I love tables like the one from YouGov featured above showing the trend in responses to a political tracker question. This one is on who would make the best prime minister and what seems quite striking is that Theresa May has held up pretty well apart from July when her numbers slipped following the critical response to the Chequers agreement.

The big mover, of course, has been the Labour leader Mr Corbyn who has seen a fair amount of slip back which if you look at the dates sort of links to the start of the anti-semitism row which began at the end of March.

The problem with best prime minister ratings is that the incumbent almost always gets a boost and I think the numbers have to be looked at in that context. The other highlight thing about recent polling on this question is that the don’t knows are now the biggest segment.

What appears to happen is that when Corbyn’s numbers slip it is the don’t knows that increase which could point to something worrying for the Labour leadership.

What might have helped the Prime Minister during this holiday month is that the has been much less focus in the media on the huge Brexit divide within a party. When that starts to be getting the attention of the media again then maybe we could see a slippage.

Mike Smithson

Follow @MSmithsonPB



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