UK
Voters Have Delivered A Brutal Verdict On Rishi Sunak's First Year As Prime Minister
New poll shows half the public believe he has been "poor" or "terrible".

By Kevin Schofield
24/10/2023


Voters are not happy with Rishi Sunak's performance as PM.
WPA POOL VIA GETTY IMAGES

Voters have delivered a brutal verdict on Rishi Sunak’s first year as prime minister.

A new poll by YouGov shows half the public believe he has been either “poor” or “terrible” at the job, while barely one in 10 rate him “great” or “good”.

And the proportion of Brits who think Sunak is competent, decisive or trustworthy has plummeted.


The findings are a damning indictment of the PM’s performance since he entered No.10 on October 25 last year.

At the time, Sunak promised to bring “integrity and accountability” to the job after the tumultuous premierships of Liz Truss and Boris Johnson.

But the YouGov poll suggests he has failed to turn around the government’s fortunes.

It showed that just 1% of people believe Sunak has been a “great” PM, with 10% saying he was been “good”.

One third - 33% - of voters think he has been “average”, 25% say he has been “poor” and the same number brand think he has been “terrible” at the job.

The PM’s personal reputation has also plummeted in a range of areas, the poll found.

Just 34% now say he is competent (down 16 points on a year ago), 30% say he is decisive (down 23 points), 20% think he is strong (down 19 points) and only 20% say he is trustworthy (down 10 points).

Matthew Smith, YouGov’s head of data journalism, said: “Rishi Sunak’s pitch to Conservative members at last year’s leadership contest was that he was the candidate of competence.

That prized reputation for competence is now gone, with the public now seeing him as incompetent by 46% to 34%. This represents a 40 point net drop, from +28 to -12.”