A big challenge for Johnson and his minsters is that their rating on how they’re handling COVID 19 has now gone negative
Several pollsters are asking regular questions on how the public think the government is handling the pandemic. YouGov and Opinium have published the most data on this and I have chosen the former for my chart.
The main trend is broadly the same which ever pollster you use and whatever the question format – a falling off of confidence in the government’s approach. It should be noted that with YouGov it went into negative territory before we got news of the Cummings lockdown road trip.
I am sure that the government is doing its own private polling which is showing the same broad picture.
This and the infection/death rates are the backcloth to the big decisions on scaling back the controls which are currently being considered.
Although the latest that the next general election can be held is less than four years away (May 2 2020) this has been one of those traumatic events that will remain with voters for years and will surely impact on the outcome.