Date(s) For most of the year, as the government enjoyed the protection against the illness of unpopularity afforded by a successful vaccination programme, it looked as if the forward march of Labour had halted. Nicola Sturgeons departure has disarmed the Scottish separatist threat for a while, though the union remains fragile in the longer term. Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer is trailing Boris Johnson as the British public's preferred prime minister by 17 percentage points, according to a new poll. Instead, he has focused on reassuring voters - and the billionaire-owned media - that his party embodies the values associated with old-school conservatism: responsible belt-tightening, support for business, patriotism, law and order, the monarchy and militarism. Some 55% of people polled said they were dissatisfied with the Prime Minister, compared to 49% in December. She has managed the difficult feat of appearing to be both opportunistic and a political ideologue for big business who lacks the popular touch. IT'S a genuine poll result . Politics. X. For one thing, the protocol deal may stumble. Sunaks handling of the NI protocol suggests a leader and a Tory party with more left in the tank than some think. Shadow Cabinet ministers have been urged to attend as many dinners with prospective donors as possible, with the leaders office sometimes pairing ministers with wealthy individuals. Having endured a torrid few months, Rishi Sunak is at least ending February on a personal high. Middle East Eye. Not least, he has shredded the pledges he made during his campaign for the Labour leadership, policy commitments he sold Labour members as evidence he would serve as the continuity candidate for his left-wing predecessor, Jeremy Corbyn. The next election is expected in 2024, but it could be sooner if Liz Truss's huge tax giveaway backfiresmore than it already has. Our one rule for them framing is paying off, said the source, with Johnson proving it to be true time and again. His website and blog can be found at www.jonathan-cook.net. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. Back in June, his spokesperson said: Weve been clear in the position that the strikes shouldnt go ahead. Gray, who has decades of government experience, came into the national spotlight last year for her damning investigation into the partygate scandal, a series of law-breaking . New polling shows that Muslims in the UK are losing faith in the Labour Party, driven partly by unfavourable views towards leader Keir Starmer. Posts; Latest Activity; Photos . Support for the Labour Party has grown in the aftermath of the Autumn Statement, a new poll reveals today.Aaron Chown. It is, admittedly, early days for such speculation. Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in, The opinion polls have turned in the Labour leaders favour vindicating his strategic patience, Find your bookmarks in your Independent Premium section, under my profile. It also enjoys some electoral advantages over Labour. Major new Labour donor David Sainsbury gave more than 2 million at the end of last year, the latest figures confirm, after fleeing during the Corbyn years. He has lots of experience. Why wont anyone tell me anything?. In practice, however, that appears to mean prioritising the supposed needs of the City and major corporations while paying only lip service to the struggle of ordinary people. 2021 Associated Newspapers Limited. The hire of Alli as chair of campaign financing was a particularly adroit decision, according to several MPs and party officials. Only 17% say a Conservative government with Rishi Sunak as prime minister. If Starmers mid-year trough was the mathematical product of Johnsons vaccine-induced rise, his end-year breakthrough could be dismissed as the mere reflection of the prime ministers unpopularity but it feels more soundly based than that. As popular anger mounts, Starmers lack of vision for a sustainable future risks plunging parliamentary politics into even deeper crisis. The Opinium figures, which will raise further concerns within Labour over the party leaders performance, shows that the prime minister has a two-point lead over his opponent. It was an attempt to turn Starmers weaknesses into strengths. This, to me, points to a considerable reservoir of voter discontent with the available options on left and right.. Starmer has experience that Blair didn't. Approval for the government's handling of the pandemic is at its highest since mid-April last year, with 47% of adults happy and 33% disapproving. Johnson was comprehensively outmanoeuvred. The following polls asked about voters' opinions on Jeremy Corbyn, the former leader of the Labour Party until 4 April 2020. When asked who they blamed for the crisis, voters placed equal weight on Liz Truss (21%) and the war in Ukraine (21%). That view is backed by Labours left-wing Momentum faction, which is preparing a showdown with Starmer at the party conference. In a nationally representative poll taken August 26th