Britons think Burnham would be a better PM than any major party leader

Key takeaways

  • In a head-to-head against Nigel Farage, 48% of Britons back Andy Burnham to be the better PM, while just 22% favour the Reform UK leader
  • Britons tend to believe Andy Burnham would make a better PM than Kemi Badenoch by 38% to 26%; the public had been evenly split on Starmer and Badenoch in May
  • Badenoch’s lead over Nigel Farage in a head-to-head has increased to 24 points, having been near-tied last summer

After months of speculation, Andy Burnham has made it to Downing Street, becoming the UK’s sixth prime minister in the last decade. While Burnham’s relative popularity compared to Keir Starmer was part of his appeal for Labour MPs, how does the new PM fare against the alternatives on offer from other parties?

In ‘head-to-heads’ against the leaders of each of the other four major parties, Britons consistently tend to believe that Andy Burnham would be the better prime minister, by margins varying from 12 to 36 points. This is a notable contrast to how Keir Starmer fared on this question in May, when he only led against two of his opponents, with his greatest margin being ten points (against Nigel Farage).

Kemi Badenoch is the opponent that Britons are most likely to feel would make a better PM than Burnham, but even then, nearly four in ten (38%) feel the fledgling Labour leader would be more effective at the job, relative to 26% favouring the Tory leader.

This is additionally a significant improvement for Burnham since last month, when the public were close to divided 32% to 28% on which of the pair would do better in Number 10, as well as a marked change from Britons being evenly split on Starmer and Badenoch in May.

Over the last two years, Labour have increasingly seen Reform UK as their main challenger for power, but at present, Nigel Farage does not appear to be a significant personal threat for the new PM. Nearly half of Britons (48%) back Burnham to be the better PM of the two, up five points since last month, relative to just 22% who feel Farage is the man for the job.

Burnham’s lead is even more substantial over the leaders of opposing progressive parties, with the public feeling he would be a better PM than Lib Dem leader Ed Davey by 41% to 8% and a more successful head of government than Green leader Zack Polanski by as much as 45% to 9%.

Beyond how the public see the new PM, one of the key questions in British politics currently is the continued battle over the future of the right.

As recently as last August, Britons were near evenly split on the question of which of Kemi Badenoch and Nigel Farage would make the better prime minister. Today, though, Britons are more than twice as likely to think Badenoch would do the better job of the pair, with 41% of Britons backing the Tory leader over Nigel Farage, the highest figure to date, while just 17% feel the Reform UK leader would be the more effective premier.

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Britons now also favour Kemi Badenoch over Ed Davey by a clear margin of 32% to 23%, having been more likely to see the Lib Dem leader as prime ministerial material as recently as last summer, while also seeing the Conservative leader as being better placed for the job than Zack Polanski by 36% to 20%.

The public do, though, prefer Davey for PM over either Farage (35% vs 24%) or Polanski (27% vs 13%), while a scenario in which the Green and Reform UK leaders face off against each other divides Britons, with 29% feeling Polanski would make the better PM of the two populists and 27% thinking this is true of Farage.

Who do voters think would make best prime minister?

In large part, these results reflect the growing element of ‘bloc’ politics in the British party system. For instance, in head-to-heads between Burnham and either Badenoch or Farage, most Labour, Lib Dem and Green voters back the Labour leader, while Conservative and Reform UK supporters tend to favour the right-wing leader.

However, the degree to which this occurs does vary. While just over half of Lib Dem and Green voters (52-53%) think Burnham would be a more capable PM than Badenoch (with 21% of Lib Dems instead backing Badenoch), this rises as much as 25 points (71-77%) when Burnham’s opponent is Farage.

Likewise, while Reform UK voters feel Badenoch would make a better PM than Burnham by a decisive margin of 52% to 6%, just 38% of Conservative voters see Farage as potentially being a better PM than Burnham, with 24% instead feeling the former Manchester mayor is more up to the job.

Additionally, when the scenario includes two leaders from the same bloc, significant proportions of voters are willing to ‘cross the floor’ to back the more centrist contender. For example, 61% of 2024 Lib Dems, alongside 44-45% of Labour and Green voters, back Badenoch over Farage, while Conservative and Reform UK voters prefer Burnham to Polanski by 41-44% to 2-3%.

See the full results here

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