Kemi Badenoch would beat both Sir Keir Starmer and Nigel Farage in a head-to-head battle over who would be the best Prime Minister, a new poll shows.
The Conservative leader beat all the other main party leaders when voters were made to choose the winner of one-on-one battles between them to decide the UK’s top political job.
But the More in Common polling shows the chaotic nature of politics right now. While Mrs Badenoch comes top in the head-to-head, her party is still languishing third in a poll of voting intention on 21 per cent, two points behind Labour and nine behind Reform.
Reform’s leader Mr Farage was beaten by all the other party leaders apart from the Greens’ Zack Polanski despite his party’s overall popularity.
Keir Starmer is regularly far and away the least popular leader in most polls, but in the head-to-head he beat Nigel Farage and Polanski – narrowly – but loses to Lib Dem leader Ed Davey.
Separately, MiC asked voters who would make the best PM, without making it an either/or question.
Nigel Farage came out on top, but with the backing of just 21 per cent of all voters – and less than three-quarters of those who vote for Reform. Just 15 per cent backed Mrs Badenoch or Sir Keir.
Almost four-in-10 of all voters (37 per cent) did not think any of the leaders of the five biggest partiers would do a good job, showing the scale of the malaise.
The Conservative leader beat all the other main party leaders when voters were made to choose the winner of one-on-one battles between them to decide the UK’s top political job.
Fewer than half of Labour (43 per cent) and Tory (45 per cent) voters believed their own party leader would make the best PM. And that number fell to just 29 per cent among Green voters asked about their new populist leader, Zack Polanski.
More in common’s director Luke Tryl said the poll suggested Kemi Badenoch is less disliked than Tories were before the last general election and picked up the backing of left-wingers in straight right v right battle, and the choice of right wingers in left v right battles.
But he pointed out that in a wider five-way fight she and Starmer struggled.
‘Both Starmer and Badenoch have an interest in making the battle a head to head (against Farage in Starmer’s case and either in Badenoch’s) rather than a five-way contest,’ he wrote on X.
‘Farage benefits from a more open race. Another illustration of how, as it stands, tactical voting is likely to matter a lot.’