 48% said the Party as a whole was corrupt, up 7 points.

Meanwhile, Deltapoll’s latest data based on a survey between 3rd and 5th November gives the Conservatives a 3 point lead over Labour, putting it on 40% compared to Labour on 37%.

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