Liz Truss is the only recent prime minister that Britons prefer Keir Starmer to
While Britons currently still favour Keir Starmer for the top job over his fellow major party leaders, they are less positive when comparing him against many of his predecessors at Number 10, particularly previous Labour prime ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.
Nearly half of Britons (45%) say that Blair was a better prime minister than Starmer has been, compared to just 10% who feel Starmer is the greater head of government. The public similarly favour Brown’s tenure in Downing Street over Starmer’s by a margin of 42% to 12%.
Margaret Thatcher is the Conservative prime minister judged to have performed better than Keir Starmer by the largest margin, with 44% of Britons seeing her premiership as better than Starmer’s, compared to 25% who see things the other way. Britons also tend to see David Cameron and John Major as better prime ministers than Starmer, by margins of 41% to 24% and 39% to 16% respectively.
The public are divided when comparing Starmer to some of the more recent Conservative prime ministers. For the 35% of Britons who see Boris Johnson as a better leader than Keir Starmer, there are 32% who side with Starmer’s premiership over Johnson’s. Similar small margins can be seen when comparing Rishi Sunak against Starmer (33% vs 30%) and Theresa May against Starmer (32% vs 28%).
Liz Truss, however, is the exception, with 43% of Britons saying that Keir Starmer has been the better prime minister of the two, compared to just 13% who see Truss’s seven-week tenure as superior.
Who thinks Keir Starmer has been a better prime minister than his predecessors?
Unsurprisingly, Labour voters see Keir Starmer as having been a better prime minister than any recent Conservative holder of the office. Lib Dems also typically see Starmer as preferable to his Tory predecessors, although they are more divided when comparing him against David Cameron (36% vs 32%) and are evenly split between Starmer and John Major (28% vs 28%).
Conservative voters side with all recent Conservative prime ministers over Starmer, except for Liz Truss, on whom they are divided 24% to 24%. In fact, it is only Reform UK voters who think that Truss (41%) was a better prime minister than Starmer (14%).
Voters for all four largest parties believe that both Tony Blair and Gordon Brown were better prime ministers than Starmer has been, with Blair favoured over Starmer by 51-53% of Conservative, Labour and Lib Dem voters, and 46% of Reform UK voters.
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Photo: Getty
