A muted conference season means leaders have left little impression on the public
As conference season draws to a close, YouGov’s favourability tracker shows just how little public perception of the three main party leaders has changed during this busy period.
Jo Swinson kicked started proceedings with her speech on September 17th, and did seem to get a small bounce off the back of it. When she finished speaking 27% of the public viewed her favourably, compared to just 17% at the end of August. This dropped her net favourability down from -18 to -11.
This soon dropped back, though, whilst her unfavourable score has risen. She currently has a net score of -24 - her worst to date.
Jeremy Corbyn’s conference speech came on the 22nd, having been moved back a day after the Supreme Court ruled the prorogation of Parliament was unlawful. The speech didn’t seem to move the dial on the public’s views of him at all, perhaps because it was overshadowed by events elsewhere. In the first poll after his speech 22% of the public had a favourable view of him, compared to 68% who hold an unfavourable view. This gave him a net score of -46, completely unmoved from the poll immediately before his speech.
Boris was last in the queue with his speech on Wednesday. In our first poll since his appearance he scored his highest favourable score to date, at 40%, with 52% viewing him unfavourably.
This gives him a net score of -12, slightly up on the -16 he scored just before his speech, but identical to the net score he held in our final poll before conference season started.
So overall, as is so often the case with party conferences, not a lot has really changed.
Photo: Getty
See the full results here
