Boris Johnson’s Polling Nightmare Continues

At the end of a very bumpy week for the Prime Minister, today’s Friday poll by YouGov for The Times will make for grim reading for him and the wider Conservative Party.

When it comes to headline voting intentions, the poll, conducted between the 12th and 13th January, puts the Conservatives on 29%, up 1 point compared to YouGov’s last poll between the 11th and 12th January.  Labour meanwhile ends the week on 40%, up 2 points.

Just to put this into some sort of context, according to a paper by the House of Commons Library, 29%, if replicated at a election, would represent an even worse share of the vote for the Conservative Party than the disaster it faced in 1997 when it secured 31.5% of the votes cast.

What will be particularly worrying for the Conservative Party is that according to this poll around 30% of those who voted Conservative at the 2019 election plan to vote for another party.

The polling finds also that just 22% of respondents now feel that Boris Johnson would make the best Prime Minister compared to 35% who said the same about the Labour Leader, Keir Starmer.

Again, digging deeper, less than half (48%) of those who voted Conservative in 2019 say Boris Johnson would make the best Prime Minister, whilst just 37% of those who voted to leave the EU said the same.

YouGov reports also that the Prime Minister’s net favourability rating has dropped to another all-time low since he entered Number 10 in July 2019, surpassing the previous low of -42 a month ago. YouGov continues: “Having recovered slightly over the Christmas break, when the stories briefly disappeared from the news, it now stands at -52, with nearly three-quarters (72%) of the British public now having an unfavourable opinion of the prime minister.”

YouGov continues: “Around half (52%) of Conservative voters have an unfavourable opinion of Johnson, compared to 20% who have a favourable opinion of him.

“Public opinion of the Conservative Party has also taken a significant hit, dropping from -36 on 8-9 December to -41 now, although this is still 11 points higher than the prime minister’s net favourability.”

To add insult to injury, YouGov observes that Boris Johnson is now more unpopular among the British public than Theresa May was at any point during her time as prime minister.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Buyers Regret Over Brexit?

This week marked five years since the UK voted to leave the European Union, a decision which has shaken British politics in a way that few would have foreseen. To mark the occasion, Savanta ComRes this week published polling suggesting that if the referendum were held today, remain would just win, with 51% of respondents saying they would vote to stay in the EU compared to 49% who would vote to leave. The poll shows that there would be little switching from either side, with 6% of those who voted remain in 2016 saying they would not vote to leave, and 7% of those who originally voted to leave saying they would now vote remain. Savanta ComRes go on to say: “That means the Remain edge in this poll comes from those who did not vote in 2016, with this group being more than twice as likely to vote for Remain (71%) than Leave (29%).” The poll found however that if the public were asked instead to choose between joining the EU or not, 51% would vote not to become a member, whilst 49% w...
Read more

Can Labour Look Forward to a Decade in Power?

Speaking at the start of the year the new Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, spoke of a "decade of national renewal" being the "central, defining purpose" of a future Labour government. Fast forward to today, and for those now in Government the question will be whether the election results can give Labour any confidence at the prospect of a decade in power. Some might conclude that it is absurd to be asking this question, given Labour’s 172 seat majority in the Commons. That is just 7 short of the majority New Labour secured in 1997 which ushered in 13 years of Labour rule. However, dig deeper, and the reality is that Labour’s victory is thin. According to the election results Labour won on Thursday having secured around 9.7 million votes, equivalent to 33.7% of the votes cast. To set that into context, according to House of Commons Library data , that compares to the 13.5 million votes (43.2% vote share) Labour got in 1997. What is more, the total number of ...
Read more

Rishi’s Ratings Sink

Rishi Sunak has registered his weakest favourability ratings since becoming Prime Minister according to new polling by Ipsos Mori. It reports that whilst the Labour Leader, Keir Starmer, has a net favourability score of -7, Rishi Sunak’s has sunk to -19. With Boris Johnson continuing to breathe down Rishi Sunak’s neck, Ipsos goes on to note: “More than half of 2019 Conservative voters are favourable to Johnson (55%) while 49% say the same for Sunak. Overall, among 2019 Conservative voters, Johnson scores +29 while Sunak scores +23.   However, Johnson’s lead owes more to falling ratings for Mr Sunak rather than improving ratings for the former PM.” Looking at the parties as a whole, Labour has a net favourability rating of +2 with the Conservatives on -29. When it coms to Brexit, 55% of respondents told Ipsos that leaving the EU had had a negative impact on the country, with just 21% saying it had been positive. It continues: “If we subtract the proportion saying Brexit has...
Read more