Do we get the quality of politician we deserve?

It’s only prudent for voters to be sceptical of their elected representatives, but the current anti-politics mood could ultimately threaten our democracy, writes John Rentoul

According to the polls, the least unpopular politicians are Keir Starmer and Ben Wallace, while Priti Patel comes out worst (Getty)

Since the meteoric fall in Rishi Sunak’s reputation this year – I’m using the metaphor of a meteor, which falls to Earth, pedantically – we have been in “situation normal” for politics. Every politician of whom people have heard has a negative rating in the opinion polls.

The least unpopular politicians are Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, and Ben Wallace, the defence secretary. They were each given a net score of minus 3 when people were asked by Ipsos whether they “would do a good job or a bad job as prime minister”. The actual prime minister has an approval rating of minus 25.

Sunak is on minus 8, and of a range of other cabinet ministers, Priti Patel comes off worst on minus 34.

That is how democracy is supposed to be, up to a point. It is only prudent for voters to be sceptical of their elected representatives. But I worry about the negativity of the anti-politics mood.

Peter Kellner recently reported the results of a Deltapoll survey for Tortoise, which found that 30 per cent of people agreed that “Britain these days needs a strong leader who can take and implement big decisions without having to consult parliament”. And only 52 per cent said that Britain was “very” or “fairly” democratic.

These numbers are close to the point at which the shared idea that we live in a free society would be undermined. I know that people are mostly exaggerating for effect when they say that “we don’t live in a democracy” because they dislike the first-past-the-post voting system, but I think such wild talk is just as bad for the common good as the tendency to call politicians with whom one disagrees liars.

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Fortunately, I don’t think we are ready for an undemocratic “strong leader” yet. After all, 61 per cent of the Deltapoll sample agreed with the alternative statement: “It is dangerous to give leaders too much power; it is better for parliament to debate and sometimes amend government proposals, even if this takes more time.”

And it is only six months since Sunak was the only politician to record net positive ratings, which he had enjoyed for all the time he had been chancellor. Before that, and before becoming prime minister, Johnson was in the abnormal position of having a net positive rating for a long time.

But to those who take a consistently negative view of all politicians, and in particular to those “inactivists” who complain but don’t try to make politics better, I say: be careful what you wish for.

Yours,

John Rentoul

Chief political commentator