Keir Starmer: The Full Review
With contributions from Ben Murphy
Photo by Keir Starmer on Flickr.
Public First has conducted extensive new opinion research into public attitudes towards the man who will shortly become Prime Minister, Keir Starmer. Our landscape poll - of a nationally representative sample of 2,011 adults - looks at what people currently think of him, how attitudes have changed over time, why people have come to think of him as they do, and what they expect to see from Starmer in No 10.
We set out they key findings here, along with additional commentary derived from long-term qualitative research we have conducted on Starmer since his earliest days as Labour leader. (You can read the full tables here.)
Together, they give a picture of a man many people know very little about, but who the public overall have slowly become comfortable with - born of the fact his victory is viewed as an inevitability.
Voters know little concrete about his background and their perception of his character is loosely defined in their minds. For example, by nearly 2-1 voters think it’s false that he is older than 60 (he is 61); a third don’t know if he has kids (he does); and half think he has £1m in the bank (we don’t know).
Perhaps because they don’t know him well, there is far from universal confidence he will deliver his promises. Slightly more people (39%) think Starmer does not keep his promises than those who think he does (32%).
The research paints a picture of someone the public are quietly hoping does a more competent job than previous Conservative Prime Ministers. There is no great wave of hope, nor a sense radical change is coming. Expectations are low.
Elsewhere, our polling shows voters are prepared to give Starmer and Labour a chance; they do not expect the economy and public services to be dramatically improved fast. All this points to Starmer, theoretically, being given time by the public.
Will it turn out like that? People tend to cut slack to those leaders they have a sense of; they are able to contextualise mistakes, slow progress etc if they have an idea of who they are. They don’t have this with Starmer. This means when, inevitably, mistakes happen, people might start to question his character and soon his competence. And a lack of progress on political reform might end up being pinned on him personally. That is unknowable, but a clear possibility (Starmer is not Liz Truss, but things fell apart fast for Truss because she was an unknown entity who apparently revealed her “true” self early on, which made people turn against everything she stood for quickly).
When Starmer walks into No 10, he will still be very much in an “introductory” phase to the public. This is always a high-risk period, as his team will know.
1. How does Britain view Starmer as a leader?
British elections increasingly resemble Presidential campaigns, as the parties focus more and more on leaders themselves. Starmer has conducted a vast number of print and broadcast interviews in the campaign and just before. Despite that, he is still a largely unknown figure - at least for many - and his leadership credentials haven’t yet been solidified.
What sort of leader do they think he is? Slightly more people think Starmer is a good leader (40%) versus a bad leader (30%) While not completely imperative for a leader, more people find it difficult to relate to him (40%) versus easy to relate to him (26%).
Starmer compares well to other leaders; voters are almost twice as likely to say that Sunak (56%) is a bad leader than Starmer (30%). In fact, more respondents think Sunak is a very bad leader (29%) than think he is a good leader (22%).
Looking more broadly at overall favorability, we find voters have the most positive views towards Starmer, and the most negative views towards Sunak - with Ed Davey and Nigel Farage the recipients of more mixed views from the public.
59% of people say they have an unfavourable view of Sunak, compared to 23% who have a favourable view, giving a net favorability rating of -35%. In contrast, the public is split on Starmer, with around 4-in-10 having favourable and unfavourable views, giving him a net favorability rating of +1%.
Notably, people who voted for the Conservative party in 2019 and have since “switched” to Labour (not a huge group in our polling, and therefore subject to a little scepticism) are substantially more likely to hold positive views towards the Labour leader than the general public. 78% of this group say they hold favourable views towards Starmer.
When we asked people the main reason they were planning to vote Labour, most said this was because they wanted Labour in power (51%). 25% said they wanted the Conservatives out of power, and 21% said they wanted Starmer to be Prime Minister. Of this 21%, when asked why, the top answer was “he would be a strong leader”, followed by “he would be honest with the public”.
The country is divided on whether or not they trust or even like Keir Starmer. About even numbers of the public say they like/dislike, trust/distrust him, and they’re split on whether he represents people like them or doesn’t. A majority of the public (58%) do not think Starmer and them have a similar background, but a relatively large proportion say they don’t know (21%).
