Sunak and Starmer approval gap widest ever after Tory by-election defeats
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Rishi Sunak’s approval rating has plummeted in the wake of the Conservatives’ by-election defeats, with the gap between the Prime Minister and Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, now the widest it has ever been.
A survey conducted by Deltapoll gave Mr Sunak a net approval rating of minus 43, with 26 per cent of respondents saying he was doing well and 68 per cent saying he was doing badly.
Sir Keir recorded a net approval rating of minus two, with 43 per cent saying he was doing well and 45 per cent saying he was doing badly.
The poll was conducted between Feb 16 and Feb 19 in the four days following the Wellingborough and Kingswood by-elections, both of which the Tories lost to Labour despite having secured five-figure majorities at the 2019 general election.
Mr Sunak’s net approval rating was down by eight points compared to the company’s previous poll, conducted between Feb 9 and 12, while Sir Keir’s rose by five points.
Deltapoll said: “The gap between net approval for Sunak and Starmer is now the widest it has ever been.”
Joe Twyman, the co-founder and director of Deltapoll, said: “Rishi Sunak hits another all-time low in our latest leadership ratings, continuing what is a clear long-term decline. Keir Starmer, on the other hand, fluctuates around net zero.”
Polling conducted by the firm also found Labour’s lead on perceived economic competence has risen by four percentage points within a week, following news on Feb 15 that the UK had entered a technical recession.
Forty-six per cent of those surveyed considered Sir Keir’s party to be more competent on the economy, up by one point, while 29 per cent saw the Conservatives as the more economically competent, a decrease of three points.
It came as a Deltapoll survey of Westminster voting intention showed Labour’s lead over the Conservatives has widened by three percentage points to 21 per cent.
Labour is now on 48 per cent – a rise of three points in the space of a fortnight – while support for the Conservatives remained static at 27 per cent and eight per cent said they planned to vote for the Liberal Democrats.
Eighteen per cent of voters responded by saying they would vote for another party in the poll, which excluded those who did not know or would note at the next general election.
The last time the Conservatives led a national poll was Dec 6 2021, while The Telegraph’s general election poll tracker shows Labour just under 20 points ahead.
