Daniel Leal/PA
American magazine The New Yorker has delivered a damning assessment of Britain after 14 years of Conservative rule, stating the quiet part (that much of Britain’s right-leaning media is afraid to say) out loud.
Taking aim at three Oxford University alumni prime ministers, the US mag said the UK been taken hostage by a “small group of middle-aged men who went to élite private schools” and have been” climbing and chucking one another off the ladder of British public life – the cursus honorum, as Boris Johnson once called it – ever since”.
It says under successive Tory PMs the country has “suffered grievously” from “years of loss and waste”.
“Living standards have fallen. The country is exhausted by constant drama. But the UK can’t move on from the Tories without facing up to the damage that has occurred,” journalist Sam Knight wrote.
Polling out last week shows voters are now more unfavourable towards both the Conservative party and Rishi Sunak than at any other time during this parliament.
The Tories are viewed unfavourably by 58 per cent, surpassing the previous highest proportion registered by Ipsos polling in October when 56 per cent were unfavourable.
With 19 per cent viewing the Tories favourably, a net favourability rating of minus 39 places the party below all other parties considered, including Reform (minus 26).
The Prime Minister is viewed unfavourably by 57 per cent, the highest percentage he has registered in this parliament and higher than any other politician in a list including Nigel Farage (54 per cent) and Lee Anderson (48 per cent), who recently defected from the Conservatives to the Reform party.
Rishi Sunak was viewed favourably by 19 per cent of those polled between March 15 and 18, giving him a net score of minus 38.
This is the lowest rating among all the politicians included, with Lee Anderson (minus 35) and Nigel Farage (minus 33) the next worse.
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