Slightly more people think Starmer does not keep his promises (39%) than those who think he does (32%). Importantly, a considerable proportion of the public (28%) don’t know whether or not he’s someone who keeps his promises. More people (45%) think Starmer would break a promise because he always intended to than those who think he would do it because he has no other choice (36%).
With two thirds of the public either implicitly or explicitly doubting Starmer’s commitment to his promises, this is a worrying perception for the Labour leader and presumed next Prime Minister.
Again, the population is split on whether or not they know what Starmer stands for, with half of the population saying it’s very or somewhat clear and the other half not having a clear understanding of that. Only 17% say it’s very clear what Starmer stands for.
Given these mixed feelings about Starmer, we also wanted to assess whether voters are currently supporting Labour because of their views of him, the party, or both. A strong majority of Labour voters like both Starmer and the party (68%), and yet 1 in 5 Labour voters like the Labour Party, but not Starmer.
2. Who likes Starmer most and least?
The Labour Party under Starmer has spent considerable time and energy attempting to broaden the party’s appeal beyond a narrow base. The state of national polling suggests this has paid off: Labour looks set to win the next election, appealing to the types of voters who had not supported the party in 2019. However, we still find different groups of voters with varying views towards Starmer; even among those who intend to vote Labour, not all are enthusiastic supporters.
With a net favorability of +1%, Starmer, as an individual, splits opinion. Understanding the groups most likely to express support for Starmer, and least likely, can lend insight into where his leadership may head.
Starmer finds greatest support among those who are younger (18-34), those in higher social grades, and amongst university graduates. This group of “young professionals” is more likely to think Starmer is a good leader (55%) than a bad leader (13%), and there is a sense he represents “people like them” (56%), compared to just 42% of the general public who say the same.
These respondents are notably more likely to say they trust Starmer (60%) than the general public (45%) and, unlike the general public, they are more likely to think he is someone who keeps his promises (43%) than someone who does not (28%). This group of young professionals is also more likely to say that, when Starmer does go back on promises, it is because he “had no other choice” (50%), while voters in general are more likely to say it is because he “always intended to” (45%).
However, despite the more sympathetic views of Starmer held by this group, we find this group still struggles to relate to Starmer. Less than a third (31%) say they can relate to him, and 63% say they think Starmer’s background and their own backgrounds are entirely different, with a quarter (25%) saying their backgrounds are similar. This is not too dissimilar to the one-in-five (21%) of the general public who say the same. This group (especially those with postgraduate degrees) are most likely to say they would enjoy spending time with Starmer, while nearly half (44%) of the public say they would not.
Starmer’s greatest opponents, in contrast, tend to be older (55+), from middle and lower social grades, and without a university education. This group is one of the few demographic groups we studied that were more likely to consider Starmer a bad leader (42%) than a good leader (30%), although this opposition doesn’t translate into support for Sunak, who is similarly considered a bad leader (47%).
Respondents in this group say they do not find it easy to relate to Starmer (51%), they do not trust him (62%), and they do not think he is someone who keeps his promises (51%). This lack of trust in Starmer to keep his promises extends to other areas: a large majority (70%) think Starmer would lie to the public if he thought it meant he had a better chance of winning the election, while 66% say he says things “just to appeal to people”, rather than because he believes them.
3. How have views towards him changed?
For most of the last five years, our qualitative research showed swing voters thought Starmer was weak and ineffective. We endlessly heard the same criticisms: that Starmer offered no serious alternative to the Conservatives; and, related, that he offered only criticism rather than serious alternative ideas. In fact, swing voters were often angry towards Starmer - because, over time, they wanted someone to give the Conservatives a drubbing. In fact, Public First polling in October 2023 found nearly two thirds of people (61%) did not think Starmer would be able to deliver on big policy goals, as compared to recent Conservative Prime Ministers.
This attitude began to noticeably shift in the early part of this year. When the Conservatives’ endless mistakes drove their poll ratings to historic lows, voters in our research began to accept a Labour Government was an inevitability. And with that came growing comfort with Starmer; many swing voters just came to accept him because he appeared destined for power.
