UK PM HITS LOWEST APPROVAL RATING AS STARMER’S POSITION IMPROVES

Sat 15 July 2023:

UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak continues to trail Keir Starmer in the polls, as his personal favourability rating slides further into negative territory.

The prime minister’s net favourability rating has fallen to minus 21, with 47 percent of people saying they had an unfavourable view of him, The Independent reported.

The ratings are Sunak’s worst since he quit as chancellor in July 2022, helping to topple Boris Johnson, when Ipsos found 50 percent of people had an unfavourable view of him.

The poll found Labour leader Keir’s ratings had improved slightly over the past month, with 32 percent saying they had a favourable view of him and 39 percent saying they had an unfavourable one.

It comes during growing Tory gloom about Sunak’s chances of meeting the five pledges he made at the start of this year.

“They’re all going in the wrong direction,” one government source told the i newspaper.

Conservatives fear he won’t have progress to point to on his promises to halve inflation, grow the economy, reduce national debt, cut NHS waiting lists and “stop the boats” before the general election next year.

There was more bad news for Sunak when Ipsos asked about the qualities people look for in a prime minister. On the factors people said were most important to them, Sunak received overwhelmingly negative ratings while impressions of Keir were more mixed.

Half of the 1,000 people polled by Ipsos said they had a negative view of Sunak’s policies for dealing with the cost of living crisis and his understanding of the problems facing people in Britain.

Some 42 percent said they had a negative view of his competence, 43 percent had a negative view of whether he kept his promises, and 45 percent had a negative view of his policies for improving public services.

For Keir, the public were evenly split on his policies for dealing with the cost of living crisis and his understanding of Britain’s problems, and had a net positive impression of his policies for improving public services.

The poll, carried out between June 30 and July 3 , found that 35 percent of people thought Keir would not be competent as prime minister, compared with 31 pe cent who thought he would, while 30 percent said he did not keep his promises and 24 percent thought he did.

Gideon Skinner, head of political research at Ipsos UK, said, “The public put dealing with the cost of living, understanding Britain’s problems and competence at the top of their list for judging a potential prime minister, and unfortunately for Rishi Sunak, negative impressions outweigh positive ones for all of them.”

“Keir Starmer leads on most of the factors – albeit partly because he receives fewer negative scores, there is still room to improve his favourable ratings,” Skinner added.

The pollster added, “Keir Starmer’s strongest suit is probably policies to improve Britain’s public services, one of the key issues to Britons and one of the few where either party leader gets more positives than negatives.”

“Meanwhile, in terms of our regular trackers, Keir Starmer also maintains his lead over Rishi Sunak in general favourability ratings – in particular he has seen a boost among his own Labour voters this month,” Skinner said.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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