New Ipsos polling has laid bare the challenge facing Andy Burnham as he fights to save an unloved Labour party. While half the country likes the new Prime Minister, only three out of 10 people say the same for the Labour party.
The polling further shows that though people may warm to the former Mayor of Greater Manchester as a person, this does not mean they approve of how he is running the country. While he enjoyed a net favourability rating of +7, when people were asked if they were satisfied with his performance as a prime minister his net score was -17.
Comparison with past premiers
At the same point in his premiership, former Labour leader Sir Tony Blair had a net satisfaction rating of +65, and his Conservative predecessor Sir John Major enjoyed one of +46. Tories David Cameron and Theresa May also had stronger satisfaction ratings than Mr Burnham two months into their time as PM, with +23 and +27, respectively.
The polling will hike pressure on Mr Burnham to use his first conference speech as Labour leader this week to convince Britons he can lead the country and that Labour is worthy of their trust.
Badenoch faces similar challenge
The polling shows Kemi Badenoch faces a similar challenge of persuading voters who like her as an individual that they should vote for her party. A third of those polled said they liked the Tory leader (33%) – giving her a higher rating than the Liberal Democrats’ Sir Ed Davey (31%), Reform UK’s Nigel Farage (24%) and the Green’s Zack Polanski (22%).
But the Conservative party still remains unpopular with voters. Just 24% of Britons said they liked the Tories, putting the party behind Reform (26%), the Lib Dems (27%), Labour (30%) and the Greens (33%).
Election choice scenarios
Mrs Badenoch will take comfort from polling which suggests she may perform better than Mr Farage when the election is seen as a straight choice about who is PM. When voters were asked to choose between Mr Burnham’s Labour party and Mr Farage’s Reform forming the Government, 52% backed the former and just 28% opted for the latter.
However, when asked to choose between Labour and Mrs Badenoch’s Tories, support for Mr Burnham’s party dropped to 44% with 30% backing the Conservatives.
Keiran Pedley of Ipsos said: “The data clearly shows that when forced to make a choice the public prefer a Burnham-led Labour government to the main alternatives. This will give Andy Burnham cause for cautious optimism as he heads into his first party conference as Prime Minister. It is also striking that Burnham and Labour's lead is actually smaller against Badenoch's Conservatives than it is Nigel Farage's Reform UK. This will only add to speculation the next election could fundamentally be a Labour-Conservative contest as opposed to the expected Labour-Reform affair.”
