Let’s not forget how appalling Corbyn’s GE2019 ratings were
Putting BJ’s election success into context
In the previous post I argued that much of BJ’s electoral success has been based on the weakness of his LAB opponents at the time – Ken Livingstone for the London Mayoralty and Corbyn at the last general election.
Above are the Wikipedia table of leader ratings for the then LAB leader ahead of GE2019. I put them up as a reminder of how badly Corbyn was perceived in the final few months.
Having him as leader made it very hard for LAB to attract cross-over votes from the LDs and Greens even though many of these voters were very much opposed to the Tories.
All this came for Corbyn after the antisemitism row that engulfed the party for more than a year prior to the General Election.
It was no wonder that BJ found it easy to win his big majority. The challenge he faces is that it is going to be that much harder for the Tories to portray the current Opposition Leader in as negative a fashion. The same can also be said of most of the likely alternatives to Starmer.
My current guess for the next election is that the Tories will likely win most seats but not enough for a sustainable majority.
We will get a better picture of where we are with the two December Westminster by-elections where the Tories are defending huge majorities.