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The challenges to Keir Starmer’s leadership have hit Wes Streeting’s reputation even harder
As part of a research study that YouGov has been conducting, we have been polling favourability of political figures at a far greater level of frequency than our usual monthly tracker.
As a result, we have already been able to capture favourability shift in real time, with the earliest waves of this survey having caught the public’s negative reaction to Zack Polanski’s retweets regarding the Golders Green stabbing.
But perhaps the most important shift in opinion regards Andy Burnham, whose favourability has declined markedly over the past two months – hardly good news ahead of his attempted return to Parliament.
In earlier polls in this series, Andy Burnham achieved a positive net favourability rating (+9 at its peak). However, his popularity declined starting from the middle of May – the period that encompassed the Labour party revolt against Keir Starmer that included Wes Streeting’s resignation and Josh Simons stepping down in Makerfield, triggering the by-election that Andy Burnham is likely to win.
As a result, Burnham now takes a net favourability rating of -11 in our latest poll: 30% of Britons like the would-be PM, versus 41% who dislike him.
Burnham’s favourability has similarly taken a knock among those who backed the Labour party in 2024. While the number of Labour voters with a positive view of Burnham has remained largely consistent, the number with a negative rating has risen by eight points to 22%.
See more about how Britons see Andy Burnham, in their own words, here
Wes Streeting is more unpopular following his resignation
Wes Streeting – who has also rocked the Labour leadership boat with his resignation as health secretary – has seen a similarly downward trajectory to Burnham; the main difference being that Streeting has started from a much lower base.
While the 16% of Britons with a favourable view of Streeting in our first poll following his 14 May resignation was unchanged from the prior poll, the number with an unfavourable view increased from 44% to 52%. As of our latest poll, only 12% of Britons have a favourable view of Streeting, compared to 50% with an unfavourable view.
While Streeting had already been unpopular among 2024 Labour voters just prior to his resignation (28% liked him, but 37% disliked him), a week after his resignation favourable views of the former health secretary had declined to 21%, while unfavourable views had increased to 51%.
As of our latest poll, 20% of Labour voters have a positive view of Streeting, with 46% having a negative view.
Attitudes to Zack Polanski remain more negative a month and a half after Golders Green
Re-examining the changes in Zack Polanski’s favourability ratings, now that this more detailed run of tracking is complete, suggests that his retweeting choices have had a permanent impact on his reputation.
While before the Golders Green stabbing the number of Britons with a negative opinion of the Green leader had hovered around the 40% mark, this rose to 47% immediately following his retweet of a post criticising the police response, and peaked at 50% by mid-May.
As of our latest poll the number of Britons with an unfavourable view of Polanski stands at 46%, while 22% have a favourable stance.
Other figures
Our series also covered each of the following additional politicians: Angela Rayner, Ed Davey, Jeremy Corbyn, Keir Starmer, Kemi Badenoch, Nigel Farage, Rupert Lowe, and Shabana Mahmood. In each of these cases, favourability ratings have remained largely consistent over the period of the study and so this article does not examine their results in detail. The below chart gives an overview of the toplines, and full results can be found in each of the tables below.
See full results for the following dates here:
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Photo: Getty