Just over half the public believe Sir Keir Starmer will be prime minister according to a new poll. The Ipsos survey, which shows 51% of people think Sir Keir will enter Number 10, is the latest in a string of devastating polls for the Conservatives as the Liz Truss Government faces backlash from the public.
The poll of 1,000 adults showed a 13 point rise in people expecting Sir Keir to be PM, up from 38% in May. Meanwhile 35% of voters said they thought it unlikely the Labour leader would become prime minister, down from 50% in May.
Keiran Pedley, Ipsos director of politics, said: "More Britons now think Keir Starmer will be prime minister one day and the public are increasingly likely to think a Starmer-led Labour government would do a better job in office than the current Government. Time will tell if such sentiment reflects a decisive shift in Labour’s favour or merely reflects a moment in time.”
The poll comes amid a turbulent time for new PM Truss, who has faced widespread criticism in the wake of Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng’s mini-budget last week. The statement saw markets react badly and the value of the pound plummeted.
Half of those surveyed in the new poll, which tool place September 28-29, said they thought Truss was doing a bad job, with just 18% saying she was doing well. By comparison, 26% thought Boris Johnson was doing a good job just before he announced his attention to resign in July.
Among those who voted Conservative in the 2019 General Election, 39% think she is doing a bad job, with 18% saying she is doing well. And 53% of Tory voters said they felt Johnson would be doing a better job.
Of those surveyed, 41% said they thought a Starmer-led Labour government would perform better than the conservatives, up by 5% since Johnson left office. That is the highest percentage since Ipsos began asking the question last year.
The majority (53%) want there to be a general election this year, compared to 20% who don't.
The poll is far from isolated in its damning verdict of Truss' premiership so far. A Survation poll published on Thursday gave Labour a 49% vote share, 21 points ahead of the Conservatives on 28%, while a YouGov poll put Labour even higher on 54%, 33 points ahead of the Tories.
