More people are favourable to Nigel Farage than other political leaders – but the British public maintains a negative view of high-profile politicians and parties, a pollster has found. A monthly survey by Ipsos shows the Reform UK leader and Kemi Badenoch are the only senior politicians to improve their favourability rating since January, with positivity about Sir Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves dwindling.
Mr Farage is perceived favourably by 31% of those surveyed but unfavourably by 46%, with a five-point boost since January taking his overall net rating to minus 15. Meanwhile, the Conservative Party leader received a 0.5 point swing to boost her net favourability to minus 29 as 16% view her positively and 45% negatively.
Sir Keir’s net favourability slipped by 3.5 points to minus 34, with 21% positive about the Prime Minister and 55% negative. Ms Reeves is the only politician with a worse net score than the Prime Minister of minus 39, with a fall of three points this month leaving the Chancellor with 14% of the public viewing her positively and 53% negatively.
The remaining two UK politicians included in the survey, Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner and Liberal Democrats leader Sir Ed Davey, registered net favourability scores of minus 30 and minus 12 respectively. This leaves Sir Ed with the highest net rating.
The survey also tested Donald Trump’s favourability but was conducted between February 7-11, before his controversial comments on the conflict in Ukraine. The US president recorded a net rating of minus 32, with 25% of Britons holding a favourable view and 57% unfavourable.
Keiran Pedley, director of UK Politics at Ipsos, said: “This polling shows the relatively competitive position Nigel Farage holds versus other party leaders. “More Britons are favourable towards Farage than Starmer, Badenoch or Davey. However, these poll findings were taken before Donald Trump’s recent comments about Ukraine, so it remains to be seen whether these – and Nigel Farage’s response – impact the numbers moving forward.”.
A focus on perceptions of political parties showed the Green Party had the best favourbility score of minus 5, followed by the Lib Dems with minus 12 and Reform UK with minus 14. However, Reform UK experienced the biggest positive swing since last month of 4%.
Labour is seen as favourable by 24% and unfavourable by 52%, a net score of minus 28. The Conservatives received the lowest party rating of minus 34, with 19% favourable and 53% unfavourable. But this was a 1.5 point improvement for the Tories on last month and compares to a 3.5 negative swing for Labour.
A significant majority of Britons continue to believe the country is heading in the wrong direction with 62% holding this view, a proportion unchanged since January. Only 15% said the country was heading in the right direction. When asked to rate the Government’s performance on a scale of one to 10, the average score overall was 3.5, down from 3.7 last month.
The survey also found 47% of voters think the Government is doing a bad job at running the country, while 28% gave it a moderate score and just 18% gave it a high rating. Those surveyed aged 18-34 overall scored the Government highest at 4.9, while those aged 55 and over scored the lowest at 2.7.
