Keir Starmer’s favourability ratings continue to fall, but he remains the most positively viewed politician
As Keir Starmer reaches two months in office, his favourability ratings have fallen to their lowest levels since he became prime minister. Just a third of Britons (35%) now have a favourable view of the Labour leader, the fewest since June and down from 44% after the election. This is against 56% of the public holding now an unfavourable view of Starmer, his joint worst figure recorded with YouGov this year.
It should be noted, though, that this is not really a case of Starmer’s popularity falling to new depths, instead it just seems that the post-election honeymoon is well and truly over. His current levels of favourability, unfavourability and net favourability are unexceptional compared to his ratings for the first half of this year – his current net score of -21, for instance, is level with his rating from February.
However, despite his ratings clearly slipping, more Britons still hold a favourable view of him than any of his fellow party leaders or cabinet colleagues.
Just shy of three in ten Britons hold a positive view of Reform UK leader Nigel Farage or deputy prime minister Angela Rayner (both 28%), while a quarter of the public are favourable towards Lib Dem leader Ed Davey (25%) and leader of the opposition Rishi Sunak (24%).
One in five Britons hold good opinions of chancellor of the exchequer Rachel Reeves (21%) and home secretary Yvette Cooper (20%), with one in seven feeling similarly towards foreign secretary David Lammy. In all three cases, though, clear portions of the public (40-56%) currently ‘don’t know’ how they feel about the three senior cabinet ministers, something that is even more pronounced with Green Party leaders Carla Denyer and Adrian Ramsay, who more than eight in ten Britons (81-86%) are unsure about.
But while ‘don’t know’ might still be a common response with the new cabinet, where opinions are forming, it’s not on the positive side.
After some initial positivity towards Rachel Reeves, including an increasingly rare net positive favourability rating (+4, 10-11 July 2024), public opinion has already turned somewhat against the new chancellor. For the one in five Britons (21%) who currently hold a positive view of Reeves, twice as many (40%) have now formed an unfavourable opinion of her – the difficult decisions she says she is having to make seemingly not endearing her to the public.
By contrast, Nigel Farage’s ratings represent a small recovery from a spike in negativity after the riots. This includes returning to a net positive score among Leave voters (+8, up from -4 in early August). Nonetheless, Farage remains clearly divisive – although more Britons (11%) have a very favourable view of him than any other politician – even if more have any kind of favourable opinion of Starmer – Farage is also the only British political figure for whom a majority of Britons (51%) have a very unfavourable view.
This comes from having a highly loyal fanbase among Reform UK voters, but limited popularity outside his party. More than half of Reform UK voters (55%) have a very favourable view of Farage, compared to only one in five Labour voters (19%) who feel the same about Keir Starmer, one in six Lib Dems (17%) who have strongly positive views of Ed Davey and just one in seven Conservative voters (14%) who hold Rishi Sunak in the highest esteem.
Public remain unfamiliar with Conservative leadership contenders
Soon to be added to the roster of party leaders will be the winner of the ongoing Conservative leadership election. With the Tory membership, who will decide the contest, Kemi Badenoch is currently the frontrunner, but with the public, who will ultimately decide their electoral fate, the contenders are still relative unknowns more than a month after announcing their candidacies.
Half of Britons (48-53%) don’t know how they feel about James Cleverly or Kemi Badenoch, with two-thirds (64-67%) unsure about Robert Jenrick or Tom Tugendhat, and eight in ten (79%) offering no opinion on Mel Stride. In all cases, this represents no real movement since they were asked about at the end of July.
Priti Patel is the exception among the contenders in that only 18% of the public say they ‘don’t know’ their opinion of the former home Secretary. Two-thirds of Britons (65%) already have an unfavourable view of Patel, only a little less than the seven in ten (70%) who have a negative view of current leader Rishi Sunak and more than the 56% who have an unfavourable opinion of Keir Starmer.
For the rest, while the number of Britons saying they have unfavourable opinions about them clearly outnumbers those with a positive view, there remains room for first impressions to change the picture. Even with James Cleverly and Kemi Badenoch, of whom around one in three Britons (34-36%) say they have a negative view.
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Photo: Getty
