As Starmer’s approval rating plummets, Farage is on the rise: Can Labour turn things around?
“We are in unchartered territory.”
Sir John Curtice understands polling like few others, but you do not have to be an expert to see the Labour government has had a rough start.
It’s been less than five months since Sir Keir Starmer’s landslide election victory and already two-thirds of Britons say they feel worse off.
That’s according to a new poll from Ipsos, the latest survey to assess public opinion of the new occupants of Downing Street.
And while the prime minister’s favourability rating plummets, Nigel Farage’s is on the rise.
Ipsos favorability towards politicians
“We have never previously had a government starting with quite as low a share of the vote Labour got in July,” Sir John tells Sky News, referring to the party’s 174-seat majority despite a modest vote share of just 33.7%
“It’s also difficult to find a government that has slipped as much in the polls as this government has so quickly.”
Labour are being made to pay for unpopular decisions such as the means testing of the winter fuel payment and PR nightmares like the freebies row.
While “the Conservative party is not that popular”, we are in a new world of multi-party politics where “people have plenty of options, Reform UK is gaining traction”, Sir John adds.
It’s an “unprecedented situation”, and against it Labour face two fundamental difficulties – a leader who “hasn’t got a particularly strong political antenna” and a party “that doesn’t do narrative”.
“Voters are looking for them to fix the country,” Sir John says.
“Inevitably, they can’t in a matter of three to four months but they don’t have a positive narrative to explain why they have done what they have done.
“Their only argument is the Tories hid things and it’s worse than we thought. That’s a debatable proposition.”
But how detrimental is bad polling early on, and is it possible to shift the dial once a perception sets in?
‘They have certainly got time’
According to Keiran Pedley, director of UK Politics at Ipsos, “there’s not a hard and fast rule”.
Two in five people feel worse off since Labour got elected.
He says: “If you look at past prime ministers, there are some that start at a certain level, and they fall gradually over time, and they lose an election or get replaced, like Rishi Sunak or Theresa May.
“But there are other examples where it’s not as linear – Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair, David Cameron, their popularity ebbed and flowed.”
To some degree, this was all circumstantial. Thatcher was bolstered by the Falklands War, for example, while the perceived weaknesses of then Labour leader Ed Miliband helped Cameron bounce back from his austerity-hit approval ratings to win the 2015 election.
“These things are all relative to how competently the opposition are seen as well,” Mr Pedley says.
“Given Labour are not six months into what might be a five-year term they have certainly got time.”
‘Public is giving Labour a chance’
Indeed, some Labour insiders are not fazed by the polls, hoping the public will stick with them over time as they start to feel the benefits of the government’s longer-term pledges like growing the economy and investing in the NHS.
According to Luke Tryl, director of thinktank More in Common, there is evidence the public is giving them some grace on this front.
The polling might be grim, but in focus groups, he says people seem willing to “give them the benefit of the doubt”.
He said: “They will say ‘I am not that happy with what they have done so far, but I am willing to give them a chance’.”
That does not mean being complacent, however.
Mr Tryl says the next election is likely to come down to three metrics: Do people think the weekly shop is more affordable, can people get a GP appointment more easily, have the small boats stopped or at least reduced?
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Mr Tryl says Labour will want to start making some progress on those issues long before voters next go to the polls – perhaps even within a year – or else the mood against the party could “crystalise”.
“They could find themselves in a situation like Joe Biden, who actually had lots of popular policy but [by the election campaign], the mood had crystallised against him, it was too late.”
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How the polls ‘got the US election wrong’
‘Learn lessons from America’
James Matthewson, a Labour spokesman during the Jeremy Corbyn era, also urged Starmer to learn lessons from across the Atlantic.
He believes the prime minister “absolutely can turn things around”, but that requires “defining what a centre-left government should look like”.
“They cannot look like the same old establishment. They need to look sensible and moderate but at the same time show they are different.”
That’s not an easy task he admits, and one Starmer’s predecessor, Mr Corbyn, failed to pull off with his huge fiscal spending programme that was rejected at the 2019 election.
Labour need to learn from the Democrats’ losses, say pollsters
With even less room for manoeuvre on public spending than then, Mr Matthewson says Labour need to define their values with policies that are bold and socially progressive – but don’t cost the earth.
“The private school tax policy is a clear example of this kind of thing,” he says. “Most people don’t send their kids to private schools, and most people like that. It’s a thing of values.”
Drug reform and democratic reform are other areas Labour could tap into to distinguish themselves from the Tories, he adds – warning Mr Farage will be “emboldened” by Donald Trump’s victory, and that poses a huge risk at the next UK election.
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100 days of Starmer
Their “core narrative”, he says, is “there is a left-wing establishment ruling the world”.
“It’s nonsense, but it’s the narrative that works. And the more you look like that, the more you’re trying to be responsible and fill the shoes of the previous government, the more you fall into that trap.”
Can Labour bounce back?
Of course, while Mr Biden had four years, Mr Starmer has five – so for now at least, time is indeed on his side.
As Sir John reminds us, there’s only really one event a leader cannot recover from – which Liz Truss knows all too well.
“If you preside over a market crisis, it’s game over – you are dead,” he says.
“Other than that, it’s delivery, delivery, delivery.”
The last blast furnaces left operating in Britain could see their fate sealed within days, after their Chinese owners took the decision to cut off the crucial supply of ingredients keeping them running.
Jingye, the owner of British Steel in Scunthorpe, has, according to union representatives, cancelled future orders for the iron ore, coal and other raw materials needed to keep the furnaces running.
The upshot is that they may have to close next month – even sooner than the earliest date suggested for its closure.
