PM hurtles out of No 10 after roller-coaster ride in polls

THERESA MAY spent her last day as Tory leader in her Maidenhead constituency, with the Peterborough by-election defeat a stark illustration of the difficulties she has faced and which will now trouble her successor.

Her time as Prime Minister had seen her party’s standing in the opinion polls both soar and slump, while her own approval ratings have been on a rollercoaster ride.

For much of Mrs May’s first year in Downing Street, the Conservative Party enjoyed a healthy lead over Labour in the polls and a share of the vote averaging around 40 per cent.

When the Prime Minister called a snap general election in April 2017, the Tories’ poll share jumped even higher, touching 47 per cent in early May.

But as the election campaign went on, the party’s lead over Labour began to narrow and by polling day on June 8, Labour had closed the gap to a handful of percentage points. In the election itself, the Tories polled 44 per cent of the vote while Labour polled 41 per cent – close enough to produce a hung parliament.

For the rest of 2017 and 2018, both parties remained virtually neck and neck. But this year, things changed. The Tories had begun the year averaging 40 per cent. By April it was down to 30 and in May to the low 20s.

Labour was now ahead of the Tories, but only just.

Both the main parties took a hit, while the popularity of smaller parties such as the Liberal Democrats, the Greens and the Brexit Party increased.

Meanwhile, Mrs May’s own approval rating, as measured by the polling company Opinium, had reached a new low.

On becoming Prime Minister she enjoyed an approval rating of 31 per cent. At the start of the 2017 election campaign it had slipped by 10 per cent, but was still comfortably ahead of Jeremy Corbyn, who was on minus 35 per cent. The election campaign saw the gap steadily narrow and by a month after polling day, the positions had been reversed, with Mrs May on minus 20 per cent and Mr Corbyn on four per cent.

Since then, Mrs May has never enjoyed a positive approval rating in Opinium’s bulletins, although she has often been scored as less unpopular than Mr Corbyn.