One of Keir Starmer’s ministers had a rather cheeky response when pressed over the PM’s decline in the polls today.
Just six months into his premiership, the think tank More in Common revealed that Starmer has a net approval rating of -39 – that’s the lowest the researchers have ever recorded for him.
Another poll from the same think tank found Labour had tied with Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party when it comes to voting intentions, tied on 24%, while the Tories took a narrow lead with 25%.
But Scotland secretary Ian Murray appeared to shrug off these very negative polls today.
Speaking to journalists in Holyrood, he said: “We were honest with the public back in July that it would be tough, maybe the public don’t like honesty after all.”
Starmer did say in June that “tough decisions” lay ahead.
After winning the election, he said at the end of August: “Things are worse that we ever imagined.”
He said “14 years of populism and failure” meant “things will get worse before they get better”.
Earlier this month, More in Common found 56% of voters now have a lower opinion of the government after six months in power, and one in four voters who backed Starmer at the general election now regret it.
The researchers concluded that this mainly came down to three unpopular Labour policies: the cut to the number of pensioners eligible for the winter fuel allowance, the cut in inheritance tax relief for farmers and the refusal to compensate WASPI women over pension changes.
Starmer also suffered the largest post-election fall in approval ratings of any UK PM in the modern era, when More in Common found it fell from +11 to -38 in late October.
The executive director of the think tank Luke Tryl said at the time that this was an “unprecedented” decline for any new PM, adding: “Although they [Labour] had a landslide, in terms of popularity they didn’t have the slack to spare that other new governments had.”