The Conservatives have seen a dip in their lead since the local elections and Boris Johnson’s personal ratings have also fallen, according to the latest Opinium poll for the Observer.
The Tory lead fell to 6 points from 13 points in the week after the local elections took place. The Conservatives were on 42%, down 2 points, with Labour on 36% of the vote, up 5 points. The poll was conducted after the explosive appearance before a Commons select committee last week by Dominic Cummings, the prime minister’s former senior adviser, who attacked the government’s Covid response. However, pollsters at Opinium suggested that the fall in the Tory lead may not last as the underlying popularity of the government’s vaccine rollout remained strong. The vaccine rollout appears to have driven the resurgence in the government’s popularity.
The prime minister’s approval rating has dropped since the last poll, falling into negative territory. His rating fell from +6 to -6. He remains just ahead of Keir Starmer, whose approval rating remained steady at -9. With Covid cases rising again and concerns emerging over the India strain of the virus, the proportion of people who approve of the government’s handling of the coronavirus crisis has dropped, with 40% now approving (-7) and 40% disapproving (+7). The poll also found that 43% of people now support the postposing of the 21 June lockdown easing. This compares to a third (34%) who think the easing should go ahead as planned. One in ten (10%) back bringing the date forward. Despite the concerns about the June unlocking, there is still huge support for the government’s handling of the vaccine programme, with 71% of the public still approving of the supply and provision of the vaccine, compared to just 9% who disapprove.
The poll suggested that while the public distrust Cummings, a majority do seem to believe many of the serious claims he made during his explosive select committee appearance last week. Only 20% said they trusted Cummings to tell the truth, compared to 71% who said they did not trust him. However, 60% believed it was true, as Cummings claimed, that at the start of the pandemic, Johnson regarded coronavirus as a scare story and described it as “the new swine flu”. Only 24% believed it was untrue. Two thirds (66%) believed the government was following a herd immunity strategy at the start of the pandemic, with 20% seeing it as untrue. Almost half (49%) believed that health secretary Matt Hancock lied to colleagues about older people being tested before they were moved from hospitals to care homes. Hancock denies this claim. Adam Drummond, Opinium’s associate director, said: “Whilst Dominic Cummings is seen as one of the least trustworthy men in Britain, the public do see some truth in the allegations he made against Boris Johnson’s government, puncturing the Conservatives’ post-Hartlepool bounce and reversing a recent spike in the prime minister’s approval rating. “However, there are strong reasons to believe that this won’t last though, as the underlying approval figures for the vaccine rollout, which has driven voting intention since the beginning of 2021, are unchanged and remain very strong.” Opinium polled 2,004 people online on 27-28 May.