Poll to Poll

In the week of Valentines Day, neither Labour, nor the Conservatives, seem to be at the receiving end of voter’s love.   First of all, YouGov this week published polling putting Reform UK on 26% of the vote, its highest score to date. This puts the party just in front of Labour on 25% with the Conservatives on 21%. The detailed tables suggest that 23% of those who voted Conservative at the General Election last year are backing Reform, with 10% of those who voted Labour backing Nigel Farage’s party. Meanwhile, Ipsos Mori has published data suggesting that 48% of Britons feel Keir Stramer is doing a bad job as Prime Minister, with just 23% having a positive opinion of his premiership.   Ipsos also notes that: “Nearly half (48%) of Britons think the Labour government is doing badly at running the country, a figure comparable to ratings of Boris Johnson's government.” The bad news doesn’t stop there for Labour. 56% of those questioned say they are disappointed at the...

Keir Starmer and the Labour Party would be forgiven for feeling slightly lonely.  Not only do they face four years of Donald Trump in the White House, as they look to Germany, Canada and Australia they see the prospect of parties of the centre-left being swept from office. First of all, there’s Germany, which goes to the polls on 23 rd February. YouGov’s first mega MRP poll ahead of the election puts the centre-right CDU/CSU on course to be the single largest party in the Germany Parliament, the Bundestag. Its central estimate, based on the poll is that the CDU/CSU are on course to take 222 out of 630 seats in the Parliament, based on 30% of the vote, up from 24% in the last elections in 2021.   As it notes: “This would likely mean that CDU leader Friedrich Merz will be the next chancellor of Germany.” YouGov goes on to note: “The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) are also expected to make gains, with the 146 seats and 20% of the vote projected by the YouGov mo...

 Opinium has published its latest poll for The Observer. When it comes to headline voting intentions, whilst 29% of those questioned said they would vote Labour, Reform come second with 24% of those polled saying they would vote for Nigel Farage’s party.  23% opted for the Conservatives, with 10% going for the Liberal Democrats. When it comes to approval ratings for key political leaders, Keir Starmer has a net rating of -33, compared to the Conservative Leader, Kemi Badenoch on -13 and Nigel Farage on -9. The Liberal Democrat Leader, Ed Davey, has a net satisfaction rating of +2. Meanwhile the Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, has a net approval rating of -30 with 49% of those polled being dissatisfied with the way she is doing her job, and just 19% approving. Asked who they felt would make the best Prime Minister, 26% said Keir Starmer compared to 16% opting for Kemi Badenoch. 42% said neither of them. Questioned about the degree to which they approved or not of the way va...

As the political world looks forward to 2025 new polling will be making for sobering reading for Labour, albeit it over four years away from the next election. First of all, More in Common has published its first mega MRP poll since the General Election. When it comes to vote share, the poll finds that if there were an election today, the parties would secure the following, with changes compared to the results of the General Election in brackets: Labour: 25% (down from 33.7%) Conservatives: 26% (up from 23.7%) Reform UK: 21% (up from 14.29%) Liberal Democrats: 14% (up from 12.22%) Green Party: 8% (up from 6.4%) The above would point to the parties securing the following number of seats in the House of Commons: Labour: 228 (-183) Conservatives: 222 (+101) Reform UK: 72 (+ 67) Liberal Democrats: 58 (-14) SNP: 37 (+28) I ndependent: 8 (+3) Plaid Cymru: 4 (-) Green: 2 (-2) Digging deeper, More in Common suggest that such findings would see 271 seats won wit...

100 days into Keir Starmer’s Labour Government, what do the polls tell us about how he, and his government, is performing?  Helpfully, Ipsos Mori has just the answers, in the form of its latest Political Pulse report. According to the report, the Prime Minister, Keir Starmer now has a net favourability rating of -26, with 26% of those questioned saying they felt favourable towards him (-6 percentage points from September) and 52% are unfavourable (+8). The Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, has a net favourability rating of -30, with 20% feeling favourable towards her (-3) and 50% unfavourable (+6). Overall, Labour now has a net favourability rating of -21, having been +6 just after the general election in July. Over the same period, the Conservative’s net favourability rating has increased from -39 to -28. 58% of those who were questioned said that they felt things in Britain are heading in the wrong direction (+3 points from September). Ipsos Mori notes that this is 9 percenta...

As the contest to replace Rishi Sunak as Leader of the Conservative Party gets underway, the candidates for the job would do worse than assess the findings of an Ipsos poll this week. Those questioned were asked which were the most important reasons why the Conservatives lost the general election. Top of the list was the 51% who cited poor delivery on the NHS, followed by 50% saying too many scandals involving the Conservative Party, 46% saying the party was not trustworthy and the same proportion saying the party was out of touch with what ordinary people wanted. 44% said they felt the party was “incompetent” with 43% citing poor delivering in helping to tackle the cost-of-living crisis, the same proportion who cited generally the fact that the country was just ready for a change in government. 41% said poor delivery on immigration was one of the most important reasons why the Conservatives lost, with the same proportion again citing Liz Truss’s time as Prime Minister. Ipso...

Opinium has published its first polling for The Observer since the General Election. Of note, the Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, is clearly in his honeymoon period, with a net approval rating of +19%. News about the football and the attempted assassination of Donald Trump seems to have captured the public’s interest more than UK politics. According to the poll, 91% of those questioned had heard about the assassination attempt on the former President, with 90% having heard about England loosing to Spain in the Euro 2024 final and 83% having heard about Gareth Southgate standing down as the England team manager. In contrast, 67% said they had heard about Rishi Sunak standing down as the Leader of the Conservative Party, 65% had heard about the King’s Speech setting out the Government’s legislative plans and 55% had heard about Vaughan Gething standing down as First Minister of Wales. In respect of the King’s Speech, Opinium measured the desirability compared to the achievability ...