Last month’s survey went out during the “pingdemic” – and in the aftermath of Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak’s original decision not to self-isolate when pinged themselves.
That context of hesitancy, mass pings, confusion and sense of one-law-for-them-and-another-for-us will have been responsible for lowering the Prime Minister’s score.
In July, 44 per cent of respondents believed he was dealing with Covid well, and 48 per cent badly. That was his third lowest rating since we started asking the question in March 2020.
This month, he’s back up to 59 per cent – during this lull between the end of the pingdemic, the aftermath of the main vaccine programme to date, and the start of the school year.
That’s actually a somewhat indifferent score – Johnson’s sixth-lowest to date. Meanwhile, 79 per cent of those polled said that they support the Chancellor’s plans (last month, that figure came in at 78 per cent).
The Prime Minister’s previous ratings for this question have been as follows:
- July 2021: 44 per cent.
- June 2021: 65 per cent.
- May 2021: 74 per cent.
- April 2021: 75 per cent.
- March 2021: 74 per cent.
- February 2021: 74 per cent.
- January 2021: 65 per cent.
- December 2020: 45 per cent.
- November 2020: 37 per cent.
- October 2020: 42 per cent.
- September 2020: 30 per cent.
- August 2020: 49 per cent.
- July 2020: 61 per cent.
- June 2020: 64 per cent.
- May 2020: 72 per cent.
- April 2020: 84 per cent,
- March 2020: 92 per cent.