Read more: Thousands of jobs at risk as British Steel consults unions over closure
The fate of the blast furnaces – the last two domestic sources of virgin steel, made from iron ore rather than recycled – is likely to be determined in a matter of days, with the Department for Business and Trade now actively pondering nationalisation.
The upshot is that even as Britain contends with a trade war across the Atlantic, it is now working against the clock to secure the future of steelmaking at Scunthorpe.
The talks between the government and Jingye broke down last week after the Chinese company, which bought British Steel out of receivership in 2020, rejected a £500m offer of public money to replace the existing furnaces with electric arc furnaces.
The sum is the same one it offered to Tata Steel, which has shut down the other remaining UK blast furnaces in Port Talbot and is planning to build electric furnaces – which have far lower carbon emissions.
These steel workers could soon be out of work
However, the owners argue that the amount is too little to justify extra investment at Scunthorpe, and said last week they were now consulting on the date of shutting both the blast furnaces and the attached steelworks.
Since British Steel is the main provider of steel rails to Network Rail – as well as other construction steels available from only a few sites in the world – the closure would leave the UK more reliant on imports for critical infrastructure sites.
However, since the site belongs to its Chinese owners, a decision to nationalise the site would involve radical steps government officials are wary of taking.
They also fear leaving taxpayers exposed to a potentially loss-making business for the long run.
The dilemma has been heightened by the sharp turn in geopolitical sentiment following Donald Trump’s return to the White House.
The incipient trade war and threatened cut in American support to Europe have sparked fresh calls for countries to act urgently to secure their own supplies of critical materials, especially those used for defence and infrastructure.
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Gareth Stace, head of UK Steel, the industry lobby group, said: “Talks seem to have broken down between government and British Steel.
“My advice to government is: please, Jonathan Reynolds, Business Secretary, get back round that negotiating table, thrash out a deal, and if a deal can’t be found in the next few days, then I fear for the very future of the sector, but also here for Scunthorpe steelworks.”
British Steel declined to comment.
UK
Prince Andrew’s Pitch@Palace branded ‘crude attempt to enrich himself’ as Chinese spy documents set to be released
Prince Andrew’s efforts to make money from his Pitch@Palace project have been branded as a “crude attempt to enrich himself” at the expense of “unsuspecting tech founders”, as new documents may shed more light on what he and his team have been attempting to sell.
Today is the deadline for documents to be released relating to Prince Andrew‘s former senior adviser Dominic Hampshire and his interactions with the alleged Chinese spy Yang Tengbo.
In February, an immigration tribunal heard how the intelligence services had contacted Mr Hampshire about Mr Yang back in 2022. Mr Yang helped set up Pitch@Palace China, a branch of the duke’s scheme to help young entrepreneurs.
The alleged Chinese spy, Yang Tengbo, has links with Prince Andrew
Yang Tengbo. Pic: Pitch@Palace
Judges banned Mr Yang from the UK, saying his association with a senior royal had made Prince Andrew “vulnerable” and posed a threat to national security. Mr Yang challenged that decision at the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC).
Since that hearing, media organisations have applied for certain documents relating to the case and Mr Hampshire’s support for Mr Yang to be made public. SIAC agreed to release some information of public interest. It is hoped they may include more details on deals that he was trying to do on behalf of Prince Andrew.
So what do we know about potential deals for Pitch@Palace so far?
In February, Sky News confirmed that palace officials had a meeting last summer with tech funding company StartupBootcamp to discuss a potential tie-up between them and Prince Andrew relating to his Pitch@Palace project.
The palace wasn’t involved in the fine details of a deal but wanted guarantees to make sure it wouldn’t impact the Royal Family in the future. Sky News understands from one source that the price being discussed for Pitch was around £750,000 – there are, however, reports that a deal may have stalled.
Photos we found on the Chinese Chamber of Commerce website show an event held in Asia between StartupBootcamp and Innovate Global, believed to be an offshoot of Pitch.
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Who is alleged Chinese spy, Yang Tengbo?
Documents, released in relation to the investigations into Mr Tengbo, have also shown how much the duke has always seen Pitch as a way of potentially making money. One document from 21 August 2021 clearly states “the duke needed money at the time, and saw the relationships with China through Pitch as one possible source of funding”.
But Prince Andrew’s apparent intention to use Pitch to make money has led to concerns about whether he is unfairly using the contacts and information he gained when he was a working royal.
Norman Baker, former MP and author of books on royal finances, believes it is “a crude attempt to enrich himself” and goes against what the tech entrepreneurs thought they were signing up for.
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He told Sky News: “The data given by these business people was given on the basis it was an official operation and not something for Prince Andrew, and so in my view, Prince Andrew had no right legally or morally to take the data which has been collected, a huge amount of data, and sell it…
“And quite clearly if you’re going to sell it off to StartupBootcamp, that is not what people had in mind. The entrepreneurs who joined Pitch@Palace did not do so to enrich Prince Andrew,” he said.
Rich Wilson was one tech entrepreneur who was approached at the start of Pitch@Palace to sign up, but he stepped away when he spotted a clause in the contract saying they’d be entitled to 2% equity in any funding he secured.
He feels Prince Andrew is continuing to use those he made a show of supporting.
He said: “It makes me feel sick. I think it’s terrible – that he is continuing to exploit unsuspecting tech founders in this way. A lot of them, I’m quite grey and old in the tooth now, I saw it coming, but clearly most didn’t. And a lot of them were quite young.
“It’ll be their first venture and you’re learning on the trot, so to speak. So to take advantage of people in such a major way – that’s an awful, sickening thing to do.”
We approached StartupBootcamp who said they had no comment to make, and the Duke of York’s office did not respond.
With reports that a deal may have stalled, it could be a big setback for the duke – especially with questions still about how he’ll continue to pay for his home on the Windsor estate now that the King no longer gives him financial support.
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