Labour’s poll popularity is declining according to IPSOS. They havent checked people’s General Election preference because despite what you can read in Twitter comments from Angry of Neasden with 18 followers the next Election is a while off.
Rather they look at the popularity of leaders. Starmer’s popularity has fallen significantly. While I’m not sure that he ever wanted to be popular in the first place he is however still quite a bit more popular than any of the four Tory leadership contenders. That is in so far as any of those asked can recall who they are. Clue: one has a beard, three don’t have a beard.
Even so give the size of Labour’s majority in July there is a significant drop. Its starting to be reflected in local election results, where the Labour vote is dropping. However the Tories are not improving in most cases and despite Farage’s bluster Reform has come nowhere near winning a local Council seat.
On a broader canvass a comparison with the polls after the last big Labour win in May 1997 is interesting.
In August 1997 Labour had 54% of the poll and the Tories 28%. In September 1997 Labour had 59% and the Tories 25%. That polling gap didn’t change much to the 2001 Election which produced a similar result to that of 1997.
The picture for Labour this time looks different and I suspect that this is not news to Downing St. Labour won a 158 seat majority on 4th July with less than 10 million votes. As an election winning strategy it worked well. As a strategy to keep and hold that support its less satisfactory.
Starmer of course has argued that the economic and political mess left by the Tories after 2010 requires difficult measures to be taken. Who the measures should impact is a matter of legitimate debate even if Rachel Reeves doesnt think so.
Labour Conference in Liverpool, both inside and outside the debating halls will be an interesting barometer of all this, probably more so than opinion polls and local election results
https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/voting-intention-great-britain-1976-present
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