TORY support has plunged to an all-time record low, latest polling reveals.
Just 19 per cent of voters say they will back the Conservatives in a general election that is now only months away.
And Rishi Sunak’s personal ratings are the worst-ever recorded for a prime minister in a survey by polling company Ipsos.
Yet Sir Keir Starmer’s satisfaction ratings are also plunging, including among declared Labour supporters.
A sizeable 56 per cent are dissatisfied with how the Labour leader is doing his job, compared with just 25 per cent who are satisfied — a deficit of 31 per cent.
Among Labour voters, the percentage who are happy with the leader has dropped from 58 to 51.
His figures only look good alongside the Prime Minister’s polling.
Mr Sunak has a huge net deficit of 59 per cent between those satisfied and those dissatisfied with his performance.
However, there is unsurprisingly little public enthusiasm for another Tory leadership election, with voters evenly divided on the issue.
None of the probable contenders in such a contest looked likely to raise the Conservative vote from the doldrums.
Only Penny Mordaunt showed a significant improvement on Mr Sunak, and even she trailed Sir Keir by a distance.
Mr Sunak will also be sweating over the continuing rise of the hard-right Reform Party — up 5 per cent to 13 per cent, just six points behind the Tories.
This may reflect the high-profile defection of former Tory deputy chair Lee Anderson to Reform last month, and it will certainly add to pressure on the PM to shift further to the right to head off the electoral haemorrhaging.
Labour is on 44 per cent in the poll, a drop of 3 per cent since the same survey in February, but still on course for a landslide election victory if eventual results approximate to the polling.
Should the Tory deficit be borne out in the local elections due on May 2, then pressure on Mr Sunak to quit will grow from his own back benches.
He in turn may decide to head that off by calling a general election for June to end the agony.
Since Sir Keir’s ratings are no better than those of Neil Kinnock and Ed Miliband, who both lost general elections, Mr Sunak may not be in complete despair about his prospects — unlike the electorate, which appears underwhelmed by the choices before it.
