Labour maintains its narrow lead with 38% of the vote share (up one point), with the Conservatives on 36%, according to Opinium’s latest poll. The Lib Dems are on 8%, Greens 6% and SNP 5%.
Keir Starmer has also seen an increase in his approval rating and is now at+1% (32% approve, 31% disapprove), well ahead of Boris Johnson whose approval is -17% (31% approve, 48% disapprove).
Johnson’s lead on who would make the best prime minister is just two points, 29% vs. 27% for Starmer (80% of Conservative voters back Johnson vs. just 71% backing Starmer). However, both leaders are behind “none of these” on 31%. If forced to choose, a different picture emerges with 42% of the public preferring a Labour government led by Starmer compared to 36% who would prefer a Conservative government led by Johnson.
Boris suffers more blows
Meanwhile, almost half (48%) think Boris Johnson should resign as leader (although dropping to 13% of Conservative voters) whereas 31% think he should remain. If Johnson was to resign, a third (36%) think Rishi Sunak should replace him, rising to over half (52%) of Conservative voters.
Two-in-five (40%) say Johnson has been a worse Prime Minister than they expected, with 32% saying he has been what they expected. A fifth (21%) say he has been better than they expected, rising to 48% of Conservative voters. The majority (58%) think his premiership has been bad for the county, and 54% think he’s been bad for the economy.
New Covid variant
With the news that a new variant of the Covid-19 virus has appeared in South Africa and Belgium, 42% of Brits think the UK is badly prepared for a future pandemic vs. 34% who think the UK is well prepared, while 24% say they “Don’t know”.
Adam Drummond, Head of Political Polling at Opinium comments: “For the first time since January we have seen two consecutive Labour leads in the poll and Keir Starmer’s approval rating is also now in positive territory for the first time since Hartlepool. His approval rating is impressive because Boris Johnson’s remains poor. Despite this and the troubles he is having among his MPs, Johnson remains popular among his voters.”
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Well as the polls look promising for Labour Stamer told Nick Robinson that “Boris Johnson makes promises he can’t keep… so if you’re not going to keep your promises, don’t bullshit.”
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