Brits are more dissatisfied with the first five months of Keir Starmer’s premiership than any other PM since the 1970s, a new poll has found.
Researchers at Ipsos found net satisfaction for the first five months languishing at -34 points.
Almost two thirds (61%) of respondents said they were dissatisfied with his leadership compared to just 27% who were satisfied.
According to Ipsos, Starmer is followed by Gordon Brown who also hangs around at the bottom of the league table dating back in 1979, with -23 points after his first five months in office.
Rishi Sunak is not far behind, on -22 points.
However, it’s worth pointing out that neither of these former prime ministers got into Downing Street as a result of a general election, but after their party leaders stood down in the middle of their parliamentary term – unlike Starmer.
Boris Johnson was also slightly more popular with the public at this point in his Downing Street career than both Brown and Sunak in the ratings, at -20 points.
Margaret Thatcher was on -3 points while Theresa May and David Cameron were both on +15.
John Major was the second-most popular PM in the Ipsos list, with a net result of +33 points.
Meanwhile, Tony Blair, who continues to be a major influence on the current PM and who secured only eight more seats in the 1997 election than Starmer, is at the top of the table with +57.
This is just the latest blow to the current PM whose popularity has dropped off dramatically since he actually won the election in July.
Pollsters at More in Common found his personal rating dropped to from +11 to -38 after less than four months in office.
That 43 point drop was a historic low for a new PM in the modern era, according to the researchers.
However, health secretary Wes Streeting wrote off the research in late October, telling LBC: “We are taking a whole bunch of decisions at the moment which are not going to make us very popular, because they are tough decisions.
“They are the right decisions, putting the country’s interests ahead of the party’s interests.”
He added: “The worst thing we could do right now is resort to government is duck the difficult decisions, resort to government by gimmick, sticking plaster politics and treat politics as a popularity contest.”