Britons continue to believe Burnham would make a better PM than any major party leader by margins of at least 12 points
Key takeaways
- In head-to-heads against other major party leaders, Britons consistently believe Andy Burnham would make the better PM
- This includes a margin of 40% to 28% against Kemi Badenoch and 50% to 22% against Nigel Farage
- When faced off against Ed Davey or Zack Polanski, 47-49% of Britons back Andy Burnham, while only 7% favour the Lib Dem or Green leaders
- Kemi Badenoch’s lead over Nigel Farage in a head-to-head is 28 points, while her lead over Ed Davey now stands at 14 points, the highest to date
Having overseen his first Labour conference as leader and produced his first budget, Andy Burnham has more than settled into the role of prime minister. So far, the improvements in both Labour’s ratings and his own have shown limited signs of dipping, but does that extend to how the public feel he fares against other party leaders directly?
In ‘head-to-heads’ against the leaders of each of the other four major parties, Britons continue to believe that Andy Burnham would make the better prime minister by double-digit margins.
Even against Kemi Badenoch, Burnham’s toughest competition on this metric and who has also seen a small upturn in her party’s fortunes in recent months, the Labour leader leads by a decisive 40% to 28%. This 12 point margin is down from the 16 points he led by at the end of August, but remains a marked contrast from the Tory leader being tied with Keir Starmer in May.
Against Nigel Farage, who has often positioned himself as the real prime minister in waiting over the last two years, Burnham’s lead is an even greater 28 points, with half of Britons (50%) seeing him as the better PM of the two, while just 22% favour the abilities of the Reform leader.
But Farage fares worse against Kemi Badenoch, with just 15% of Britons believing he is the more suitable right wing occupant of Number 10, the lowest figure recorded for him on our tracker to date, while roughly three times as many (43%) believe the Tory leader would do a better job.
This 28 point lead for Badenoch is further evidence that she currently has the upper hand in the battle for control of the British political right, being a marked turnaround from summer 2025, when the public were evenly divided on which of the two would make a better prime minister.
Neither Burnham nor Badenoch face much of a threat from the leaders of the Lib Dems or Greens, with Burnham’s leads over his progressive opponents being particularly substantial. Nearly half of Britons (47-49%) believe he would be a better PM than either Ed Davey or Zack Polanski, relative to a mere 7% feeling the Lib Dem or Green leaders would make more successful heads of government, in both cases the lowest to date on our tracker.
Such is the scale of Burnham’s advantage over his fellow progressive leaders that those who backed the Greens in 2024 are divided 43% to 35% in his favour over whether he or Polanski would make the better PM, while 2024 Lib Dem voters actually back the Labour leader over Davey by a decisive margin of 58% to 17%.
In May, by contrast, Lib Dem voters favoured Davey over Starmer on this question by a 30 point margin (with Labour voters only favouring Starmer by 24 points), while Polanski’s lead among Green voters was 51 points.
Britons now favour Kemi Badenoch over Ed Davey by a margin of 36% to 24%, the largest lead for Badenoch in this pairing to date, with the two having been near-tied as recently as January. This includes Lib Dem voters now only favouring Davey by a margin of 48% to 24%. The public do, though, still prefer Davey for PM over either Farage (34% vs 24%) or Polanski (29% vs 13%).
Polanski himself is an even more comfortable ‘win’ for Badenoch, with Britons now favouring the Tory leader by 40% to 18%, again, the largest margin for her to date. Polanski and Farage only avoid losing in every scenario by tying against each other, with Britons are divided 27% to 26%.
See the full results here
Methodology
- Sample size: An online survey of 2,355 adults aged 18+ living in Great Britain
- Fieldwork: 1 to 2 November 2026
- Commissioned by: YouGov
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Photo: Getty
