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In January 2026, when asked who would be the better Prime Minister between the current one, Keir Starmer, and the Leader of the Opposition, Kemi Badenoch, opinion was split, with 28 percent of people preferring Starmer and 28 percent Badenoch. Despite being behind the Reform Party in election polls, Starmer is still seen as the better choice for PM, with 36 percent preferring him to Reform Leader, Nigel Farage, who was selected by 29 percent of respondents.

Sunak vs. Starmer

Shortly after succeeding Truss as Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak was seen by 30 percent of people as the best person for the job, just four percentage points behind Keir Starmer. Twenty months later, however, on the eve of the 2024 general election, just 19 percent of people thought Sunak was the best choice, compared with 35 percent for Starmer.  Despite pledging to address the main issues facing the country at the start of 2023, Sunak struggled to convince voters. Although inflation peaked in 2022 and declined throughout 2023, the cost of living crisis afflicting people in the UK lingered, while progress on improving the NHS proved elusive. The Conservatives suffered a clear defeat in the 2024 election, winning just 121 seats, compared with 365 in 2019.

Scandals and mini budgets

After becoming Prime Minister in late 2019, a series of controversies harmed the popularity of Boris Johnson among voters and eventually forced his resignation. The Partygate scandal, which revealed that senior government officials held parties at Downing Street during the COVID-19 lockdown, was the most severe. When the issue came to a head in the summer of 2022, Johnson survived the initial political backlash, including an attempted vote of no-confidence in his leadership, but he was forced to resign his position after a wave of senior ministers resigned from his government between July 5 and 7, 2022. Although Liz Truss won the leadership contest that followed the resignation of Johnson, her time in office was by far the shortest of any prime minister. After an unorthodox mini-budget resulted in an acute economic crisis, she resigned her position after less than 50 days in the job