A fatally wounded premiership? James Crouch takes us through the depths of Keir Starmer's unpopularity.

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In our latest Substack @mrjcrouch.bsky.social looks at Keir Starmer's rock-bottom approval ratings, and how the die was cast within his first couple of months in office.

Link below 👇

See the full data tables here: t.co/O7B6FlTUD5

🚨Latest Opinium Observer poll 🚨

For almost his entire time time in Downing Street, Keir Starmer has been less popular than Rishi Sunak and Boris Johnson were at the same point in their premierships.

See the full data tables on our website here: www.opinium.com/resource-cen...

🚨 New Opinium Observer polling 🚨
Labour’s leader is deep in the red, with Keir Starmer stuck at -41% approval now several weeks in a row.

Fewer than 1 in 5 voters approve of the job he’s doing, while while 60% disapprove.

Read more about the potential political implications of this here: opinium.com/wp-content/u...

Opinium and @curiauk.bsky.social polling shows that while protections for bats and newts might annoy roughly 1 in 7, a majority of the public currently support these environmental protections.
In the same polling we found 30% even think these same protections do not go far enough.

See the full data tables here: www.opinium.com/resource-cen...

New Opinium Observer poll:
29% say nature of offence & age should be released at arrest. For names, 40% say wait until guilty verdict.

On nationality (21% at arrest) & ethnicity (19% at arrest), opinion is split, but pluralities favour info release after a guilty verdict.

New Opinium @theobserveruk.bsky.social #poll
Keir Starmer’s approval hits record low (-41%). He is now as unpopular as Boris Johnson after ‘partygate’.
Look at the full results for views on a wealth tax, Rachel Reeves, and Palestine Action protests:
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Thanks for reading! As ever, you can find our tables and findings here:

opinium.com/resource-cen...

And you can access our political dashboard here:

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And, finally, we have seen no change this week for Keir Starmer, Kemi Badenoch or “None
of these” this week for the Best PM question, despite the challenges both leaders faced this week in the local elections:

Kemi Badenoch has also seen a dip of 2 points from -19% to -21%, reversing her small
improvements last week.
Ed Davey’s net approval has also remained similar, rising this week from -5% to -4%:

Despite his local success in this week’s elections, Nigel Farage’s net approval has dropped points in
the last week, from -12% to -17%.
Keir Starmer’s net approval, however, has also not recovered after falling last week, dropping a point this
week from -33% to -34%.

When it comes to key local issues, Reform is the best performing party on only one issue: the impact
of immigration locally. Labour is the most trusted party on nearly all other local matters, although “none of the above” is the real winner here:

🚨New polling with
@ObserverUK

As Reform celebrates its victories at this week’s local elections, their success can partly be attributed to the reputational damage suffered by the major parties, receiving better ratings on all key attributes apart from being tolerant:

Thanks so much for reading! As ever, you can find our tables and findings here www.opinium.com/resource-cen...

And you can access our political dashboard here:
www.opinium.com/resource-cen...

Right-of-centre voters are divided on a future Conservative-Reform agreement:

32% of Conservative and Reform voters collectively would support the idea of the Conservatives and Reform UK coming to an agreement in the next general election.

However, 29% oppose the idea.

NHS and roads dominate local politics: Across England as a whole these the most important local issues are local NHS services (44%) and Road maintenance and potholes (33%).

On both, the local Labour party has a lead over the local Conservatives of +7 and +3 points respectively.

Keir Starmer is doing slightly worse on the best prime minister question than he did a fortnight ago. Starmer is ahead of Badenoch by 25% (-3) to 14% (+1), but 45% (+2) say “none of these”.

In comparison, Kemi Badenoch has seen an improvement of 2 points from -21% to -19%.

🚨 New polling with @observeruk.bsky.social

This week Keir Starmer’s approval shows another small dip from -30% to -33%, going down by 3 points.

National Insurance – A Taxing Issue Calum Weir reflects on the Spring Statement and looks at the electoral arguments for (and against) the Chancellor's tax strategy

Another week, another substack - This time about the hotly-debated issue of National Insurance.

Enjoy and thanks to @adamdrummond.bsky.social for all the help!!

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Thanks so much for reading! As ever, you can find our tables and findings here:
www.opinium.com/resource-cen...

And you can access our political dashboard here:
www.opinium.com/resource-cen...

Manyof the policies were generally seen to be a good idea. For example, the public backed the crackdown on tax avoidance (71% good idea).

However, the cut to the health element of Universal Credit (39% bad idea) and expansion of the third runway at Heathrow (35% bad idea) were much less popular.

For Labour, a supposedly big fiscal event has done little.

The dial remains unmoved on most facets of the economy, when compared to the Conservatives.

The only area that it has shifted slightly is towards Labour in setting tax levels and improving business conditions.

The best prime minister question remains quite stable compared to last week.

Starmer is ahead of Badenoch by 26% (+1) to 13 % (-1), but 45% (n/c) say “none of these”.

This includes 25% (-3) of 2024 Labour voters, 46% (+5) of 2024 Tory voters and 69% (-4) of 2024 Reform voters.

For other leaders, their approvals have suffered a dip: most notable is Kemi Badenoch, whose approval rating is down 5 percent compared to last week.

This week Keir Starmer’s approval shows another small dip from -29% to -32%, going down by 3 points.