Andy Burnham has radically shifted the public\u2019s view of British politics, with a majority now saying they believe his Labour Party has a real chance of winning the next election, whenever it comes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
That\u2019s the verdict of a new POLITICO Poll from Public First, which captures the state of play after Burnham\u2019s first two months as prime minister \u2014 and shows what voters want him to do if they\u2019re going to give him more time in Downing Street. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The poll, published at the POLITICO Pub at Labour\u2019s annual conference in Liverpool, found 53% of voters believe Labour has a realistic shot at keeping power. That is a big increase from 33% in May \u2014 when Burnham\u2019s predecessor Keir Starmer was in the final stages of his doomed premiership. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Most headline polls ask voters which party they will vote for, and these results tend to show small shifts from one survey to the next. This poll looked at who voters expect to win the next election \u2014 capturing a different sense of the national mood to show the scale of the impact Burnham\u2019s arrival has made on British politics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The transformation in Labour\u2019s credibility as an electoral force suggests the gamble the party\u2019s MPs took in forcing Starmer out after a disastrous set of local and regional elections in May has paid off so far. Not only do headline voting intention polls now frequently put Labour narrowly in the lead, but the Public First results show the \u201cBurnham bounce\u201d has been noticed by voters, too. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cBefore Andy Burnham arrived on the Westminster scene, there was a sense that a Reform government was inevitable \u2014\u00a0that has now gone,\u201d said Seb Wride, head of polling at Public First. \u201cIn an election where tactical voting could decide many key constituencies, being seen to be able to win could be just as important for Labour as being popular.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For Nigel Farage\u2019s right-wing populist Reform UK, fortunes have reversed. Four months ago, almost two-thirds \u2014 65% \u2014 said Reform had a genuine chance of winning, but that figure has now dropped to 47% in this month\u2019s poll, after a succession of negative headlines over alleged funding scandals and a special election in his seat. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Even so, more people believe Reform can still win the next election than think the party is completely out of the running. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Conservatives, however, remain deep in trouble, according to the poll: More voters discount them as realistic contenders for power than say they have a chance of victory. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Andy Burnham has radically shifted the public\u2019s view of British politics, with a majority now saying they believe his Labour Party has a real chance of winning the next election, whenever it comes. That\u2019s the verdict of a new POLITICO Poll from Public First, which captures the state of play after Burnham\u2019s first two months […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":37152,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsreporters.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37151","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsreporters.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsreporters.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsreporters.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsreporters.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37151"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsreporters.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37151\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37153,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsreporters.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37151\/revisions\/37153"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsreporters.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/37152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsreporters.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsreporters.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsreporters.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}