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…

Keir Starmer has achieved net zero before even entering government. According to Redfield & Wilton, the Labour leader now has a net approval rating of 0% in the Red Wall, the lowest level since September last year…

Approve: 34% (-1)
Disapprove: 34% (+4)
Net: 0% (-5)

A five-point polling drop in two weeks, and 10,000 fleeing members in two months…

A new Redfield & Wilton Strategies poll conducted after the local elections has Labour on 41%, a drop of five points since the last survey. The Tories have gained one point to reach 29%. The 12-point gap is the lowest since Rishi walked into Number 10 last October…

The party with the most to cheer will be the LibDems: their support has surged by 4 points to 16% of the vote. Their highest numbers since the 2019 general election.

While Rishi might take comfort in the narrowing national poll lead after the bruising local election results on Friday, his personal approval rating has dropped by 2 points since last week, now sitting at -7. Starmer’s, meanwhile, is +10. Starmer is now also leading across all leadership characteristics, including on trust with the economy…

New polling, released this morning by Techne, puts Labour on 45% to the Conservatives on 30%. This represents a Labour lead over the Conservatives of 15%. It’s the joint lowest margin recorded by the pollster since Sunak became Prime Minister.

Techne aren’t the only pollster reflecting this trend. Last week, Opinium recorded a Labour lead of just 11%, whilst on Monday, Redfield & Wilton reported a 14% margin – both of which are also the smallest since Sunak took over. Going by the polling average in February, a 14% Labour lead represents a drop of 8% in just two months.

As the “noisy” scatter graph from above UK Polling Report shows a narrowing lead for Labour trend has developed this month. Before Tory MPs get too excited, this is what it probably means in terms of seats:

All of this explains why Savanta polling director, Chris Hopkins, told the i that the days of 20 point Labour polling leads are “gone” and “If it gets much smaller I think possibly we start to get into hung parliament territory”. The SNP’s electoral collapse further complicates electoral calculations. Survation recently put the SNP’s lead over Labour at 5% – the smallest since the 2019 election. There’s still a long time to go until Autumn 2024…

Redfield & Wilton has published word clouds depicting the policies voters most associate with Rishi and Sir Keir respectively. The bigger the phrase, the more frequent the response. Lo and behold, the most frequent response for both leaders, the policy that’s had the most cut through outside the Westminster bubble, is… “Don’t know”. Along with “not much”, “no idea”, and “not a clue”.

The good news for Rishi, at least, is that furlough, the economy, inflation and healthcare all make appearances. Although the fact voters associate the PM with “making maths compulsory” about as much as his economic policies probably won’t please Isaac Levido.  

Sir Keir, meanwhile, will be happy with the number of people who associate him with “working class rights“. Although that number is about the same as those who associate him with “nothing”…

The latest Redfield & Wilton poll has Labour ahead by 21 points, with the Tories somehow dropping 3 points to 27% compared to last week. It looks like Rishi’s thundering momentum from Friday – when the Tories surged by a whopping one percentage point according to YouGov – has come crashing to a halt. Yet more good news for the Tory marginals…

Labour 48% (+1)
Conservative 27% (-3)
Liberal Democrat 10% (-2)
Reform UK 5% (+1)
Green 4% (+1)
Scottish National Party 4% (+1)
Other 2% (+1)

Rishi’s personal poll ratings are also down five points from last week, now sitting at +8, although Sir Keir’s also dropped by the same amount – he’s now on +13%. There goes the honeymoon period…