A big part of the successful Welsh Labour fightback during the 2017 general election campaign was leadership. By election day, the party had the two most popular political leaders in Wales. Labour not only benefitted from the astonishing campaign resurgence of Jeremy Corbyn; the main face and voice of their Welsh campaign was the popular first minister, Carwyn Jones.
Nearly two years on, however, Labour’s prospects of benefitting from popular leadership are looking increasingly bleak. The latest Welsh Political Barometer poll reinforces the sense that the Welsh public have – for a second time – fallen firmly out of love with Corbyn. Asked to rate him on a 0-10 scale, respondents to the poll gave the leader of the opposition a miserable average rating of only 3.2, which represents a fall of 0.7 points since December. In a highly competitive field – Theresa May and Vince Cable also average below four out of ten – and in their ultimate bastion of Wales, Labour now actually has the least popular leader of any of the major UK parties.
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