LABOUR and Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s approval ratings are still nosediving as the government marks 100 days in office tomorrow.
New Ipsos polling reveals Sir Keir’s net popularity has fallen to a record low of minus 26 points — worse than Reform leader Nigel Farage.
Rachel Reeves was doing even worse at minus 30 points with four in nine saying she is doing a bad job as Chancellor.
Experts blamed No 10 “turf wars,” scandals over ministerial freebies and cutting pensioner benefits as the Labour Party’s net popularity also plummeted 13.5 points to minus 21 points since the general election.
“It has got to be one of the worst starts” for a new government in living memory, politics professor Steven Fielding, of the University of Nottingham, told the Morning Star.
He said the freebies scandal and decision to cut the winter fuel allowance to millions of hard-up pensioners has been a “failure of political presentation to say the least, and that has defined how most people see this government.”
“None of this has gone to plan,” he added on Sir Keir’s popularity flagging behind the far-right populist Mr Farage.
“They underestimated the level of frustration.
“What I don’t understand is they have been in opposition for quite a while, they’ve been leading the Tories by stupid amounts... why haven’t they got so many things in place?
“It strikes me that they miscalculated people’s frustration. They underestimated the right-wing media — the freebies has been catnip to them.”
A spokeswoman for Momentum said: “A newly elected Keir Starmer polling behind a far-right populist Nigel Farage shows what happens when a government fails to offer the policies needed to fix a broken Britain.
“The Employment Rights Bill, pay rises for public-sector workers and lifting the ban on onshore wind farms are all good starts — but the Labour leadership must go further.
“A genuine end to austerity, public investment in key services and proper funding for local government all receive widespread support from voters.
“The upcoming Budget provides the government with an opportunity to bring back voters’ trust.”
Ipsos polling of more than 1,000 British adults between October 4 and 7 found Labour’s approval ratings still remain just higher than the Conservatives’, currently at minus 28 points.
The Lib Dems saw no change while the Greens and Reform had slight improvements of +3 and +2 respectively to their net popularity since September.
Ipsos director of politics Keiran Pedley said: “These numbers make difficult reading for Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves, with both registering their worst favourability scores with Ipsos since taking on their respective positions.”
British Politics lecturer Colm Murphy at Queen Mary University of London said: “The government has had a shaky and uncertain start, mostly because the operation at the centre was not functioning properly, and because of unforced errors, like failing to see the political significance of the gifts scandal early enough.”
The government introduced its Employment Rights Bill on Thursday just within the 100-day deadline, although ministers concede many of the rights would not come into force until 2026 — and labour law experts Professor Keith Ewing and Lord John Hendy KC argue in tomorrow’s Morning Star that important commitments in the New Deal for Workers adopted by Labour in 2021 and 2022 have been left out, with the legislation improving individual rights but failing to rebalance workplace power towards workers collectively.
Other commitments for its first months in office have also been met including the Rwanda policy being scrapped on day one, changes to the National Planning Policy Framework and the launch of both GB Energy and the new national wealth fund.
Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn MP said: “In just 100 days, the government has taken away winter fuel payments from pensioners, chosen to keep 250,000 children in poverty, and desecrated the value of international law.
“How much longer will it take for the government to wake up and deliver the change that people expected and still deserve?”
