By ET Editor: Contrary to the bluster and diversionary strategies the government of Boris Johnson use to cover their actions – things are not actually going well. 57 per cent of the electorate disapprove of the government – whereas 23 per cent approve. 58 per cent believe that the economy is the most important issue facing the country – and that is not surprising.

The IMF has just forecast that British economic growth will slow sharply to the weakest of any major economy next year. According to new data from HMRC – the number of UK businesses exporting goods to the EU fell a whopping 33 per cent to 18,357 in 2021, from 27,321 in 2020. The Office for National Statistics has reported that UK economic growth has quite dramatically slowed. It’s the same with manufacturing growth. Further evidence of public concern comes from data that shows that household savings have suddenly crashed, and credit card debt has accelerated to a new record high.

The result is that Britons now more generally believe that the government is handling almost every important issue badly, a new YouGov poll has found.

From the chart below it is evident that not one single area of government responsibility of the top 15 public concerns is in positive territory. With Inflation, immigration, taxation, housing, the NHS and the economy leading the pack in terms of disapproval, there is no good news when the only areas the government seems to be doing slightly better at are not direct concerns of households at the moment.

 

 

Only last week, a ComRes poll found that 61 per cent of the public thought that the PM should resign and leave office after the Partygate fines were issued by the Met police. 59 per cent also said Chancellor Rishi Sunak should walk too.

YouGov conducted the same poll and the result – was 57/57 per cent that they should both go. A further 75 per cent think Boris Johnson lied about it all and only 12 per cent think he did not knowingly lie.

A whopping 74 per cent of the public now feel Boris Johnson is untrustworthy and three quarters think he is a liar – and trust in government has reached an all-time low. Only one third (34 per cent) would now consider voting for Boris Johnson – a continual decline since March 2020.

When it comes to Brexit – only 7 per cent of the public believe it has benefitted the UK, with 37 per cent saying it has done nothing but damage the UK and another 28 per cent saying it has done nothing positive for the UK. These are all on Boris Johnson’s shoulders.

Labour are now 5 points ahead in voting intentions. And whilst 34 per cent of the electorate dislike Keir Starmer – 52 per cent dislike Boris Johnson.

There are now predictions that a period of public discontent is soon to arrive, most likely as we enter the winter once again in October – just as the energy price gap by Ofgem is expected to rise and inflation will be eating away at household purses. It also doesn’t help that the United Kingdom is heading towards stagflation.

Whilst many political commentators and analysts continue to think that this government will weather the storm, public opinion has now fully turned against Boris Johnson in every area of concern – and this is a first.

Here is Mike Smithson of Political Betting – “Clearly Boris Johnson is going through a very tricky period and the big question remains whether he can survive certainly until the end of the year. Until late last week I’ve taken the view that he would make it but this lunchtime I placed a bet at about 2/1 on Betfair that he would be out this year.”

Smithson is placing a bet based on odds, not predictions – but interestingly, those odds are based on Boris Johnson’s survival this year, not next year – or to the next general election.

The local elections will show a low voter turnout this year and the Tories will undoubtedly lose some councillors. But soon, we’ll have more Met police fines, the Sue Grey report and probably another scandal of some sort, now almost a weekly event.

James Johnson in the Tweet screenshot below used to run the polling numbers at 10 Downing Street. A nationally representative sample of the general public thinks Boris Johnson is unfit for office given that the descriptive terms used for Johnson are ‘liar’, ‘untrustworthy’, ‘incompetent’, ‘buffoon’ and ‘idiot’ to name a few.