Where Did Keir Go Wrong?

Keiran Pedley  writing for Ipsos asks as Keir Starmer prepares to depart Downing Street, ‘how did it come to this?’ 

How did someone who won such a landslide majority in July 2024 end up being replaced two years later? How did it all go wrong so quickly? 

Pedley points out that Starmer did not enter office popular in the first place:

"This might seem counterintuitive given the scale of Labour’s victory in 2024, but when we look at Starmer’s leader satisfaction ratings with Ipsos before the 2024 election, we can see his net satisfaction rating then ( -19) was worse than other opposition leaders that had won General Elections and very similar to Ed Miliband’s -19 when he lost in 2015."

As the above chart shows Starmer's government went into straight decline afterwards. The Mandelson scandal just sealed off the possibility of a recovery.

Only three opposition leaders who became Prime Minister in the last half century started their terms of office with positive personal ratings; Thatcher, Blair and Cameron. Arguably their positive starts contributed to their relative success and longevity in office.

Andy Burnham starts out with a negative approval rating of -11.