Poll gives thumbs-down to PM in first month in office

ANDREW WOODCOCK 

- Most new prime ministers can expect a honeymoon period in the months after taking office.

But a new poll for The Independent suggests that Liz Truss will arrive at her first Conservative conference after 25 days as leader tomorrow with a significant chunk of the electorate - and even her own party's supporters - firmly set against her.

A series of surveys released on Thursday night showed Tories under Truss trailing Labour by anything between 17 and 33 points enough to send Keir Starmer to Downing Street with a majority to match Tony Blair's historic victory. Now a Savanta poll for The Independent reveals the depth of voter dissatisfaction with the new PM, who was selected by a tiny group of 175,000 Conservative members after the resignation of Boris Johnson earlier this year.

Taken over last weekend, following the market turmoil resulting from Kwasi Kwarteng's poorly received mini-Budget but before the interventions of the IMF and Bank of England, the survey shows that voters had already formed a deeply negative impression of the new PM. Some 47 per cent said her taxcutting policies would fail to boost the economy, against 28 per cent who agreed with her that they would. And 45 per cent said they expected her to be a bad PM - including 25 per cent who said "very bad" - compared to just 33 per cent who thought she would be good.