to 29th, Keir Starmer leads Liz Truss by 10 points or more on: And also by 11 points for each of paying attention to detail (41% to 30%), being a capable leader (38% to 27%) and they are going to make the country a better place (35% to 24%). However, while Labour has an overwhelming lead on every major poll as a party, the popularity battle between Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer is far tighter. The damage done by the polarisation, recklessness, venality and destructiveness of the May-Johnson-Truss years casts long shadows that will shape the politics of this decade. Lucy Powell described partygate investigator Sue Gray - who plans to join Labour as Sir Keir Starmer's chief of staff - as "impartial" and "really good at her job". The latest news, data and analysis on the worlds pandemic response. The Socialist Campaign Group of MPs did not have the numbers to trigger a leadership election, let alone a candidate; Rayner had been one of theirs but she had compromised with the ideological enemy in the party. His Blue Wall rating, meanwhile, remains unchanged from January at -10%. Keir Starmer was rewarded for his strategic patience, according to an ally, when just as the year ended, he took a clear lead over Boris Johnson as the leader people would prefer to have as prime minister. Search. Keir Starmer is the 1st most popular Labour politician and the 2nd most popular politician & political figure. People in Britain, generally, are much more cynical about big money influencing politics, he warned. To top it all, Trusss government has vowed to let the energy sector continue raking in inflated profits rather than impose a crowd-pleasing windfall tax. Too soon for that. The Partygate investigator Sue Gray is a likely candidate to be Keir Starmer's chief of staff, as the Labour leader searches for a veteran civil . In March, Boris Johnson's net approval rating rose to +3, meaning that the PM now has a better net approval rating than Keir Starmer for the first time since April 2020. Keir Starmer, leader of the Labour Party, speaks at the National Farmers' Union (NFU) conference in Birmingham, UK, on Tuesday, Feb. 21, 2023. But Starmers success - assuming it can be maintained - has come at an extraordinarily high political price. politics . Team Starmer will be watching the next few opinion polls very closely. oes Rishi Sunak deserve some kind of apology? Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt leaves 11 Downing Street, LondonJames Manning. Although his approval rating in the Blue Wall fell two points in February to now stand at +6%, his rating in both the Red Wall (+14%) and GB (+13%) are up by six and four points respectively. If you do not have an account you can register here. He seems to have taken as his starting point an assumption - shared by the establishment media - that the antagonism engineered by the Thatcher government through the 1980s towards trade unions and industrial action still holds 40 years later. Voters, it seems, finally agree. Second, it confirmed that he may be starting to steer the Tory party towards a more moderate and pragmatic place. Changes of this kind are not like electoral on-off switches. Sat 11 Jun 2022 14.57 EDT. The Leader of the Opposition leads by ten points or more on being in touch with ordinary people (39% to 20%), they understand the problems facing Britain (50% to 37%), they are an . Andrew Fisher, Corbyns former director of policy, said Starmers preference for private donations may backfire. 2023. It was a key insight to recognise that the DUP had overreached itself at the expense of the UKs wider economic and political interests, and was therefore in a weaker position than many assumed. Blair and some of his allies were caricatured as never being happier than when rubbing shoulders with Britains rich and powerful. These could include a comparison of leading politicians within the same party (to gauge support for future leadership contests), or compare the current leader of one party to an alternative leader of a second. The 1997 quip by Mandelson that he was intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich as long as they pay their taxes became something of guiding principle for the last Labour governments fundraising efforts. During the Hartlepool campaign, when opinion polls made clear Labour was going to lose, he was reported by The Times (earlier this month) to have shouted to his team: Everyone hates us, everyone hates us, why do they hate us? 