Britain’s schools aren’t the only things crumbling under the ongoing RAAC crisis – Rishi Sunak’s personal approval ratings have also caved in. In the past week, every published poll has shown the Prime Minister’s popularity in free fall – with his net approval now ranging from -21 to -39. According to both Redfield & Wilton and YouGov, his net approvals are down 9 points. Although Deltapoll puts this figure at -4, this polling was conducted at the very start of the month – before the crisis peaked. Meanwhile, Omnisis has the Prime Minister’s net approval plummeting by a stonking 12 points. Maths lessons won’t be enough to help Rishi deal with these numbers…
New polling from Deltapoll has given the Conservatives their best position with the pollster since September. The result, published today, puts the Conservatives on 35% (up 8%) to 45% (down 5%) for Labour. It follows two recent Savanta polls putting the Labour lead at 11% and subsequently 15% as other pollsters have seen the Conservatives make modest gains on Labour since the end of February – as Rishi Sunak has announced his Northern Ireland deal and small boats legislation. A 10% lead is almost back to where the Conservatives were when Boris left office…
We could be days away from a Tory leadership race if Theresa May loses a no confidence vote. The jostling for position on the Tory benches is becoming blatant. Leadership hopefuls are tapping up donors for support, assembling campaign teams and beaming as they glad-hand fellow MPs. With that in mind WPI Strategy commissioned a 2,000 head poll from Deltapoll with fieldwork done last week (25/26 March). They asked the public “Who would you recognise in the street?”
David Lidington would be recognised by 1 in 20 people – which seems on the high side. Liz Truss would be recognised by 1 in 14 people proving that not everyone is on Instagram. Dominic Raab will be disappointed that his brief profile raising period as Brexit Secretary means that 1 in 9 people claim they know his face. Then we get into potential leaders who do have some recognition with voters. Amber, Saj and Hunt are recognised by a quarter to a third of voters, Mogg (who is not running) and Gove are recognised by two fifths of voters. There is only one candidate who stands out with over three quarters of the public recognising him – Boris.
The debut poll by new polling firm Deltapoll, founded by former YouGov pollster Joe Twyman and ICM’s Martin Boon, has found that more than half of voters think Labour has an anti-Semitism problem and over a third think Jeremy Corbyn is himself anti-Semitic. 51% think Labour has at least pockets of anti-Semitism, and 34% think those pockets include the leader. That’s one poll Owen Jones won’t be gloating about.
