Regular PBers will know that at this stage before a general election I take much more notice of leadership ratings than voting intention polls. With the former those sampled are asked for simply an opinion whereas with voting questions they are asked to predict what they might or might not do in 3/4 years time when they could not even turn out. When tested in real elections such as 1992 and 2015 the leader ratings have got the outcome right while the voting polls have been wrong.

This evening sees the first Scottish favourability ratings from YouGov since Keir Starmer was elected Labour leader in April. That he should be, even by a single point, be in net favourable territory is probably a good sign because if Labour is to recover at all then it has to make progress in winning back some of the Scottish seats that it has lost since 2010. Then it had 41 Scottish Labour MPs – that figure is now down to one.

Scotland has also played a big part in Conservative fortunes taking 13 seats at 2017 general election out of the 59 total north of the border – a figure that dropped to just six at GE2019 under Johnson.

So the fact that the national Conservative leader has a net rating here minus 51 should be a matter of real concern and suggests that he might be in some trouble in trying to hold the 6 next time.

Mike Smithson