Honeymoon over: Keir Starmer now less popular than Rishi Sunak

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/sep/21/honeymoon-over-keir-starmer-now-less-popular-than-rishi-sunak

40 Comments

  1. > While 24% of voters approve of the job he is doing, 50% disapprove,

    Not sure how one even begins to bish bash bosh their way out of that

  2. It’s been 2 months – WTF were UK voters expecting, a co-op of Mary Poppins and the Ministry of Magic to make everything better?

  3. To a certain extent people’s opinion right now won’t matter, voters have short memories. But he better be sure the short term pain is going to offer something before the next election if he wants a further five years.

  4. Wonder if there’ll be a swing towards some fringe nutjob, who promises easy solutions, and is a kremlin sycophant

  5. I’m not sure what they expected, austerity was never going to be a popular policy.

    The naked bribery doesn’t help either.

  6. We live in a world of difficult and sometimes impossible to solve problems, but people want easy and instant solutions. That’s why populists rise in so many countries. It’s dumb.

  7. 0nlythiswasleft on

    Monday: AgeUK: 3 million pensioners will struggle to keep warm this winter after losing their winter fuel payments.

    Tuesday: Department for work and pensions: 70% of pensioners that will lose their winter fuel payments have a disability.

    Wednesday: Keir Starmer has received £107,145 in gifts, benefits, and hospitality.

    Thursday: Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds: The Prime Minister is in a “pressure” job and should be allowed to enjoy gifts and hospitality.

    Friday: The economy is a mess, we’re putting up everyone’s taxes.

    I mean, it’s not surprising.

  8. Wow, what a shock. Who could have guessed that the guy who had no substantive policy changes to the last group of morons would be an unpopular PM? /s

  9. Clearly needs to reassure his purpose to the people, and build back some momentum especially with the economy like infrastructure prospects

  10. Less popular according to the boomers who don’t want to lose their winter fuel allowance even though they spend winter on the Costa del sol

  11. The whole election was Kier saying they will deliver long term economic growth, which historically, is the trend anyway? He ran on a mandate of promising nothing but being better than the Conservative Party, which is a party ground in 14 years of scandal and corruption.

    All he has to do on his mandate is stick to sensible economic policy, that doesn’t spook the banks or markets and he’ll have a free pass till the next general election. Economically speaking, we have no money and debt will continue to spiral, budgets are going to be slashed or tax will rise, as a country we are going to suffer whoever is in charge because of the mess we are in, there’s no more action to take to rescue this situation.

    If I could wave a magic want I would blame this issue primarily on wealth inequality but as a single country we aren’t in a position to change that and international politics is too weak and corrupt to look towards changing things.

  12. Odd_Couple_2088 on

    Hahahaha that’s hilarious. I swear no matter what you do, everybody will hate you. Fuck public office man

  13. who even was the last popular PM in the UK? Blair?? was he popular? he was there for quite a while i guess

  14. 2 tier keir losing popularity? the pm who jails people for memes while allowing religious fundamentalists to instruct UK police?

    I yam shocked, shocked I tell ya

  15. Boomer logic: means test benefits, have a tapering threshold for child benefits, load students up to the teeth with debt – All ok.

    Take a measly £300 blanket heating allowance for all away and make it means tested – like omfg my life is over.

    Then by all means happy telling young people to get side hussles and seconds jobs and to save for retirement to cope with the cost of living. Insanely hypocritical from all old people and tories.

    Brexit was an absolute mistake costing absolutely billions and the amount of food wasted because of fucking paperwork.

    Make it make sense

  16. Nothing is going to be possible without heavy taxation on THE RICH and a total reworking of our global economic model: degrowth needs to be possible and sustainable.

    The amount of money governments spend SIMPLY SERVICING THEIR DEBTS, money that YOU ultimately dump into their black hole just to go to usually wealthy bond holders is insane.

    With our current monetary theory, with how we’ve allowed money to evolve and operate on truly putrid, 18th-century “math”, we kinda deserve what we get here.

    This century is going to demand a total rethinking of our core assumptions, including WHAT MONEY IS.

  17. A bunch of clowns wanting change, but then crying when things change.

    Give things time and give a fair assessment once adequate time has passed

  18. Won and election by not being the Tories and this followed that up with …

    Austerity.

    Two tier policing.

    Taking hand out after hand out after criticising former politicians for less outrageous behaviour.

    Pensioner Winter fuel allowance cuts.

    Painting any and all upset at children being murdered / illegal immigration as ‘far right extremism’.

    Releasing actual criminals while fast tracking sentencing of people who say things he disagrees with on the internet.

    He’s just a bit of a shit isn’t he? Like I’m sure he means well and all and is probably an okay guy to have a beer with you if you know him.. but objectively as the leader of the country he’s just a complete shit.

  19. Our voters are just stupid as fuck

    He’s cleaning up the mess

    If Tories are in power they complain, it’s a lose lose, fucking whingers

  20. This is typical politics: someone gets voted in on the basis that they’re *not* the useless moron who came before, followed by an almost immediate public & media disappointment that the nation isn’t now a utopia

    I don’t think Kier was destined to be a particularly noteworthy PM (though I’ll be happy to be wrong about that), but if he just turns out to be a caretaker that quietly keeps things running, that’s still a huge improvement over the previous 5 Prime Ministers

  21. Starmer’s problem is that he seems determined to remove what little hope people have left.
    *Yes* its wise to temper expectations but it ISN’T wise to make people think a Labour goverment will be exactly the same as the last 14 years of Austerity.
    Starmer made a very compelling case on how damaging Austerity has been to the country when he was in opposition, it was in fact one of the few concrete elements of his campaign that people could resonate with other than being “not the Tories”, so for him to essentially adopt the Tories own policies and austerity mindset is **insanity.**

    The single most dangerous thing Starmer’s Labour could do is give the impression that they are not actually all that different from the Tories, not only would this be dangerous to the Labour Party’s identity and future chances for success, but it further radicalises people towards the political margins where con-artists, grifters, and worse of all fascist idealogues await a disillusioned public as a vehicle for power.

  22. Are UK voters dumb or what? Are all the effects of austerity policies and moronic decisions like Brexit supposed to vanish overnight?

  23. Polls are snapshots, left-wing voters love to be contrarian and the Conservative wreckage is extensive. I do not really care about popularity bumps or drops unless the perception is valid and threatens the proper working of government.

    In this case, who really gives a shit? Labour needs to sort stuff out and his popularity will bounce about as serious crises occur, unless he gets crazy lucky in which case it will probably rise.

  24. American here. I noticed that the English and French seem to follow simular script:
    1. Hate your PM/president like they personally went to your house and killed your dog and said your baby is ugly.
    2. Beg for change because anyone must be better than this
    3. Vote someone new in.
    4. Wait 48 hours and return to step 1.

  25. Dependent-History-13 on

    Judge the guy after 18 months in the job, sick of this fugging knee jerk politics.
    Fair play with Liz Truss though that shit was wild

  26. What’s the deal in the UK that they are perpetually electing a string of hapless and ineffectual people for prime minister?