Ahead of this weekend’s Conservative party conference, Opinium’s latest poll reveals Labour’s lead has shrunk to the narrowest it’s been since Rishi Sunak became Prime Minister.
Labour leads by 10 points (-2) vs. 29% for the Conservatives (+3). This is also the smallest Labour vote share since this time last year.
Looking at approval ratings, Sunak has seen a slight 2 point uptick in his net approval rating in the last two weeks, and is now on -28% (24% approve, 52% disapprove). Meanwhile Starmer’s net approval rating sits at -10%, down by 1 point in the last fortnight (28% approve (-2) vs 38% disapprove (-1).
Starmer also widens the gap in terms of who the public sees as the best Prime Minister, with 28% choosing the Labour leader (1), while 21% would pick Sunak (-2). More tellingly, 37% would pick neither and 13% said they didn’t know.
Adam Drummond, head of political and social research at Opinium said: “This is the biggest change we’ve seen to Labour’s lead in a little while so we’ll need more polls to see if it’s the start of a trend or just an outlier.
“If we look back to the end of August when Labour were 14 points ahead, there isn’t much change in the Tory vote or how many of their 2019 voters they are holding on to (in both cases about 65%) and the prime minister’s approval rating is still deep underwater.
The change has been a drop in the Labour vote which shows how Keir Starmer can’t take anything for granted going into an election year.”
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