Keir Starmer has closed the gap – but Boris Johnson is still preferred as prime minister

John Rentoul looks at the state of public opinion on the two main party leaders

Should the Labour leader be miles ahead in the opinion polls? (PA)

Many Labour supporters and some commentators say that Keir Starmer’s opinion poll ratings are disappointing. What they usually mean is that they dislike Boris Johnson and think that he has handled the coronavirus badly, and as a result believe that Labour ought to be miles ahead in the polls by now.

In fact, the polls suggest that enough people think the government has handled the crisis well to keep the Conservatives afloat, and an overwhelming majority think the government has done well on vaccines.

What has happened in the past few weeks, then, is that the prime minister and the Conservative Party have received a modest boost in the polls thanks to the vaccines, and this has little to do with what people think of the Labour leader.