Keir Starmer's popularity falls to negative ratings after UK riots, according to latest polling

there's been some polling that's been published in the last 24 hours which suggests that sakir starma who is enjoying a very brief honeymoon after after winning the election he's now down into negative approval ratings up tothe minute political analysis from the Sunday Times is Deputy political editor Harry y good morning Harry good morning I suppose we better start with a riot I mean what is your sense of things it feels like they've calmed down but I don't want a temp fate is it your sense that kind of we're over the worst well I think that is also sakir st's view that we don't want to we don't want to get too complacent at this moment moment in time um as of this morning as you say we we we've seen uh things start to to come down on Wednesday the the mass protests that were feared didn't materialize but the reason why the prime minister is still wary and has and is guarding against complacencies is is for a number of reasons the first is that we have a number of um demonstrations potentially taking place later this afternoon in a few areas there's certainly one plan for Newcastle um and there's also potentially flash points in places like Stoke and shury but the the the second one and this is the concern for ministers and this is something that's been discussed behind the scenes in government for the last few days is that it's the return of the football season this this weekend so we have the uh the charity Shield game at Wembley this this afternoon but we also have a number of English Championship Games kicking off now the concern both for the police and ministers is that sakir st's view and his artic ulated this publicly is that a lot of this is farri foggery and actually he has made the link privately to hooliganism and that's the concern is that some of these football matches you could see football Hooligans turning up and and you could start to see some of of what we've seen of the last fortnite play out at the football so what you can expect to see today is a very large police presence across the country at some of these games I think in total we've got 6,000 police officers on standby and there's a 100 additional prosecutors ready to go but but the police certainly the view of senior police leaders is that if they can get through this weekend without any further flareups then their hope is that they can start to unwind some of the resorts that they've been deploying in the last two weeks and their hope long term is that that might actually see things come to a to an end politically how do you think he he comes out of it K sta because there's an interesting piece in the time today by oie Wright and Steve swinford saying that that his response to it was very much informed by his time as director of public prosecutions and how they dealt with the riots back in 2011 and he quickly thought look the key to this is getting prosecutions done swiftly and In fairness that seems to have worked in the sense that when we had the first people being sentenced earlier this week the riots then started to die down do you think he comes out a bit politically stronger or do you think just the nature of of what's happened over the past fortnite means inevitably he will be weakened to some extent well I think you're right he certainly adopted the same Playbook that helped him through 2011 you you've seen that rapid sentencing you've seen the courts the court hearings played out on national television as a deterrent and and that's worked to help kind of restore order I think look the there's been some polling that's been published in the last 24 hours which suggests that sakir starma who is enjoying a very brief honeymoon after after winning the election he's now down into negative approval ratings now that's that's obviously not great for that's just one a huge majority but just for some context uh from memory I'm pretty sure that most of the conservative Prime Ministers we've had in the last 10 uh 10 years or so they also entered office with with negative ratings I think the only the only the only difference was maybe Tesa may actually so so I to be honest I don't think that people around SEC and I don't think the Prime Minister himself will be too to be too worried about that because because I think they broadly feel that they've handled this crisis pretty well this crisis has actually in some ways demonstrated the strength that sakir starma has he's not um you know hot on rhetoric he's not a NE necessarily A A really top-notch public speaker but what he is is an organizational thinker and he knows the justice system like the back of his hand and and that's kind of been demonstrated over the last last few days in how they've kind of pulled together the response to the riot so I think they they think they've had a good crisis actually on this we're going to talk about musk a bit later on with the times as Africa correspondent Jane Flanagan he's been interviewing Elon musk's father Errol Elon Musk of course has been in the news a lot this week because of what he's had to say about the riots in the UK saying that we're on the verge of a civil war accusing K starma of being two TI K and Reviving this theory about two-tier policing How Will Downing Street View that because I mean you know whatever you think of Elon Musk there's no denying he's one of the world's most powerful men yeah he is and and actually I was trying to think this feels quite unprecedented to have such an influential figure on the global stage making these comments um about the UK and and a direct attack on the new UK prime minister I was actually trying to think of a a parallel um to this this week and the only thing I can think of is actually When Donald Trump in his first term in in the White House when he was going after sadique Khan um for for some of the knife crime that we saw in London and there was that very public spat between the two of them however um while sadique KS saw political um utility going back against Trump and waging that in public because it played well in London um K starmer and number 10's view is very much to try and deprive musk of oxygen they basically do not want a public spat with a man with that amount of influence and that amount of visibility I mean everything that Elon Musk says and tweets is viewed by