Two-thirds of voters think Sunak is out of touch with ordinary people, poll reveals

Two-thirds of voters believe that Rishi Sunak is out of touch with ordinary people, a poll has revealed following the former Chancellor’s appointment as Prime Minister.

The survey from YouGov found that 67% of respondents think that Sunak is out of touch with ordinary people, while only 13% said they believe he is in touch. More than four in ten responded that the new Prime Minister is “putting on an act”, compared to 31% who said they think he is authentic.

61% of respondents said they think Sunak understands the challenges of day-to-day life for voters “badly”. Just 24% said he understands the challenges “well”, compared to 42% who said the same of Labour leader Keir Starmer.

Sunak, a former banker, and his wife Akshata Murty are estimated to have a combined fortune of £730m. The new Prime Minister became the first frontline politician to be included in the Sunday Times’ annual rich list back in May.

Murty is the daughter of Indian IT billionaire Narayana Murthy, who founded the global IT services company Infosys. She owns slightly less than 1% of Infosys, a shareholding worth more than £500m, as well as having interests in several companies in the UK.

Sunak – who officially succeeded Liz Truss as Prime Minister this morning – faced criticism after it was revealed that his wife had claimed non-domicile tax status in the UK, potentially allowing her to save millions of pounds in tax over several years. Murty announced in April that she had given up her non-dom status.

The poll, which was completed between October 24th and 25th, found that a quarter of respondents think that Sunak will be a good or great Prime Minister – although that compares to just 12% who thought the same of his predecessor when she first entered office.

Respondents viewed Sunak’s time as Chancellor more positively than those surveyed in an earlier poll in August, when 44% said they thought he was doing a “bad job”. In the latest poll, 53% of respondents said they think he did a “good job” as Chancellor, compared to 28% who said he performed poorly.

Sunak served as Chancellor from February 2020 until his resignation in July 2022. Rachel Reeves strongly criticised the measures set out in Sunak’s Spring Statement back in March, declaring that the proposals showed that he did not understand the “scale of the challenge” of the cost-of-living crisis.

The Shadow Chancellor highlighted that Sunak had “put up taxes on families and businesses a staggering 15 times” over the previous two years and accused the Tories of being “the party of high taxation, because they are the party of low growth”.

Commenting following Sunak’s confirmation as Tory Party leader on Monday, Angela Rayner said: “This is the same Rishi Sunak who as Chancellor failed to grow the economy, failed to get a grip on inflation and failed to help families with the Tory cost-of-living crisis.”

“Rishi Sunak has no mandate and no idea what working people need. We need a general election so the public get a say on the future of Britain – and the chance for a fresh start with Labour,” the deputy Labour leader added.