Gov't Approval Rating Continues To Fall As COVID-19 Cases Rise

The approval rating for Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his gov't continues to fall, with the latest YouGov survey shows the gov'ts disapproval rating rising to its joint-highest level and approval hits its lowest level since 15 February, when the UK was around the peak of its third wave of COVID-19 infections, hospitalisations, and deaths and in a full national lockdown.

• YouGov: Do you approve or disapprove of the Government's record to date?: Approve: 31% (-2), Disapprove: 49% (+1). Chgs w/ 12 July. Fieldwork 19 July.

Source: YouGov, MNI. N.b. Each dot indicates individual data point.

• The gov't is in the midst of a mini-crisis as the summer parliamentary recess approaches:
  • PM Johnson, Chancellor Sunak and Health Sec Sajid Javid are self-isolating after the latter contracted COVID-19. Initially all three were due to avoid isolation as part of a gov't pilot scheme, but decided to self-isolate after a media backlash.
  • COVID-19 cases are rising rapidly in the UK to the point where the country now has the highest new caseload of any nation worldwide due to the spread of the Delta/Indian variant. This comes at just the time when legal restrictions on social distancing, group sizes, face mask-wearing come to an end in England, raising objections that the gov't is playing fast and loose with public health.
  • Johnson faces an increasingly rebellious parliamentary Conservative Party. The gov't squeaked a win in a vote reducing foreign aid, and faces a very difficult task in progressing planning reforms in the autumn.
  • The increasing pressure for the gov't to raise wages for NHS workers beyond 1% and put forward a major plan for boosting social care have raised the prospect of increases to National Insurance or income tax. Pursuing either of these would breach the 2019 election manifesto, and would be anathema to many Conservative MPs, given the party's stated position as the 'low tax party'.