This trend is evident in our new poll. Here, more people than not (33% to 27%) said that Starmer had contributed well to the debate during the pandemic, when at the time voters in focus groups were overwhelmingly scathing about him.
In addition, throughout all our research, there has been a growing sense - and we do not put it like this to diminish it - that, unlike the Tories, Starmer doesn’t make terrible mistakes. There is no great collective memory of something he messed up. Rishi Sunak has “partygate”, suggestions that his family’s tax status might not be conventionally perfect, and now D-Day. Starmer doesn’t have anything like this. He looks like a perfectly competent, non-clown, who won’t embarrass himself or the country. This is an attractive proposition.
We were able to measure this subtle acceptance of Starmer by tracking which characteristics are associated with him and how they’ve changed this year. At the beginning of 2024 and again in June, we asked the British public how they view Starmer along a series of traits, measuring, for instance, how fun versus dull, or competent versus incompetent, they think he is.
On nearly all of the characteristics we measured in January, Starmer’s ratings have slightly, but not considerably improved. While the general public still sees him as fairly dull, that perception has improved since January, and he’s now seen as less dull. Similarly, he’s still seen as fairly centrist, but less so than January.
Other changes in how the public view Starmer were more subtle. For instance, the public now see him as less cold, less wishy-washy, more competent and caring as well as more inspiring (or rather, less uninspiring). Starmer is also seen as slightly kinder and more caring as well as less unattractive and humourless now than at the beginning of 2024.
On the values in this table: Each characteristic was measured on a 7-point scale from -3 to 3, where the lowest value was the negative attribute, such as incompetent, and the highest value was positive, such as competent. The values in this table represent the average score, which could range from -3 to 3 for all participants in this poll.
Today, the public sees Starmer as relatively smart, moderate, and hard-working, but he’s also seen as boring, dull, and left-wing. To a lesser degree, he’s also seen as normal, traditional, and centrist as well as uninspiring, unattractive, and old. He’s seen as calm and careful, but what does that really tell us about him as a person, let alone the leader of the country? None of these characteristics provide much personality or animation. Starmer has made some positive movement on key leadership characteristics like competence, and that’s no small feat. Yet, the way the British public currently sees him lacks serious depth.
4. Who do people think Starmer is?
Keir Starmer is still an unknown quantity as an actual person to many British people. We showed respondents in our survey a series of statements about Starmer and asked them whether or not they thought they were true, false, or did not know either way. Many of these statements asked basic facts about the likely future Prime Minister - such as whether or not he went to university, or whether or not he was older than 60.
While, in general, we find respondents are more likely to be right than wrong about each of these statements, a sizeable minority of respondents offered the incorrect response or said they did not know whether the statements we tested were true.
The public correctly identifies Starmer as having gone to university (73%), having children (61%), and as someone who has not worked in politics his entire life (47%). However, almost half (47%) of the public incorrectly thought Starmer was younger than 60, and despite the role Starmer’s background as a lawyer and head of the CPS has played in his campaigning, almost a quarter (23%) of respondents still said they thought Starmer had “worked in politics his entire life”.
Similarly, Starmer has tried at times to make clear he is a football fan. He regularly plays five-a-side football and is an Arsenal season ticket holder; a far cry from prospective Prime Ministers who apparently forget which team they support. Despite this, 57% of respondents either incorrectly said Starmer was not a football fan, or said they didn’t know either way.
There is also relatively little knowledge among the public on Starmer’s background - even his working class upbringing. 62% of the public think Starmer has “never had to worry about money”, and 42% of the public also think Starmer did not “grow up poor”, despite the Labour leader making a case that he can relate to people who have “struggled with bills” and emphasising the working class professions of his parents as the “son of a toolmaker”. At this point, those efforts to communicate about his own upbringing and background have not landed with a majority of the public.
Without this understanding of who he is, it is perhaps unsurprising the public do not have a clear picture of which voices matter most to Starmer. Voters generally think Starmer is concerned with “all of the above” rather than one group over the other, whether that’s in terms of younger or older people, business leaders or their employees, or even working or middle class voters.
