Polling Results

Downloadable data tables from our latest voting intention poll can be found here.

Approval ratings for party leaders

After a boost to approvals last week, this week Keir Starmer’s approval drops back down to -29%, going down by 6 points. For other leaders, their approval has stayed stable compared to last week with Badenoch’s approval rising by two points; Davey’s approval dropping by one point and Farage’s approval dropping by two points.

*Changes from 7^th March 2025

Keir Starmer slightly decreases his lead over Kemi Badenoch on the best prime minister question by 25% (-3) to 14 % (+1), but 45% (n/c) say “none of these”. This includes 28% (+5) of 2024 Labour voters, 41% (+1) of 2024 Tory voters and 73% (-3) of 2024 Reform voters.

Reeves and Kendall

Rachel Reeves goes into her Spring Statement week with contuining poor ratings: 53% disapprove o the job she us doing, while only 16% approve of the job she is doing. With a approval score of net -37 she is by some margin the least popular cabinet minister tested. Over a third (35%) of 2024 Labour voters disapprove of the job she is doing.

After her announcement this week, Liz Kendlal has an approval rating of net -23 (38% disapprove, 16% approve).

Sections this week

• What made the news
• Spring Statement
• Ukraine
• Climate change and Net zero
• Benefits changes

What made the news this week?

The changes to the benefits syetm announced by the government this week have been one of the os the most heard about stories in the news, second only to the talks over Ukraine.

Kemi Bandeoch’s net zero speech was one of the least heard about stories of the week, with only 12% having heard a lot about it this week.

Spring Statement

Economic context

The Chancellor goes into the Spring Statement with the public continuing to feel the squeeze on living standards, with a plurality of UK adults describing their financial situation as ‘coping’ rather than ‘comfortable.’ 23% of UK adults say they are ‘struggling,’ including 21% of 2019 Labour voters.

However, over the first 6 months of the governments time in office the proportion of UK adults feeling comfortable financially rose from 29% in August to 33% after the Autumn Budget and 34% in December. The latest data suggests it has fallen back slightly in the run up to the Spring Statement.

The public also continues to be highly pessimistic about the UK economy, with over half (57%) believing the state of the UK economy will get worse over the next 12 months, while only 12% think it will get better and 24% think it will stay about the same.

Similarly, 41% think their own finances will get worse over the next 12 months, while only 19% think they will get better and 36% think they will stay about the same.

Handling of the economy

Labour has lost ground on all facets of the economy, most notably “running the economy” itself. As a potential response to some of Rachel Reeves’ decisions around National Insurance for businesses, the Labour lead has also particularly fallen on setting conditions for business growth. However, Labour still holds a lead on improving public services.

It should be stressed the very high numbers that trust neither party on many economic and fiscal issues.

Voters are marginally more likely to believe the last government handled the economy better than the current one: 26% think Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt vs 21% think Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves have handled the economy better. However, 38% think neither of them have handled it best. Fewer than half of 2024 Labour voters (47%) think their government is handling the economy better than the last Conservative administration.

No single party leader is trusted on the economy. However, Ed Davey is the only party leader to have his distrust in single digits. Starmer and Reeves are by far the most distrusted, with Farage, Badenoch and Stride sitting quite close to each other in the middle of the pack (-22%, -23% and -24%, respectively).

Future of the economy

The public are divided on what the government should dfo next about government spending: 22% think the chancellor should reduce government spending and investment, while 18% think she should increase government spending and investment. However, 26% think it should be maintained at current levels.

Of those who think it has to rise, voters are heavily dieivided about how: 33% think the rise in spending should be funded by borrowing, 30% by taxes, and 28% by an even mix of both.

Ukraine

There has been a little bit of an uptick in how much people are paying attention to events in Ukraine. Most notably, those following the events very closely is up from 11% to 14% and those following them somewhat closely up from 39% to 41%, indicating an overall rise. A majority (55%) say they are following the events closely.

Three in five (60%) UK adults are pessimsitic about the outcome of peace talks about the war in Ukraine, while only one in five (21%) are optimistic.

Climate

Though Kemi Badenoch has been quite bold on her stance towards ‘Net Zero’ this week, her words aren’t entirely in keeping with the overall public’s view on the issue. The first thing is that public opinion has stayed relatively steady on whether climate change is a real issue, with over half (53%) saying it is real and is as bad as described.

On top of that, a third (34%) think the government is underreacting on the issue of climate change. Around a quarter (25%) think they are overreacting and a fifth think the balance is just about right. There has been some shift here has the amount that think the government is underreacting is down 12 percentage points from last year and the amount that think they are overreacting is up five percentage points.

A shift has also emerged in the amount of people who support climate change policies that have an impact on the economy or their finances. Last year, a third (31%) said they would support climate change combat policies that would have a negative impact on the economy. This is down to 20%.

In spite of some movement on overall attitudes towards support for climate change policy, there is very little movement on how much the UK is doing compared to other countries. Last year 30% said the UK was doing more, and this is still basically the same at 31%.

Labour retains clear leads over the Conservatuves across the issue of energy and climate, although a large proportion (as with many other issues) continue to trust neither party. The very low percentages for the Conservative party are most striking, such as only 16% trusting a Conservative government most to cut their energy bills.

Over half of the public (57%) think that the target of net zero carbon emissions by 2050 is not achievable, while around a third (26%) think it is achievable. Amongst 2019 Conservatives that changes to 71% believing the target is unachievable vs 19% believing it is achievable.

The public are much more divided on the the argument that the target is damaging to the economy. On balance, the public are less likely to believe that the net zero target will have a positive impact on the economy (24%) than a negative one (29%). Around a quarter (23%) think it would have neither a positive nor negative imopact on the economy.

Benefits

Disabled adults (48%) are one of the groupst that voters believe does not have enough support from the welfare state and benefits system according to the public.

54% think that the changes to the disability benefits that were outlined by Liz Kendall this week about primarily about saving money, rather than primarily being a meaningful change to get more people into work through reforms (30%).

However, the government is recieving some support for the changes: 32% would support the changes while 30% would oppose them. Amongst 2019 Labour voters this splits out as 32% support vs 38% oppose.

On the other hand, over two in five (44%) believe that disabled people would be worse off in the long run, while 26% think there would be no change and only 9% think they would be better off.