May has an unprecedented leadership score of 61
Theresa May is more popular than either Margaret Thatcher or Tony Blair were during their best years, according to a new Ipsos MORI poll.
Since the 1970s, the pollster has been asking which of the party leaders would make ‘the most capable prime minister’. In their most recent survey, 61 per cent opted for May, compared to just 23 per cent for Jeremy Corbyn.
Thatcher’s high water mark was 48 per cent in 1983, while Blair hit 52 per cent in 2001.
The overall voter intention figures are no less disturbing, with the Conservatives hoovering up support both from UKIP and from Labour, bringing them up six points to 48 per cent.
May’s personal approval will have a huge impact on June’s election, but many on the Left remain mystified by her popularity. Across the progressive space, party strategists must devote significant attention to understanding the effectiveness of Brand May, the better to dismantle it ahead of 8 June.
See: For the first time since the 1850s, the Tories may take the majority of seats in Wales
15 Responses to “Theresa May is the most popular leader on record – the Left needs to figure out why”
Boffy
Michael,
Its not talking to dictators or unsavoury characters that is the point, but that we are told in soundbite after soundbite that it is being a “strong leader” that May is fashioning herself as being, and that this is “strongpoint”, the thing that voters want in a leader.
Neither Corbyn nor Blair made any pretence that their meetings with the IRA were about them sharing the IRA’s politics or modelling themselves on them. Both sought to find an end to the conflict. And I see nothing wrong with Corbyn’s statement that he celebrated those fighting for freedom in Ireland, against a British colonial occupation. If there was something wrong with such a struggle people would not now be eulogising over Mandela, we would not see George Washington in the same light, and the French Resistance would be considered nothing more than terrorists.
The point is that May’s popularity seems to be the projection of the qualities of a strong leader, of an Il Duce, and we are continually told by Linton Crosby, by the Tory frontbench, by the Tory media, the obsequious guests on TV Press Preview programmes, and in every vox pop of the “public” that it is this kind of strong leader that they want, like the woman in the Stoke by-election who told the TV that she thought it would be okay for Britain to be ruled by Trump.
Well with Brexit and the Tories she will get her way as Bojo has shown in his recent comment that if Trump wants to start another way in the middle east, Britain will be there to act as his loyal footsoldiers without any vote in Parliament that might get in the way of the Tories sucking up to his needs. Britain at least got to elect MEP’s, and appoint Commissioners etc. as a member of the EU, but now they will just have to toe the line of whatever the US president and Congress tells them.
Trump will should “Jump”, and Bojo and May will reply in unison, “Yes, sir. How high sir.”
Michael WALKER
Boffy
“t. And I see nothing wrong with Corbyn’s statement that he celebrated those fighting for freedom in Ireland, against a British colonial occupation. I”
So you think supporting people who kill British citizens is a good thing? Obviously yes.
No wonder Corbyn is despised and Labour are losing with sentiments like yours..
Boffy
Michael,
Neither I nor Corbyn have said we think people killing British citizens is a good thing. I don’t think its good if Palestinians kill Israeli civilians either, ot that members of the ANC sometimes killed civilians in South Africa.
But, I do think that Irish people have a right to oppose a British occupation of their country, just as much as Falkland Islanders had a right to fight against an Argentinian occupation of their island. The fact that I disagree with the tactic used by those involved in fighting for their freedom does not change the principle of defending people’s right to fight for self-determination, and when you are fighting against a much more powerful occupying force, then as the French Resistance found, playing by the same rules is likely to result in your defeat.
Michael WALKER
Boffy
“Neither I nor Corbyn have said we think people killing British citizens is a good thing.”
Corbyn steadfastly has refused to condemn the killing of UK citizens by the IRA.
So by implication, he approves of the killings.
“LABOUR leader Jeremy Corbyn is being criticised over his links with the IRA after campaigning in Warrington, where a terrorist bomb attack killed two young boys in 1993.”
http://www.warrington-worldwide.co.uk/2017/04/24/jeremy-corbyn-under-fire-for-failing-to-condemn-ira/
Note the date: even today he approves of it..
Boffy
I’ve heard Corbyn condemn the killing of civilians. Refusing to say that having talks with the IRA was a bad idea, is not at all the same thing. If it were then the talks that Thatcher’s government had with the IRA would also have to be similarly condemned. Even Lizzy Windsor could come around to shaking the hand of McGuinness, and sending condolences to his widow. It seems that you are to attached to the past for your own good. If it was up to you it appears we would still have troops on the streets of Ireland, probably from your sentiments the whole of Ireland not just the North.
As for killing civilians and committing cold blooded murders, an apologist for the British state like yourself is hardly in a position to criticise, given the role of Britain over the centuries, let alone the mass murder of civilians in Dresden by British bombing etc.
Anyway, the good news is that you may not have to worry about ireland much longer, because the EU are making the arrangements for it to be reunited with the South. With Northern Ireland voting by a significant majority to Remain in the EU, and with Protestant families in the North not still living in the sectarian past that you still inhabit, and instead looking to protect the living standards of their families for the future, a United Ireland now looks a certainty in the not too distant future. Then its just a matter of signing up Scotland and Wales to such a new British state, and then allowing the metropolitan regions to join as and when, and medievalists like yourself can be left alone in your own little world to fester.