NO prime minister has recovered from the poor opinion poll numbers that are being chalked up by the Conservative Party currently, a leading expert said today.
Chris Curtis of Optimum Research told GB News: “What is driving down voting intention numbers a lot more so is the fact that the market reacted so badly to her mini budget…and the fact that she was trying to cut taxes for the very richest people in the country.
“They’re the things that were really driving down support for her, so this is probably unpopular. But is it the main driver of voters away from the Conservatives right now? I don’t think so.
“It’s cutting taxes in this case, it’s the view of cutting taxes for rich people.”
In an interview with Isabel Webster and Paul Hawkins during Breakfast on GB News, he added: “The Conservatives win elections when they’re viewed as economically competent, as opposed to a Labour Party, which is viewed as nice, caring about public services, but perhaps not as good on the economy.
“After that mini budget, the response that we got from voters in terms of the policies, and the response we saw from the market has convinced enough people out there that the Conservatives are no longer best at running the economy. And that’s one of the reasons why we’ve seen such a dramatic shift in the polls over the past couple of weeks.”
Asked if the Conservatives had time to change public opinion, Mr Curtis said: “I never say never. We do live in incredibly sort of volatile times in politics, public opinion moves a lot more dramatically than it would have done 10 or 20 years ago, which is one of the reasons why we’ve seen such a dramatic shift away from Liz Truss.
“Having said that, we really shouldn’t underestimate how bad these numbers are for the government.
“Nobody has ever really come back from polling numbers quite this bad before.
“Things will be very difficult for Liz Truss, particularly given she’s lost the trust of the public, people no longer think that she’s principled and competent and a strong leader.
“Usually, when you see numbers like that – we had numbers now, worse than Boris Johnson’s were at Boris Johnson’s worst point. They’re worse than Jeremy Corbyn as well at Jeremy Corbyn’s worst point.
“When somebody reaches that point, it’s very unlikely that they come back from it but never say never.”
