Thread by @keiranpedley

Some @IpsosMORI data on Starmer one year in / thread

1. Fair to say things have turned against Starmer somewhat in the past 6 months.

- October: Labour 5 points ahead. Starmer net satisfaction rating +15

- March: Conservatives 7 points ahead. Starmer -9

So what happened?

2. First and foremost you have to acknowledge that the public mood is in a very different place 6 months later.

- 88% think govt doing a good job on the vaccine rollout . That is very good!

- Economic optimism surging. 1st net positive score since 2015. Budget landed well.

3. So the context is important but I am not sure you can say that's all that is happening.

For example, our Political Monitor shows declining satisfaction with Starmer over time. Including with Lab voters. This was already happening last year - before vaccines.

4. That takes us onto some exclusive polling we've done for @timesredbox this week looking at favourability towards Starmer / Labour. This measure is different to our typical leader sat ratings as there is a mid point.

- 26% favourable
- 31% neutral
- 37% unfavourable
- 6% DK

5. This is part of a wider trend. When you ask whether Starmer will change Labour for the better...

- 30% say he will (down 13 points from last April)
- 13% say he will make them worse
- 57% think he will make no difference or don't know

6. Meanwhile, on the Labour Party itself 26% are favourable towards Labour now and 26% were favourable in March 2020 (Corbyn's last rating).

Whilst it should be acknowledged that the % unfavourable has fallen in that time (52% > 43%) the % favourable hasn't moved.

7. Digging under the bonnet a bit two things strike me:

1) 1 in 5 Lab voters from 2019 tell us they are unfavourable towards Starmer and think he will change Lab for the worse.

2) A lot of people (37%) simply don't have an opinion on him - either neutral or DK

8. So what to make of it all? Well, of course, a GE is years away and it should be said the political environment the govt occupy *now* is very favourable and you'd imagine won't last. So some people will say current numbers should be basically ignored...I think that is wrong btw

9. But the presence of some disgruntled Labour voters on the left (see Red Box piece) & a boat load of ambivalence should unsettle Labour a bit.

Eventually Starmer will need to fire up his base and set out some kind of vision - define himself before opponents do it for him.

10. He does, of course, have time. His net sat rating of -9 one year in is very similar to Cameron's (-5) and he went on to win as the mood turned against Brown's govt.

But time isn't limitless. Honeymoon certainly over.

ENDS