Keir Starmer has two ‘inherent weaknesses’ despite Labour’s huge poll lead over Tories

Sir Keir Starmer has two “inherent weaknesses” despite Labour’s huge lead over the Tories, according to a pollster. Lord Hayward said Sir Keir’s party is in an “unbelievably strong position” against the Conservatives in the polls in recent weeks.

But the Tory peer and polling expert warned the Labour leader faces two key problems with his popularity against new PM Rishi Sunak and the party’s policies.

Lord Hayward told Express.co.uk: “Labour are clearly in the driving seat at the moment in an unbelievably strong position.

“But the fact that polls do show Rishi as popular, if not ahead, of Starmer should worry the Labour Party.

“And certainly when people are asked to express views about Labour policy, they can’t, they don’t know what Labour policy on anything is.

“So although they’re in an incredibly strong position there are inherent weaknesses which revolve around two things.

“One is the leader and the perception of the public of that leader. And the other one is the fact that people don’t understand the policies.”

Lord Hayward said the Tories have “scraped themselves off the bottom of a very deep barrel” with a small bounce in the polls since Mr Sunak took over from Liz Truss as Prime Minister.

But the Conservative peer warned his party has an “extraordinarily long way to go”.

The weekly tracker poll by Techne for Express.co.uk showed the Tories are up four points to 26 percent, while Labour were down three points to 50 percent.

Lord Hayward said it is normal for the party in power to fall behind in the polls.

But he highlighted that this was far worse for Ms Truss during her short-lived premiership, while Boris Johnson managed to keep support above 30 percent despite his eventual ousting following a series of scandals.

On whether the Tories can recover with Mr Sunak at the helm, Lord Hayward said it was possible but added that time is tight with the next general election due in two years.

The Tory peer said: “One of the striking things, historically when a Government is in power, that Government is generally in the mid to upper 20s in opinion polls.

“It’s normal for the Government to be 10, 15 or 20 points behind the opposition.

“The amazing thing about Boris was that he managed to hold the Tory party in the low to mid-30s even when it was in trouble.

“The Tories have gone down towards 20 percent which is a level no Government has really touched in the last 40 or 50 years.

“It is normal for Governments to go into their mid-20s. It is quite normal for Governments to register very unpopular levels of polling. But not as bad as Liz Truss managed to record.

“It is possible for Governments to come back from the dead, but given the scale of the margin and the two-year time limit, it is a short timescale.”

Lord Hayward’s comments come after Mr Sunak entered No 10 on Tuesday after being unveiled as the Tories’ new leader on Monday.

He faces a daunting in-tray with the cost of living crisis and a black hole in the public finances.