Keir Starmer has been left humiliated as a shock poll reveals he is Britain’s ‘second-worst’ PM, according to one key metric, after his first few months in Downing Street have been overshadowed by riots, winter fuel payment backlash and a scandal over gifts.
Keir Starmer has an approval rating of just 25 percent (Image: Getty)
A new poll from Ipsos, the UK’s oldest pollster, shows that the Prime Minister’s current approval rate is just 25 percent, down from 36 percent in July of this year.
This is one of the worst approval ratings after 77 days in office, according to the Financial Times. He is only beaten by Liz Truss, who had an approval rating of just eight percent by the end of her 45 days in office.
The poll results come just days after the PM came under scrutiny for the gifts he has accepted from various donors, worth a total of more than £100,000.
Starmer has been gifted more freebies and hospitality than any other MP since 2019, having accepted clothes for himself and his wife as well as football and concert tickets.
Liz Truss had the worst PM approval ratings (Image: Getty)
Forty-two percent of the 1,082 people asked by Ipsos believe Starmer is doing a bad job, up from 14 percent in July.
Both Margaret Thatcher’s and David Cameron’s ratings took a hit in their first terms – but not as much as Starmer’s have now. Both of those respective lows came after the Budgets of 1981 and 2012.
This puts pressure on Starmer’s upcoming budget on October 30 where Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves will outline Labour’s fiscal plans.
Ipsos found that 33 percent of people feel the Labour government is doing a better job than the previous Conservative one.
Thirty-two percent said they were doing worse and 28 percent said it was about the same. Half of those asked (50 percent) said they are disappointed in what the Labour Party has done in government so far.
Twenty-two percent said they were pleased and 24 percent said they were neither pleased nor disappointed with the new Laboutr Government.
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Nigel Farage mocks Keir Starmer with hilarious glasses joke that leaves people in stitches
Nigel Farage shows off his new glasses at Reform UK’s annual conference (Image: Reform UK)
Nigel Farage showed off his new spectacles during his Reform UK party conference speech in a joke at Sir Keir Starmer’s expense that left his audience in stitches.
The Prime Minister has been under fire for accepting thousands of pounds of clothing from businessman Lord Waheed Alli so he could look the part as the nation’s leader.
The Register of Members’ Financial Interests showed that as well as the £16,200 donation of “work clothing”, Lord Alli also gave Sir Keir “multiple pairs of glasses” valued at £2,485 in total.
The gifts have been widely criticised, with columnist Jill Kirby saying on this week’s BBC Question Time: “Keir Starmer does not need to have his clothes bought for him – he should have gone to Specsavers like everyone else.”
Mr Farage followed up the criticism during his Reform conference speech on Friday, putting on a new pair of glasses and asking the audience: “Do you like them?”
Amid howls of laughter, he said the spectacles were “very expensive” but added: “Guess what, I bought them myself. How about that?”
The PM has also received £40,000 of free tickets to football matches from a variety of donors since December 2019.
After being given a corporate seat at Arsenal for watching games this season, he said that “security advice means I can’t go to the stands”.
The PM is now facing a standards investigation after failing to declare more than £5,000 of high-end items for his wife, Lady Victoria Starmer.
During his speech at Birmingham’s NEC, Mr Farage told Reform members the “sky is the limit” after the party’s General Election triumph this year.
He said the election of five Reform UK MPs – including himself in Clacton – shows disenchantment with the main political parties has “never been greater”.
The party leader even told supporters how he could become prime minister by 2029.
