Britons tend to think Labour would better manage the cost of living and levelling up

Connor IbbetsonData Journalist
April 28, 2022, 1:26 PM GMT+0

Around one in nine 2019 Conservative voters think a Labour government would be better placed to combat rising costs

Despite a mountain of controversy, Boris Johnson remains in Number 10 insisting he will “get on with the job” of levelling-up the country and sorting out the cost of living crisis.

However, new YouGov polling shows that most of the public think he is not the man for either job.

By 38% to 20% Britons think that a Labour government led by Keir Starmer, would be better suited to managing the ongoing cost of living crisis than a Conservative government under Johnson. A further quarter (26%) say neither and 16% are unsure.

While half (50%) of 2019 Conservative voters think that a Johnson-led government would be best at dealing with the cost of living, one in nine (11%) think that Labour with Keir Starmer at the helm would be better.

"Levelling-up" was a key pledge of the 2019 Conservative manifesto, but Britons generally think Johnson is not the man to deliver on that promise.

People are twice as likely to think that a Labour government under Starmer would be better at regenerating areas outside London and the South East (38%) than a Johnson-led Conservative government (17%).

Even among 2019 Conservative voters, just 41% think a Johnson-led government would best level up areas outside London, while 13% think a Starmer government would do better. A further 25% say neither would be better, and 20% are unsure.

While a significant amount of the plans in the government’s levelling-up whitepaper target the North of England, 45% of those in the region think that Labour would do a better job of revitalising areas outside the South East, versus just 13% who think the Conservatives under Johnson would do better.

See full results here