Almost two in five Brits view Boris Johnson as corrupt, according to new polling.
With recent focus on the news around the Dyson lobbying row, 37 per cent describe the prime minister as mostly or completely corrupt vs. 31 per cent saying he is clean and honest.
Conversely, only 16 per cent believe Sir Keir Starmer to be corrupt and 40 per cent say he clean and honest.
Seven in ten also say it is unacceptable for a CEO of a large, well-known business to send a text to the prime minister to persuade him to maintain or introduce favourable tax arrangements for his company and 76 per cent say the same about a former prime minister using his contacts with government to get special financial help for his new employer.
But the recent scandals don’t appear to have dented the Conservative’s lead in the polls.
Johnson’s party has opened up an 11 point lead, according to Opinium’s latest poll, with the PM’s net approval rating remaining positive on balance.
Adam Drummond, Head of Political Polling, comments: “This week’s poll results show how much of a difference there is between the story dominating headlines and the story on the ground.
“The government have had a tough week with questions of corruption and sleaze dominating the headlines but at the same time the Conservatives have their largest lead over Labour since before the pandemic, built on the back of still overwhelmingly positive views of the vaccine situation and the financial support the government had to bring in to survive the pandemic.
“Large majorities say that each person’s behaviour during the David Cameron lobbying scandal and the Dyson text exchange story was unacceptable but only 32 per cent had heard or read a lot about the former and only 28 per cent about the latter.
“It looks likely that the Conservatives will be able to ride the vaccine success to good results in next month’s elections but the longer term danger will be if these perceptions stick to them when there is less of a positive national story to crowd them out.”
Related: CHOMSKY: “If Corbyn had been elected, Britain would be pursuing a much more sane course”