How popular was Keir Starmer?

Keir Starmer became Leader of the Labour Party in April 2020. He made his acceptance speech to an empty room, to a country in lockdown. It was not the start he or anyone had envisaged.

From the outset his favourables were tentatively in the green. Few had reason to dislike him. He was inoffensive. But as lockdown lifted, and then came back with a vengeance, his public pronouncements rowing behind the government, then against it, misread the public mood more often than not.

By 2021 Starmer’s ratings had entered the net negative. The end of lockdown, the vaccine rollout, and a rare glimpse of gold for then Prime Minister Boris Johnson with the striking of a Brexit deal meant a year of glory in the offing for the Conservatives. And for the most part, it bore true.

Starmer suffered at the hands of the electors in the 2021 locals, losing Brexit-backing Hartlepool in a by-election and then almost losing Batley and Spen in the months after. The history books now tell us this was the moment Starmer almost resigned.

But he didn’t. He stayed the course and in 2022 carved out a third of the country that was, for the most part, keen on him. He wasn’t vastly unpopular. But for a leader of the opposition, he was hardly wowing the crowds. Against an incumbent with a bigger base, Starmer looked beatable — and that's what Boris Johnson thought.

But the Westminster herd moved, and scandal on scandal saw the blonde bombshell resign his premiership in the summer of 2022. He gave way to Liz Truss, who bombed further. And it was from there that Starmer was taken seriously. His favourables shot from the low-30s to the high-30s — note still poor for most Leaders of the Opposition ahead in the polls but by far the best for a Labour leader since Tony Blair.

Rishi Sunak was unable to dislodge the public of their resolution that the Conservatives had to go. And so Starmer’s favourables, imperfect and at times level-pegging with his unfavourables, cruised his party to victory.

Starmer started inoffensive, and he ended his election campaign of 2024 also inoffensive. Conservative voters resolute for Boris, for Brexit, and for a great many right-on things, found in Starmer someone not to be worried about — someone not to turn out against. The disaffection for the Conservatives was too great as to grant them another go.

It is in that atmosphere that Labour secured one of its greatest election victories.

Starmer became Prime Minister on 5th July 2024. He began his premiership with just four-in-ten Britons holding a favourable view towards him, and a touch under that holding an unfavourable view.

On the net numbers he was in the green. But compared to David Cameron, the last Prime Minister to come in on an election win, these numbers pale poorly.

For much of his leadership of the Labour Party, between 30 and 40 per cent of us did not know what to think of Keir Starmer. Only after the Liz Truss mini-budget did opinion warm to the Leader of the Opposition. But relative to other LOTOs, his were still a muted series of ratings.

Compared to past Prime Ministers, Starmer’s start is a poor one.

As of day 300, Starmer ranked the worst performing Prime Minister of the last nine (once you exclude, of course, Liz Truss).

As of day 500, Starmer continued to excel as Britain’s worst performing premier (in the eyes of the public) in recent political history.

Approval ratings are important to measure the public goodwill. But in isolation they can be deceiving. Boris Johnson and David Cameron both went to the country in the net negative. But it didn’t matter, for their Labour counterparts were much more unpopular in comparison.

Margaret Thatcher, too, didn’t perform admirably with the public when competing for high office in the run-up to the 1979 election. In fact, she polled just below incumbent James Callaghan.

But the strength of feeling for change was so great that the Tory win was almost inevitable.

By the end of 2025 Starmer had the disapproval of more than six-in-ten of the voting public, and only the affections of one-in-five, if that. That these ratings refused to budge for over half a year right up to his resignation speech in June 2026 is an astonishing feat. Public opinion tends to ebb and flow. It’s why we have poll trackers to cut through the noise and smooth the lines. That it stayed stock still for Starmer in an era of fast-moving multi-polar politics offers only one conclusion. After not even two years in high office, the public had already made their mind up about Keir Starmer.