Starmer is seen to worry equally about the views of younger and older people (37%), although slightly more respondents think he cares about the views of younger people more (21%) than older people (17%). Younger respondents are more likely to think Starmer worries more about the views of older people (29%) than older people themselves (9%) - although they notably are not less likely to think Starmer cares more about the views of younger people.
Similarly, Starmer is seen by a plurality to hold the views of business leaders and workers in equally high esteem (32%), with the remaining respondents split on whether he cares more about the views of business leaders (23%) or employees (22%). We see a similar pattern emerge when looking at whether Starmer cares more about the views of voters from working class or middle class backgrounds, or people with differing levels of income.
5. How do people think he’s performed as a leader?
Keir Starmer has been Labour Leader since 2020, and when asked about a long list of his actions during this time, we found more people thought he performed well in terms of standing up to the Conservatives. Whether it’s on Partygate, campaigning against them in elections, offering a credible alternative, or holding the Conservative Government to account, over 40% of the public think he’s done a good job on those tasks.
A similar proportion of people think he’s done well to unite and detoxify the Labour Party. 44% of the public think he has done well or very well to unite the Labour Party, and 40% think he has done well to get rid of the perceived extremism within his party.
He has been judged less favourably in terms of his record on issues important to his party’s left flank. Fewer people think he’s done a good job on issues such as trans identity and Israel/Gaza. In fact, more people think he’s done badly on those issues than those who think he’s done well.
Starmer also doesn’t perform well on a couple of items that are more related to the performance of politics. When asked about “giving memorable and inspiring speeches and interviews”, about the same amount of people think he has done that poorly (36%) versus well (32%). The same is true about supporting “the right people” in terms of various protest movements, with the same proportion of people think he has done that poorly (26%) versus well (28%).
Otherwise, more members of the public think Starmer has performed well in a variety of areas than those who think he has done poorly.
6. What do people expect from him as Prime Minister?
The country is split on whether or not they can imagine Keir Starmer as Prime Minister - 47% of the population can imagine him as PM, but 45% find that difficult to imagine.
When asked about various scenarios Starmer could face as Prime Minister, people have a tepidly optimistic view of how he will face these challenges. About 40% of people think he would handle the government’s response to another pandemic or a military attack well, but fewer people (32%) think he’d handle protests well. While more people think he would do a good job, around 30% think he’d perform badly in all of these situations, whether it’s a pandemic, a military attack, or civil unrest.
Looking at the expectations the electorate has for Starmer in Number 10, two specific policy decisions stand out. In the first 3 to 6 months of a Labour government, nearly half of the population expects Starmer to scrap the Rwanda scheme and to raise taxes (that they’ve specifically committed to raising). On both of these potential early actions by a Starmer government, we find supporters of all major parties are broadly similar in their views. Prospective Labour voters are actually the least likely to think Starmer will scrap the Rwanda scheme within the first few months, although they are less likely than supporters of other parties to think Starmer will raise taxes that the party has not made any commitments about.
In the first 3 to 6 months, about 30% of the public also expect Starmer to substantially increase NHS funding, change planning laws to make it easier to build houses, and raise taxes (including those taxes they haven’t made any promises about as well as those they have promised to not increase). An additional 30% of the public expect him to do this at sometime point, but not in the first 6 months.
Many fewer people expect Starmer to either cut taxes or restart construction on HS2, the UK’s high-speed rail network. In fact, half the population never expect him to cut taxes for them personally, and 38% don’t expect he will ever restart construction on HS2.
The electorate also doesn’t expect Starmer to have an impact on immigration. 40% don’t expect him to reduce immigration rates, either in terms of legal immigration to the UK or the arrival of “small boats” from France.
Lastly, a third of the population don’t expect Starmer to ever raise tuition fees, and an additional third doesn’t know what he will do on this issue.
Overall, Starmer has a hill to climb in connecting with the British people and building up trust. While he is perceived to have some positive fundamental attributes, such as being hard-working and competent, he also needs to flesh out his persona with additional characteristics and objectives, which give voters a more solid understanding of who he is and what he stands for.