Labour's post-election (non-)honeymoon

Welcome to the 125th edition of The Week in Polls (TWIP), which takes a look at the government’s post-election honeymoon, or rather the apparent absence of one.

Then it’s a summary of the latest national voting intention polls and a round-up of party leader ratings, followed by, for paid-for subscribers, 10 insights from the last week’s polling and analysis. (If you’re a free subscriber, sign up for a free trial here to see what you’re missing.)

First, this week’s gentle sigh of disappointment is directed at The Sun for claiming that “furious Brits slam Labour’s plans to ban outdoor smoking with 60% fearing it will WIPE OUT Britain’s pubs”. The 60% comes from a question about whether people think such a ban will increase the number of pub closures, with 29% thinking there will be a “much greater” risk of pub closures with the ban and 31% thinking there will be a “somewhat greater” risk. Counting those who think there will be a somewhat greater risk of pub closures as if they think pubs will be “wiped out” is interesting… and also at odds with the poll also finding that only 26% want to keep the current rules, with 41% wanting some changes and 29% wanting a full ban. Alternative, less exciting, headline: supporters of a full ban outnumbers those supporting current rules.

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The honeymoon that wasn’t (for very long)

The basic pattern for governments and leaders is that their popularity peaks on their first ascent to office and it’s all downhill from there. There can be plenty of fluctuations around that trend along the way - and hence re-election successes. But outside of exceptional events, it’s rare for popularity to return to original levels. It starts as good as it gets. Even where there are mid term blues followed by a recovery, that is usually to a lower new peak than before.

Hence, for example, the overall pattern in this long-term trends graph from Ipsos:

That long-term picture of declining popularity applies even for election hattrick winner Tony Blair.

The one exception is that other hattrick scorer, Margaret Thatcher. Her popularity started mediocre, fell away and then fluctuated back and forth through several turns of the cycle. Her very last year or so aside, it’s a fluctuating flat trend rather than fall. But she is the exception.

So how is Keir Starmer and the Labour Party’s election honeymoon after their landslide win panning out?

Voting intention

We have had very little polling of general election voting intentions since the July 4th polling day, and polling firms are still looking at what adjustments to make in light of it. However, in August, the first full calendar month after the one with the general election polling day, we’ve had four polls from three pollsters. So that is enough to give us a very rough outline tentative sense¹ of where things might stand honeymoon wise.

Here is how the data for this time compares with the same period after previous general elections:

Looking over the last dozen general elections, Labour's vote share a month in is the worst on record for a government by some margin and the change in vote share since the election is one of the poorest on record. However, Labour’s lead is decent, and of course these are early days and small numbers of polls.

So while putting the August 2024 figures in historical context gives no reason to panic, it is notable that there has not been a post-election honeymoon on this score.

What about the Prime Minister then?

The Prime Minister’s rating

If you are reading closely, you already know part of the answer to this. Look at that red dot for Starmer on the Ipsos graph above. It is in a low to middling position compared with other PMs though both Thatcher and Johnson (albeit he didn’t start off with a general election win) started off worse and went on to win.

Again, then, no great honeymoon to get excited about though also no reason to panic.

More worrying perhaps are the trends we are starting to see from other pollsters. (We only have the one data point so far from Ipsos so no trends from them yet.)

Here are BMG and YouGov:

Both of those show decidedly sharp declines though note again the trends in the Ipsos graph. That sort of speed of decline has been, at times, compatible with going on to win the next election.

Yet it should also be noted that Starmer’s ratings are declining across a broad range of indices:

The overall picture

I will therefore confess to being a little bit surprised when pulling together this data. I had expected the story to be a worrying one for Labour: no honeymoon bounce on vote share combined with middling and falling ratings for the Prime Minister.

But looking through the data, while that picture is true, it is only fair to add that the big political honeymoon of, say, a Tony Blair and the 1997 Labour Party, is the outlier.

Starmer’s and Labour’s ratings may be honeymoon-free but they are not majorly worse than those of some other successful first term administrations.

Starmer’s rating are middling, his party’s vote share hasn’t bounced up and is at low levels for a new government - but its lead is, thanks to the very low Conservative vote scores, decent. And you only have to beat the opponent in front of you. Plus of course we are barely into his premiership and this Parliament.

So far, things could go either way even though it is not a strong (polling) start for the government.

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Voting intentions and leadership ratings

Here are the latest post-general election voting intention polls from the pollsters who have got back up and running:

Next, a summary of the the leadership ratings, which vary a lot depending on the wording but the overall patterns are consistent:

For more details, and updates as each new poll comes out, see my regularly updated tables here and follow The Week in Polls on Bluesky.

For the historic figures, including Parliamentary by-election polls, see PollBase.

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Last week’s edition

How did the polls do at the general election? Round 2

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Should we be ignoring voting intention polls?, and other polling news

The following 10 findings from the most recent polls and analysis are for paying subscribers only, but you can sign up for a free trial to read them straight away.