As the protests and riots enter a second week, polls show a majority of Britons think the Prime Minister has handled the unrest in England poorly, and a majority believe politicians overall are failing.
Following a week of protests, demonstrations, riots and ethnic violence following the murder of a schoolgirl in a gang knife attack by a teenager of Rwandan origin last week, British people give the government a very low opinion of its response. An overwhelming 49% say YouGov Figures released on Tuesday showed people think Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has handled the riots poorly.
Only 31 percent think he’s doing a good job.
Like Starmer, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, who has only been in the job for a month since July’s general election, also received poor marks, with 43% dissatisfied with her job and just 23% saying she is doing a good job.Even more shocking is the widespread dissatisfaction with politicians as a whole, with 60% of Britons saying they have handled the riots poorly, while only 17% are satisfied with the job they are doing, the lowest of all.
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The difference between general sentiment towards the protest politicians and disapproval of individual leaders may be down to name recognition: Home Secretary Cooper may breathe a sigh of relief that her disapproval rate is not above 50%, but this may also be down to the fact that more people answered “don’t know” or “can’t say” to her name than to any other politician or prime minister.
In fact, among those who thought they knew something about Cooper, far fewer thought she was doing a good job, and nearly twice as many said she was doing a bad job.
Meanwhile, there is clear public sympathy for rank-and-file police officers on the front lines dealing with a difficult situation, with a majority of 52% saying they are handling the situation well or fairly well. But the public seems less optimistic about the future, with 58% saying they have “not much” or no confidence at all in the police’s ability to “protect people and property from further unrest,” perhaps reflecting a widespread feeling that clashes will continue whether the government wants them to or not.
But it’s clear the public as a whole wants an end to the unrest, with 75% happy for the government to use water cannons against rioters and 62% even comfortable with sending in the military.
The government expects further protests on Wednesday, with the prime minister presiding over a meeting of the “COBRA” emergency response committee on Tuesday night, saying after it ended that participants would “feel the full force of the law”.
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—Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) August 5, 2024
