Sir Keir Starmer has been warned there might be “no way back” for him to reconnect with the British public after damning polling put his net favourability down at -33 per cent on his 300th day in Downing Street.
The Prime Minister, who was swept to power with a shallow landslide, is performing significantly lower than both Gordon Brown and Margaret Thatcher.
Brown and Thatcher entered No10 after serious economic shocks, with the Iron Lady needing to wait until 1982 to turn her electoral fortunes around.
Meanwhile, Brown managed to recover from a low-point in the 2009 Local Elections but failed to deny David Cameron victory the following year.
However, with Starmer reeling from his loss to Reform in Runcorn & Helsby’s knife-edge by-election on May 1, Reform UK leader Nigel Farage warned the Prime Minister’s days might be numbered.
Responding to Britain Elects’s analysis yesterday, the Clacton MP said: “It doesn’t matter how many U-turns Starmer does. He is unpopular because he is insincere. There is no way back for him.”
The Prime Minister has already U-turned on Winter Fuel Payments and this weekend buckled to demands for a national rape gangs inquiry.
Compared to his last ten predecessors in No10, Starmer ranked ninth – only avoiding finishing bottom due to Liz Truss failing to make it to the 300 day milestone.
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Brown, who was battling with the 2008 financial crash shortly after replacing Tony Blair, edged three-points ahead of Starmer on -30 per cent.
Despite Truss’s mini-budget leaving its mark on the Tory Party, Rishi Sunak also secured a better net score than his eventual successor on -22 per cent.
The public’s all-but loveless endorsement of David Cameron’s austerity agenda in 2010 also appeared to score higher with the now-Tory Lord ending up on minus six per cent, level with Thatcher.
However, Theresa May, Boris Johnson, John Major and Tony Blair all secured positive net scores – standing at 18 per cent, 19 per cent, 21 per cent and 46 per cent.
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The data appears to suggest that Thatcher and Cameron remain outliers among the Prime Ministers who were handed negative net ratings on their 300th day in Downing Street.
Thatcher secured a landslide victory in the 1983 General Election and went on to win a third successive election with a majority in 1987.
Meanwhile, Cameron narrowly boosted his Commons contingent to 331 in 2015, handing the Tory Party its first majority in 23 years.
However, those with favourable ratings also had mixed ends to their time in power.
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May, who lost Cameron’s majority after calling a snap election in 2017, was eventually ousted after the Conservatives slumped to fifth place in the 2019 EU Parliament Election.
Johnson’s involvement in the ‘partygate’ scandal turned the tide on the once-Teflon Tory, resulting in the 60-year-old quitting politics altogether in the summer of 2023.
Despite claiming a shock victory in 1992, Major later led the Tory Party to its worst electoral defeat since 1906, later handing over the terrible accolade to Sunak in 2024.
However, Blair pulled off Thatcher-style victories, securing three majority wins between 1997 and 2005.
Despite the polls pointing to a difficult few years for Starmer, polling guru James Johnson recently told GB News that the Prime Minister could win back left-leaning voters amid the rise of Reform UK.
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Johnson said: “If Starmer wants to paint the contest as Starmer versus Farage then actually voters on the left – Greens and Lib Dems – are more likely to vote Labour tactically because they’re more scared of Farage than they are of Kemi Badenoch.
“When you ask who is the best PM between Starmer and Badenoch, Starmer is on a lower score than when it’s Starmer versus Farage.”
He added: “Making it a binary support between the two actually shores up some of their support on the left. That matters everywhere.
“Regardless of whether it’s Labour campaigning in Grimsby or Labour campaigning in Battersea, it helps Labour against the Tories, as well as against Farage.
“That is a dynamic that won’t hurt Labour. It could squeeze the Tories out. The longer the right is split between the two, the better it is for Starmer.”