Political guru Sir John Curtice has revealed one rather grim statistic in amongst Labour’s historic victory.
The acclaimed elections expert has closely analysed the numbers after Sir Keir Strarmer led the Labour landslide on Thursday.
Writing for the Telegraph he discusses that Sir Keir’s party’s win was far more about a total collapse in support for the Tories – with many voters switching to Reform UK – rather than people flocking to Labour.
And as the Champagne popped for the new party running the country, he also pinpoints one sobering statistic for Sir Keir – as he failed to significantly increase support from Corbyn’s run as PM in 2019.
He said that “voters firmly rejected the Conservatives” but added “they far from flocked to Labour instead”.
Sir John, who is a professor of politics and a podcaster, wrote: “Yet the one thing that Sir Keir Starmer did not do was to secure much change in his party’s level of support.”
He revealed that in Wales, where there is a devolved Labour Government, the party’s support actually fell by four points. In England the increase was a piddly half a percent.
He added: “In short, despite all the talk of a changed Labour party, Sir Keir Starmer was barely any more successful in winning votes than Jeremy Corbyn had been in 2019.”
It’s a fact that’s not lost on the new Prime Minister who tackled the issue on the steps of Downing Street in his first address to the nation.
He said: “Whether you voted Labour or not, in fact especially if you did not, I say to you, directly: My government will serve you.”
New Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer faced a barrage of tricky questions from journalists in his first press conference yesterday, Saturday, July 6, with ITV’s Robert Peston also tackling the number of people who didn’t choose him as their leader.
Mr Peston said: “You said yesterday your priority would be to govern for those who didn’t vote for you – some 80 percent of British voters didn’t vote for you – that’s including those who didn’t vote at all.
“What does that mean in practice in a sense for the culture of the Government and how you’ll govern?”
Sir Keir Starmer answered: “It was very important to me to say what I said on the steps yesterday about those that didn’t vote for us because we’re a Governement of service to all people whether they voted for us or not.”