'Free speech is the only thing the new woke religion - will not - a Sherlock actor labelled transphobic for saying parents taking child UK drivers due 'huge pump price cut' in just days as warning issued King Charles refused to forgive Prince Harry's 'ultimate act of disrespect'. Instead, unlike Liz Truss, he prioritised the things where he could begin to shift the dial and build some political capital. . I want our volunteers and staff to have the best pamphlets and resources and information possible, they said. Sir Keir Starmer - Labour Party Leader. How the PM could block sleaze watchdog's advice on Gray hire and if Labour will ignore him, Opinion | Boris Johnsons 'jobs for Tory cronies' legacy is still alive and kicking, Tory MPs furious at Starmer hiring Sue Gray as Rees-Mogg calls her report 'left-wing stitch-up', publics view of the the Labour leader himself appears to be becoming more negative, Keir Starmer will have been hoping for a polling bounce following his big announcement on freezing energy bills, 'How bad are the pics? The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye. . Even some Tory rebels were baffled by Starmers performance, saying it had helped Johnson regain some stability after the confidence vote. For similar reasons, the Enough is Enough movement has recently emerged, demanding pay rises for workers and higher taxes for the rich. His job approval rating is bumping along at -26. I find the best way to judge the . It is something Blair spoke about a lot, not having the first idea what he was doing when he got through the door. Anybody with leadership experience will think this screams competence. It would be foolish to ignore them. BMG Research interviewed a representative sample of 2,091 GB adults online between 16 and 18 August. These include the new constituency boundaries on which the next election will be fought, the reduction in the number of seats from Wales and Scotland, and the fact that the Tories need a smaller lead than Labour in the overall national vote to be the largest party at Westminster or to have an overall majority. . People can see Starmer as a prime minister, and a reputation for competence is a priceless asset: those two things mean that Labours forward march has resumed. New polling, conducted by Ipsos between 3rd-5th February, shows the public are more likely to apply several leadership traits to Keir Starmer than Rishi Sunak. Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player. For years, we shocked people with Corbyn as leader in the worst way possible and we now need to shock them in positive ways, the shadow Cabinet minister quoted earlier said. Some 39% of people see the Labour leader as the more effective PM according to the poll, which was commissioned by the Evening Standard. Johnsons poor approval ratings have improved slightly at -27, compared with -30 two weeks ago. In an interview with the New Statesman last month, Tarry offered a damning assessment of the Labour leader, accusing him of tearing the party apart to erase any trace of Corbynism, despite his predecessor taking the party in 2017 to within an inch of an election victory. And, in a further nod to the business-friendly "New Labour" days of the 1990s and 2000s, he's even tapping Tony Blair's moneymen to fund his bid for power. "The Labour leader has taken a significant fall across all metrics in the last two weeks, particularly being a strong leader, looking like a prime minister in waiting, and being able to get things done. Truss and her party have dealt him the easiest of hands, even if he continues to play it as cautiously as possible. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information. His party trails Labour by more than 20 points in the polls. Keir Starmer has been urged to intervene in the selection process for a Labour target "red wall" seat, after a leading candidate who had the support of eight trade unions was blocked from . This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. . After languishing stubbornly behind the government in surveys since his election to head Labour in early 2020, Starmer is now reported to have a seven-point lead over the Tories new leader, Liz Truss, when the public is asked who would do a better job as prime minister. Different polling companies report widely differing figures on this question, but even Savanta ComRes, long the least favourable to Starmer, now has him two points ahead of Johnson when people are asked: Which of the following do you think would make the best prime minister? Starmer on 33 per cent and Johnson on 31 per cent are both eclipsed by dont know on 36 per cent, but politics is a game of relative advantage. The Labour leader has made a dirty word of socialism and shown that his own word counts for nothing. However, it is not all bad news for Starmer. Blairs most important fundraiser during his premiership Michael Levy once referred to as Lord Cashpoint also has a role in tapping up wealthy donors. There is also majority support for helping the more than 600,000 people on benefits to have to meet with a work coach to help them back into the labour market. A backlash is coming, Labour leader Keir Starmer addresses the annual Labour Party conference in Brighton, England, on 9 September 2021 (AFP), How top Labour officials plotted to bring down Jeremy Corbyn, Forde Inquiry exposes Labour's biggest problem: Keir Starmer, Jonathan Cook is the author of three books on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and a winner of the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism.