Most Conservative voters have no or little confidence in Liz Truss’s ability to address the cost of living crisis, a new poll has found.
The incoming prime minister faces an uphill battle to convince the public she is on their side – with 67 per cent of all voters and even 54 per cent of Tories expressing doubts.
Expectations for Ms Truss’s premiership are at rock bottom with just 14 per cent of voters expecting her to be an improvement on Boris Johnson, the survey by YouGov found.
The foreign secretary, who will replace Boris Johnson as PM on Tuesday, has said she will avoid “handouts” and instead focus on tax cuts, including to environmental levies that fund green energy investments.
On Sunday she said it was fair for the rich to benefit more from her plans as tax cuts would “inevitably” have that effect.
YouGov asked a representative sample of adults how much confidence if any they had in Ms Truss to produce the right policies to tackle the cost of living crisis.
Just 2 per cent of Britons and 5 per cent of Tories said they had a lot of confidence, with 17 per cent and 30 per cent saying they had some confidence.
29 per cent of all voters and 38 per cent of Tories said they had “not very much confidence” while 38 per cent of voters and 16 per cent of Tories said they had ‘”no confidence”.
By 55 per cent to 22 per cent voters said they were disappointed rather than pleased that Ms Truss was the new prime minister.
But there were reports over the weekend that Ms Truss could be on course to diverge from her rhetoric during the Tory leadership contest and bring in a significant package of support – including a freeze in energy prices.
Speaking after winning the Tory leadership contest Ms Truss said: “I will deliver on the energy crisis, dealing with people’s energy bills but also dealing with the long term issues we have on energy supply.”
Labour leader Keir Starmer said on Monday there was “no excuse” for not freezing energy bills – a proposal his party already supports.
Meanwhile another poll by Savanta ComRes found that just 18 per cent of the public believed Ms Truss could unite the country, while 51 per cent said she could not.
And 60 per cent want a general election by the end of the year. Just one in six (18 per cent) have a favourable view of Ms Truss, with 44 per cent unfavourable.
“This poll illustrates the gargantuan task awaiting the new Prime Minister,” said Chris Hopkins, director of political research at Savanta ComRes.
“Not only does she have one of the most troublesome in-trays that any incoming PM has had post-war, healing the wounds caused by a fierce leadership election and uniting her party at the same time is going to take some doing – especially given she may have to announce large pandemic-esque support packages to help Britons through the economic backdrop she’s inheriting.
“By fighting a campaign on tax cuts, positioning herself as a ‘true’ conservative compared to her rival, the support packages that may be necessary to ease the rising cost of living will need to be funded somehow, and more borrowing isn’t exactly a conservative principle either, so the need to unite her party may be just as difficult as this poll predicts.”
