Politics: new broom

By Richard North - July 25, 2026

For what it is worth, the latest poll from Survation has Reform still in the lead, despite Burn’em’s populist measures.

The party is delivering 26 percent, up 2 percent on the previous week, against Labour which has managed the modest gain of 1 percent, bringing it in at 25 percent, just one point behind the leader.

Statistically, Reform and Labour are neck-and-neck (the difference between the parties is less then the margin of error), which represents a sharp uptick since the accession of Burn’em, putting his party back in contention as largest party at the 2029 general election.

The losers from this round of polling (one of them) are the Tories. Badenough, despite a good press in certain quarters, consistently fails to make an impression on the electorate. Her party has dipped 2 percent to emerge at 19 percent, trailing in third place.

Another loser is Rupert Lowe’s Restore Britain, which is now languishing on a pitiful 1 percent. Any lower and it will disappear completely off the chart, which is probably the eventual outcome. In my view, the only uncertainty is the timing.

It is in the leadership stakes that we see the most marked changes. Crash and Burn’em comes out way ahead at +14 (39 percent favourable / 25 percent unfavourable), compared with Starmer whose closing score ran at -33.

Badenough, confounding her party’s position in the polls, comes second with +3 (33 percent favourable / 30 percent unfavourable). The score is ambiguous though. She’s neither liked nor greatly disliked which, in effect, gives her a near-neutral score. Probably, like her party, she is simply failing to register.

Interestingly, Davey comes in at precisely zero, but again the simple figure can be misleading. A full 33 percent neither like nor dislike him, compared with the 27 percent in both the “favourable” and “unfavourable” boxes. In short, the majority don’t care.

Farage, true to form, remains the Marmite politician. As many as 34 percent rate him, but of the “unfavourable” cohort, 10 percent are lukewarm while 33 percent mark him down as “very unfavourable”.

This is the greatest rejection of all the current series of leaders, a feature that is going to be his downfall. He attracts the “stop Farage” vote in constituencies where there is no clear winner which means that, in the general, Reform will probably under-perform on seats, compared to its poll rating.

However, Survation is not the only pollster on the block. YouGov came up with its voting intentions recently, but before Starmer actually departed.

Its results show a close race between the three leaders, with Reform on 23 percent, the Conservatives on 21 percent and Labour with 20 percent. This, the pollster says, is the first time that Labour have been within the margin of error of Reform in its tracker since last July and the first time the Tories have been since April 2025.

Since Starmer disappeared abruptly from the scene, though, Burn’em has temporarily removed the VAT on domestic utility bills, chopped the maximum bus fare back down to £2 after his predecessor raised it to three, and now but 20 percent off business rates for pub and clubs (but not cafés and restaurants), after they had experienced rises of up to 70 percent.

These gestures are largely meaningless in terms of relieving financial burdens, with the publicity hype attendant on each move is enough to impress the feeble-minded and may drive a recovery of the Labour vote.

A poll more recent than that from YouGov, though, does not fully reflect the latest moves, though – it is still too early to measure the Burn’em popular touch, which also includes the instruction to pause the prisoner early release scheme.

The poll is from More in Common, published on 23 July, which has some interesting results.

Here, Reform maintains a clear lead on 26 percent, Labour climbs 2 points to reach 24 percent and the Tories are stuck, unmoving on 22 percent. Restore Britain, incidentally, loses half its previous score, bottoming out on 2 percent. Its days look numbered. Who thought it would be so quick?

For Burn’em, as well, a sour note is creeping in. The Telegraph is running a piece headed “Burnham takes government jet to No 10 North”, pointing out that the new prime minister flew on the RAF’s VIP Airbus A321 for the 38-minute air journey from Glasgow (where he had been for the opening of the Commonwealth Games) to Manchester for the opening of his “10 North” extravaganza, at an estimated cost of £30,000..

This, says the Telegraph, exposes Labour to the risk of hypocrisy claims, the party having complained bitterly about Rishi Sunak’s “private jet habit”, using RAF transport when commercial flights (or the train) were available.

Bearing in mind that Burn’em expects to make the pilgrim to “10 North” in Manchester one a week, this one is going to run and run, as the prime minister’s office is refusing to respond to questions about whether their new master is to become a frequent flyer at the taxpayers’ expense.

Already, Labour is in trouble on this. Last year, Ed Miliband, then still energy secretary, was described as an “eco-hypocrite” after he refused to reveal how many domestic flights he had taken of government business.

Miliband had previously said that ordinary British mortals should cut down on domestic flights “as much as we possibly can”. He also suggested that the government should encourage ordinary voters to take trains and buses rather than flying.

As always, it is one rule for the plebs and another for our masters but much more of this and the shine will begin to wear off Burn’em’s carefully cultivated image as “man of the people”.

Even now, things are beginning to look a bit false. After his announcement on the bus fares, Burn’em staged a photo opportunity against the backdrop of a specially-painted bus, adorned with a large transfer proclaiming the restored £2 maximum fare.

Given that the type of artwork usually takes weeks to produce, with the costs running to thousands, Burn’em’s “spontaneous” gesture in reaching out to cut the cost of living begins to look somewhat contrived. His PR stunt must have been planned and the work commissioned long before his coronation as leader of the Labour Party.

Similarly, his journey to Manchester yesterday took him to a lavish, fully-fitted meeting room, complete with a “10 North” designer logo (pictured), which must have been weeks if not months in the planning and cost a small fortune. Again, spontaneous it was not – and neither was it cheap.

So far, though, Burn’em is managing to keep up the momentum of pronouncements which is keeping the headline writers busy and the critics at bay. One of his latest, an announcement that he is prepared to “move quickly” to scale up drilling in the North Sea, with indications that the stalled Rosebank and Jackdaw projects will soon get the green light. This cannot help but be popular.

Burn’em is also fortunate in that small boat Channel crossings of illegal immigrants has declined sharply, notwithstanding that they are using larger boats. This takes some of the immediate pressure off the issue – although the battles over housing those already here in disused military camps have still to come.

Meanwhile, although local polls for Clacton suggest an easy win for Farage, his party is looking tired and under siege, with the George Cottrell controversy refusing to go away.

The latest on that score is the Financial Times report that a betting account in the name of George Cottrell received almost $9 million (£6.7 million) in cryptocurrency, while he was providing gifts and benefits to Farage.

It is unclear, says the paper, who provided the money – which was used to bet on Trump winning the 2024 US election – and who received the winnings. But, is adds, “the flows of betting money raise questions about the source of the 32-year-old’s finances and whether money from different individuals has been used to fund his gifts, donations or benefits in kind for Farage”.

Reform, understandably, are trying to play this down but, at a time when the party is facing a stiff challenge from a reinvigorated Labour under its new leader, this is something it could do without.

The party can only hope that, in the not-too-distant future, Burn’em self-destructs and descends to the same level of unpopularity as Starmer. Unless or until that happens, it seems, we’re in for a new broom politics.