tens of millions if not hundreds of millions of people around the world so their view is basically we just need to try and ignore musk and and his rhetoric and in fact one person uh close to the Prime Minister described it to me this week as as being a bit like when you're in a pub and someone spills your pint you can either you know you can either push back and start a brawl or you can decide to just go with the flow and enjoy your evening and that's kind of the the Mantra that they're if you follow that analogy Elon Musk is a massive bloke he would be the big Burly bloke with the tattoos down his sleeve do you know what I mean he's not take even though they've kind of ignored pint being spilled over I think musk is still gearing up for a fight so yeah and and there is a serious reason for this I think if we kind of try and understand what's going on in the mind of Elon Musk I think what what he is is obviously comes from the kind of ultra liberal conservative thinking in America right and and there's what's happening in this country is we're obviously introducing a major piece of legislation called The Online safety act now that is intended to crack down on some of the stuff that we have seen in the last fortnite dis the the the rampant disinformation online which sparked the Southport Riot to begin with and then everything that came from that um and that but that also places some very stringent obligations on social media publishers people like Elon Musk and he is clearly unhappy about that and what's interesting is longer term when this act starts to bite because it's not due to come into into Force until the end of the year what will be interesting to see is whether Elon Musk and his company X actually abide by the regulations and what could that actually mean for for the platform Twitter SLX in this country if it doesn't because the powers in this this act are quite extensive The Government Can fine Twitter SLX up to 10% of its Revenue so it would be fascinating to see how that plays out longer term let's touch on the Tory leadership race interesting that pretty Patel has been speaking to the times today and has said that the perception of two-tier policing over the riots risks undermining public confidence quite interesting wording there talking about the perception of it rather than suggesting it is an active policy I mean is this issue of of immigration and the riots and how to respond to it and how the police approach it is that going to be a big issue in the tour leadership election I think so it just depends if it if it Peters out now you see because if if if the riots this leadership contest is going to go on for months and months and months but if for example this all Peters out the the toy leadership contest isn't going to really start in earnings till September when MPS come back to Parliament but there certainly the leadership candidates are definitely trying to um show that they're capable of criticizing and holding secur arms government to account and I think you can see that today in pretty Patel's interview in the times what I would say is you I think you're right to highlight that she talks about the perception of two-tier policing which if you read that carefully that is not her saying there is two-tier policing she's basically trying I think to have her cake in E because it would be if she came out and said there is not only would that be controversial in and of itself but it would also people would say well hang on a minute you were the Home Secretary up until a couple of years ago so therefore were you partly responsible for that being a policy well I think I think the reality is I don't think pretty Patel necessarily thinks there is two tier policing I think she's trying to be a little bit like Nigel farage who has suggested and musk who have suggested there is but what she is saying is the perception is the responsibility of the government is for the government to show that there is no two tier policing whereas if she said there is it's kind of an attack on both the government and the police Chiefs and she doesn't want that I mean she always I think she was she had quite a strong relationship as home SEC Home Secretary with the various police chief I don't think that's what she's after she's just trying to to kind of make a barb at at K sta uh just finally tell us about the Chancellor's lava tree okay well um this is a very funny story that's been uh unraveling for a few weeks now so um Rachel Reeves as as most people will know by now is the first female Chancellor of the exer but um she has discovered on Entry to office that um in her her private office she has she has a lavat Tre and the lavat Tre is kitted out with a urinal because obviously um there's never been a female Chancellor so they they've only ever needed the the the male um uh uh dressings for for a bathroom now she has looked at and explored potentially modifying the bathroom to take out the urinal um but because the treasury is a is a grand listed building there are lots of planning constraints and today we've learned that um the cost of actually doing anything thing to remove this originally they tried to look at removing the oral and then they were told well there's lots of problems with that because it's listed so you'd need planning consent and what why is why is the urinal listed that is a very good question unfortunately I lack the planning expertise to answer that question sufficiently but what I would if someone knows if anyone knows get in touch inspector sure I sure there are lots of planning apparat chicks on Twitter who will answer that question but but so then she tried to cover it up and but that also is going to cost a fortune it's going to cost £8,000 so for now it looks like the chancellor is stuck with her urinal there we go uh Harry greater chat thank you so much and don't forget you can read more from the Sunday Times Deputy political Ed Harry yor in the paper tomorrow or with a digital subscription via the times.com and if you haven't downloaded it yet why not try the Times app it's a great way to join the conversation about all the big stories of the day uh tell us what you think in the comments section of course and you can share the stories that interest you the most and you can use it wherever you are on your smartphone or tablet so go to the times.com subscriber to sign up