Labour is more popular than it was under Corbyn, but the May elections are not looking good for Starmer

Polls suggest Labour will do badly in the local elections. The vaccination programme is dominating national politics at the moment, writes John Rentoul

Keir Starmer’s trip to Scotland last week has failed to lift Labour’s support there (Lesley Martin/PA)

This morning’s batch of opinion polls make gloomy reading for Keir Starmer. Two polls in Scotland put Labour in third place, while a poll in the West Midlands suggests Andy Street, the Conservative mayor, will hold on easily in a contest that Labour ought to win. All against a background of national polls that put the Conservatives on average 10 points ahead.

Savanta ComRes and YouGov both have Labour stuck behind the Scottish National Party and the Conservatives in the Scottish parliament elections. Anas Sarwar, Scottish Labour’s new leader, polls well, with a positive rating of 28 points, although 40 per cent of voters say they “don’t know” whether he is doing well or badly. But the party is still a little behind where it was in the last elections five years ago.

The striking feature of Scottish polls is that, if they are right, the parliament is going to look similar to its current state. This is a change from how things looked at the start of the year, when Nicola Sturgeon was heading for a big majority in her own right: now, she may have to rely on support from the Scottish Greens again, and it is not certain that the pro-independence parties (the SNP, Greens and Alex Salmond’s Alba party) will win a majority of votes.