Politics: a crisis of leadership
By Richard North - April 19, 2024
The BBC usually puts up facsimiles of the major newspaper front pages by just after one in the morning – one of the few useful services it provides (although Sky News has taken to doing the same thing).
Yesterday, though, it was later and my piece had gone to bed before I saw the headlines. Thus, I missed the Mail which had run the results of a political poll as its lead story.
The online version rejoiced in a lengthy headline (as is the custom of the paper), which told us: “The Tories trail Labour on EVERY major political issue including defence, tax, migration and even Brexit, landmark poll finds… But 45% of voters still DON’T want a Starmer government”.
It was that reference to defence which was intriguing and would have slotted nicely into my conclusion where I was musing about public response to the leaders of the two (currently) largest parties.
It was there that I averred that, if the Russians trounced the Ukrainians by September, we could find ourselves in the situation where voters trust neither the Tories nor Labour to deal adequately with the situation, projecting the nation into a major crisis with no leaders who could rally the nation.
The Mail survey is fronted by Lord Ashcroft who, in a separate authored piece, has his own headline which reads: “Keir Starmer is hardly Sir Winston Churchill, but my latest poll finds Labour IS more trusted on defence”.
This is slightly at odds with the main piece, but the crux is that 28 percent of the 5,400 voters canvassed thought that Labour would do a better job on defence, compared with 26 percent who would trust the Tories.
When it came to personalities though, when asked: “Would you trust Rishi Sunak or Keir Starmer to lead and make good decisions in the event of an armed conflict that threatened the UK”, only 22 percent trusted Starmer.
However, that compared with a pathetically slender 15 percent who would trust Sunak, as against 13 percent “don’t knows”. But what was really startling was the massive 42 percent who would trust neither of the leaders.
That neither of them is in any way comparable with Churchill is self-evident, but as a historical reference, it is interesting to note that during the war years, Churchill’s approval rating never fell below 78 percent according to the then primitive Gallup polls. Both our contemporary leaders are facing an unbridgeable gap.
Of course, there is no real (or any) comparison as we are not at war (yet) and therefore not looking to elect a war leader. As a national leaders, though, our current pair also have a long way to go. Ashcroft’s figures have 34 percent of voters thinking that Starmer would make the best prime minister while only 19 percent opt for Sunak.
As before, there is a huge volume of “noises off”, with 48 percent recorded as “don’t know”. Within that is undoubtedly a substantial number of “none of the aboves”. Probably, they constitute the majority. That really bears thinking about: more people reject either candidate on offer than approve of any individual.
Looking at the state of the parties as a whole, bringing us right up-to-date is yesterday’s Ipsos poll. This has Labour on 44 percent (-3 pts from February), Conservatives 19 percent (-1), Reform UK 13 percent (+5), Liberal Democrats 9 percent (nc), Green 9 (+1), Other 6 percent (-1).
This gives Labour a lead of 25 points over the Conservatives, down from 27 in February. But, as with Ashcroft, it is the personal ratings which make the news, with the pollster’s headline reading: “Rishi Sunak’s satisfaction falls to equal worst ever Ipsos rating for a Conservative or Labour leader”.
In terms of detail, 84 percent are dissatisfied with the way the government is running the country (+1 pts from February) and a mere 10 percent are satisfied (no change). In a sign of the times, Ipsos records that dissatisfaction with the government has not fallen below 70 percent since June 2022.
When it comes to the job that Sunak is doing as prime minister, only 16 percent are satisfied with (-3 from February) and 75 percent say they are dissatisfied (+2). This gives him a net rating of -59.
This, we are told, is not only a new low for Sunak but it is also level with the all-time record low for a prime minister with Ipsos set by John Major in August 1994 (also -59), and Jeremy Corbyn’s record low for a Leader of the Opposition (-60) set in September 2019.
Interestingly, Starmer’s ratings have also fallen since February: 25 percent are satisfied with his performance as Labour leader (-4) and 56 percent are dissatisfied (+1). His net score of -31 is his worst as Labour leader since he recorded a -29 in May 2021.
Again, a historical note is of interest. In the run-up to the 1997 election, in the March, Blair recorded a net score of +22 as leader of the opposition, compared with the satisfaction rating for Major of -46.
In political terms, therefore, currently we have something of a leadership crisis. It is quite remarkable that, as we face a general election in increasingly troubled times, neither of the main political leaders seem to have the confidence of the British public.
Even in normal times, this would be of concern, but these are not normal times. And, if we were to take the lead from Col (Retd) Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, we live in increasingly perilous times.
His headline in the Telegraph reads: “Ukraine’s frontline is collapsing – and Britain may soon be at war”, with his sub-heading telling us that: “Unless we get a grip fast, we will not be going to polling stations in November, but to the enlistment centres”.
This, though, is the same Hamish who, in January 2023 happily boasted that Russia had shown the world how not to do armoured warfare, but the Challenger 2 would “help Ukraine triumph”, delivering “the knockout blow against Vladimir Putin’s forces”.
But for the fact that he now shares my own pessimism, there is no more reason to believe Hamish’s punditry now than there was last time.
And yet, in one way or another, many of the pundits have been all over the place when it comes to predictions about the Ukraine war. For instance, where we had Politico so confidently stating two days ago that “Ukraine is heading for defeat”, in June 2023 it was carrying a piece from Ukraine’s prime minister, Denys Shmyhal, declaring: “Ukraine is winning – and it is changing”.
The following September, Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, the UK chief of defence staff, said “Ukraine is winning, and Russia is losing”. Explaining why, he said: “That is because the aim of Russia was to subjugate Ukraine and to put it under Russia’s control”, adding: “That has not happened and it never will happen, and that’s why Ukraine is winning”.
Less than a month later, former defence secretary Ben Wallace was brimming with confidence, stating: “Ukraine is winning. Now let’s finish the job”. As the counteroffensive breaks down the Russian lines, he declared, “Britain must make sure the West stands firm”.
Currently, though, the only place you will find that confidence replicated is in the Economist, which expresses a “Chinese view of Russia”, suggesting that “Russia is sure to lose in Ukraine”. By contrast, even Bloomberg rehearses the now familiar tales of woe.
To cap it all, we have Denys Shmyhal, who was so confident of a win back in June 2023, now recorded by The Times declaring that victory for president Putin could lead to a Third World War.
Shmyhal is almost certainly laying it on thick in anticipation of the US House of Representative vote on a military package for Ukraine on Saturday, aiming to bounce the House into giving its support, but his pessimism is widely shared.
Not forgetting the potential for an Israel-Iran conflict, this does put the forthcoming general election in a different light. In addition to electing a new government, we will potentially be electing a war leader.
Unlike 1939 though, there is no Churchill waiting in the wings, or any politician even approaching his stature. This should give us pause for thought, and cause for very great concern. It is hard for us to choose the right leader if there is no suitable candidate on offer.