New polling published today reveals public trust in the Tories is waning as calls for a general election mount.
As if matters couldn’t get any worse for a beleaguered Rishi Sunak reeling from former culture secretary Nadine Dorries’ blistering resignation letter, a poll for The Times reveals Labour is more trustworthy in key areas including immigration and crime.
It follows Monday’s BMG survey for the i newspaper which found a number of high-profile Tories, including five cabinet ministers, could lose their seats at the next general election.
Giving the party a 15-point lead over the Tories, the poll put Labour on 44%, the Conservatives on 29% and the Lib Dems on 10%.
Tuesday’s YouGov poll, which asked voters which party they thought could better handle various issues impacting the country, revealed Labour is ahead when it comes to handling areas such as immigration, crime and tax – issues the Conservatives have usually dominated.
In a sign of declining public trust in the ruling party, 22% of voters said Labour would better handle immigration and asylum compared to just 16% for the Conservatives and 4% for the Liberal Democrats.
Just yesterday the public were reminded of the government’s record on asylum when lawyers representing the Fire Brigades Union wrote to Suella Braverman to raise concerns over fire safety of the Bibby Stockholm.
With a capacity of more than 500, the government plan to use the Bibby Stockholm barge, together with former military bases, to accommodate asylum seekers and reduce spending on hotel bills.
The first people were moved onto the barge at the start of this month, but were removed later after Legionella bacteria was detected.
According to The Times, the poll was designed to test voters’ reactions on ten policy areas to establish which party could be trusted with key election issues.
In all, Labour was more trusted across nine of the ten questions, with the Tories ahead only on defence and security.
This isn’t the first time the Tories have fallen behind on matters of trust, with an Opinium poll for the Observer revealing that the overwhelming majority of voters were not confident the government could tackle and reduce crime.
Commissioned in the lead up to the local elections in May, the poll found just 20% of voters had confidence in the ruling party to reduce crime, with 30% trusting a government led by Keir Starmer over Rishi Sunak.
Meanwhile, polling conducted by the Ipsos Political Monitor revealed a staggering 79% of voters were dissatisfied with how the Tories were running the country following Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng’s calamitous mini-budget and eventual resignations.
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