Fact check: Sir Keir Starmer’s low approval rating is not worst for a sitting PM

A post on TikTok has reached hundreds of thousands of users while claiming that Sir Keir Starmer’s approval rating has reached minus 38, “a new record” that makes him “the most hated Prime Minister in British history”. This is accompanied by a small graph showing a steep downward trend.

Evaluation

Sir Keir’s approval figures have fallen since he became Prime Minister and one polling company has recorded a figure of minus 38 favourability. However, this is not a new record for a sitting Prime Minister, as some have recorded worse scores from the same polling firm and others.

The facts

The post from TikTok has been created from a screenshot of a post on X, formerly Twitter, partly indicated by the inclusion of Sir Keir’s handle on the social media platform: @Keir_Starmer. Viewing the original X post includes a larger version of the graph image, which indicates polling research (or “fieldwork”) was carried out on October 9 and 10. The left of the image contains the text “e in Common”.

Although cut off at the start, this is identifiable as the name of More in Common, a company that has researched public opinion since 2016 and began polling in 2023. On October 13, More in Common published a report on Labour’s first 100 days in power since winning the July 4 election. The fifth page contains the same approval tracker graph as seen on X and TikTok.

Approval ratings are calculated by taking the number of people who think the Prime Minister (or other figure) is doing a good job, and then deducting from this the number who think they are doing a bad job. This produces a figure of net approval, sometimes also called net favourability.

The report notes that Sir Keir’s rating “has reached a new low of minus 38” which is “similar to [Rishi] Sunak’s lows during the election”. In fact, a chart of party leader approval ratings throughout 2024 published by More in Common shows that Mr Sunak’s lowest score was marginally worse – reaching minus 39 during the election campaign and minus 41 immediately after.

Because More in Common only started polling in 2023, it has only carried out approval polls for Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer.

Although other polling companies may use different methods of gathering and analysing data, they have been conducting research for longer and so can give a fuller view of approval ratings in the past.

During November, Ipsos recorded Sir Keir holding a net favourability rating of minus 29 while YouGov’s research put the Prime Minister on a score of minus 33.

This is neither company’s lowest ever recorded score for a sitting Prime Minister. In April, Ipsos noted Mr Sunak had a net rating of minus 59, equalling the all-time record low previously set by John Major in 1994. For YouGov, its polling reached a record during the brief tenure of Liz Truss, recording a net favourability of minus 70 a week before she stepped down.