Three in four voters say Labour’s priorities are wrong

They say that politics is all about priorities. But what happens when the public says you’ve got it wrong? Mr S has got his hands on some polling – and it doesn’t make for happy reading for No. 10. Some 76 per cent of UK adults say the government has the wrong priorities, with low support for policies like football regulation and the smoking ban. It seems like the public have taken a leaf out of Jacob Rees-Mogg’s book: ‘Boo to nanny…’

When asked which areas the government is spending too much or too little time on, the proposed football regulator and the generational smoking ban policies ranked lowest. Just 22 per cent said the government isn’t spending enough time on vaping, and only 14 per cent felt the same about football regulation. Still, there is some good news for Labour: the public overwhelmingly back the PM’s war on visas.

When asked to rank key policy areas addressed by this parliament, ‘establishing a Border Security Command with counter-terror-style powers to target illegal immigration gangs’ was selected as the number one priority, chosen by twice as many respondents as any other option. Thumbs for the ‘island of strangers’ shtick…

The second most popular measure was ‘making the bosses of private water companies personally liable for company lawbreaking,’ followed by the creation of GB Energy and plans to increase defence spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP.  The poll by JL Partners for JTI was a nationally representative sample of 2,086 adults, between 8 to 12 April, including an oversample of 200 Labour to Reform switchers.

The polling also revealed that Nigel Farage is the only political leader with a positive net approval rating. However, Keir Starmer still narrowly holds a lead in public preference for prime minister, with 33 per cent backing him compared to 30 per cent for Farage. Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative leader, was a distant third on 16 per cent. Sub-optimal for the Tories…