Burnham urged to ditch Mahmood’s migrant settlement plans to stop Labour being ‘imitation’ of Reform – UK politics live

YouGov has published polling today suggesting that more than half of voters regard Nigel Farage as “very sleazy”. On this measure, he scores far worse than any of the other party leaders. Even 40% of Reform UK voters regard him as “sleazy”.

Here are the figures. This chart shows the figures for parties, party leaders, and “British governments in general”.

And this chart shows how views vary depending on which parties people support.

In his write-up for YouGov, Dylan Difford points out that Reform UK’s rating on this measure has got worse.

double quotation mark Reform being viewed as sleazy is not necessarily a new thing, but the perception has grown. In October 2024, at the height of the freebie-gate scandal, half of Britons saw the party as sleazy, a clear 18 points lower than today.

However, a seedy shift is not limited to Reform, with belief that the Green party is sleazy having roughly doubled from 18% to 35% over the last 21 months, while such a view of the Lib Dems is also up seven points.

By comparison, evaluations of the current Labour government, its Conservative predecessor, or British governments in general remain largely unchanged over this period.

One problem with polling like this is that, while the views of voters are always interesting, they are not always correct. When people tell pollsters they regard a politician or a party as “sleazy”, it can mean they view them as corrupt, or morally dubious; but it can just mean they do not like them.

For example, this polling suggests 73% of people view Farage as either very (56%) or fairly (17%) sleazy. But 77% of people see “British governments in general” as either very (26%) or fairly (51%) sleazy.

That is a judgment that would surprise many people who take a serious interest in how British politics operates. UK governments have multiple flaws, but by international standards they are not corrupt and ethical standards are reasonably high. These figures probably have more to say about popularity than morality.