The Lettuce vs The Onion: This Week's Top Ten.
Pick of the Flops — The Official UK Prime Minister Unpopularity Chart: From Callaghan to Starmer, Ranked by Ipsos, Delivered by The Almighty Gob.
[Pick of the Flops — ranking every British Prime Minister from Callaghan to Starmer by public satisfaction. Written by John Langley for The Almighty Gob. @thealmightygob.com]
Greetings, flop pickers.
And welcome to Pick of the Flops — the only UK Prime Minister unpopularity chart in British political history where nobody wants a number one, nobody’s proud of a top ten entry, and the higher you climb, the worse it gets.
Ipsos have been compiling their Political Monitor satisfaction ratings since 1977. Nearly fifty years of data. Every Prime Minister from James Callaghan to Keir Starmer, scored monthly, ranked by net satisfaction — that’s the percentage of people satisfied with the Prime Minister’s performance, minus the percentage who aren’t. It is the gold standard measure of British Prime Minister approval ratings. It is, as charts go, one you genuinely do not want to top.
From the Winter of Discontent to Black Wednesday. From the Iraq War to Brexit. From Partygate to the mini-budget lettuce. From the 2026 United Kingdom government crisis to the onion currently hanging on to the toilet paper dispenser of the metaphorical Titanic.
Not ‘arf.
Shall we count them down?
And at number ten, it’s a golden oldie — all the way from the winter of 1978, it’s —
James Callaghan! — Net Minus Twenty.
Jim had the Winter of Discontent. The country had the Parliament of Discontent. The rubbish piled up. The gravediggers went on strike. The Sun gave him a headline he never said, and British political mythology has been dining out on it ever since.
He never said it. Didn’t matter. The bins were still full.
He promised to keep the country running. The binmen had other ideas. They still did, quite recently, in the Birmingham bin dispute of 2023 to 2025. Some things, like the rubbish, just keep coming back.
Number ten. The warm-up act. The gentle introduction to what this chart is genuinely capable of producing.
Stay bright, Jim. Wherever you are. You never knew how lucky you were.
And climbing — climbing — straight in at number nine, it’s the man who arrived with a song and left with a war —
Tony Blair! — Net Minus Forty-Three.
Tony arrived in 1997 promising things could only get better.
Turns out the weather can only get wetter.
Three quarters of the country, happy with him, the night he walked through the door to Things Can Only Get Better. The crowds. The optimism. The landslide. The feeling — and people genuinely had it — that something had shifted.
Like a blocked colon, perhaps, for what came after.
Then Iraq.
The fans had stopped.
He left in the manner of a man who had already located the fire exit before the alarm went off, handing the keys to Gordon Brown with the air of someone passing a grenade to a colleague and wishing them the very best of luck.
Things Can Only Get Better was the song. Iraq was the remix. Nobody asked for the remix.
Not ‘arf bad, Tony. Not ‘arf bad at all.
And going — going — crashing in at number eight, it’s the man who abolished boom and bust. Allegedly —
Gordon Brown! — Net Minus Forty-Five.
Gordon had spent ten years as Chancellor informing the British public that he had personally abolished boom and bust.
He had not abolished boom and bust.
He had renamed it. The Global Financial Crisis turned up in 2008 without an appointment, sat down, made itself comfortable, and Gordon spent the rest of his premiership governing in the wreckage of his own press release.
He abolished boom and bust. Boom and bust abolished him. No bang bang. No banger. Just boom and bust, all the way to the end.
Fab, Gordon. Absolutely fab!
And at number seven — debuting this week with a shepherd’s hut, a referendum, and absolutely no idea what was coming —
David Cameron! — Net Minus Thirty-Four.
Dave bet the entire constitutional architecture of the United Kingdom on a referendum that he was absolutely certain he was going to win.
He lost it before sunrise.
He resigned before breakfast.
He went to write his memoirs in a field in Oxfordshire.
The field, presumably, had no referendum.
Alone in a shepherd’s hut. The sheep had vacated by then. They knew better.
He put the Great back in Great Britain. Then he put it in a shepherd’s hut, closed the door, and wrote a book about it. The Great bit is still in the hut.
All the best, Dave. All the best.
And holding — holding steady at number six — it’s the woman who brought the same deal back three times and got the same answer three times —
Theresa May! — Net Minus Forty-Four.
Theresa lost the same vote three times. The same withdrawal agreement. Her own parliamentary party said no with the kind of enthusiasm usually reserved for something that had personally wronged every single one of them.
She brought it back a second time. They said no again.
She brought it back a third time. They said no again.
She wept on the steps of Downing Street when she finally went.
The standing ovation in the Commons was for the leaving. Not the staying.
Brexit means Brexit, apparently: meant no it doesn’t, actually, put it away, we’ve seen it, we don’t want it, stop bringing it back.
Alright, Theresa. Alright.
And at number five — storming back into the top five — the man who didn’t fall from grace, he jumped — repeatedly — while waving —
Boris Johnson! — Net Minus Forty-Six.
Boris had gifts. Remarkable, undeniable, infuriating gifts. The gap between what he could have been and what he actually was constitutes one of the more spectacular acts of voluntary self-destruction in modern British political history.
Partygate. The birthday cake. The wallpaper. The Pincher affair. The Hair.
He’s still out there somewhere. Writing things. Presumably about himself.
He didn’t fall from grace (no, not her!). He jumped. Repeatedly. While waving. While eating cake. At a party. During lockdown. In Downing Street. That he said wasn’t a party. It wasn’t the correct shade of blue. Apparently.
Lovely stuff, Boris. Lovely stuff.
And at number four — all the way from March 1990 — the Iron Lady herself —
Margaret Thatcher! — Net Minus Fifty-Six.
The Poll Tax. A Cabinet that had been sharpening its knives for considerably longer than it let on. Geoffrey Howe stood up in the Commons and compared her to a team captain who breaks the bats before the game even starts.
In parliamentary terms, that is approximately equivalent to an air strike. On Palestine.
She won three elections. Her own party still found the exit before she did.
She was the Iron Lady. Her own party found the acetylene torch. Turns out iron rusts from the inside. Who knew.
Fabulous, Margaret. Absolutely fabulous. Wherever you are.
And at number three — straight in — with a crashed pound, a currency crisis, and approximately five years of governing on borrowed time —
John Major! — Net Minus Fifty-Nine.
September 16th, 1992. Black Wednesday. The pound crashed out of the Exchange Rate Mechanism. Interest rates were raised to fifteen percent in a desperate attempt to defend sterling before the markets closed. It didn’t work. The Conservative Party’s fifty-year reputation for economic competence was gone by teatime.
He called his Cabinet opponents “the bastards.” They called his bluff.
So. Net minus fifty-nine it is, for John.
Black Wednesday didn’t just crash the pound. It crashed the one thing the Tories always said made them different. Took them about thirty years to work out they never got it back. Some of them still haven’t.
Not ‘arf, John. Not ‘arf.
And at number two — forty-four days, a mini-budget, and competing with a veg patch. Somewhere.
Liz Truss! — YouGov Net Minus Seventy.
The bond markets took one look at her economic plans and collectively lost their minds. The pound fell. The mortgage rates spiked. YouGov had her at minus seventy before she was gone.
She once faced a popularity contest against a Daily Star iceberg lettuce.
The lettuce won. Who’d have thought.
She didn’t just crash the economy. She crashed it in forty-four days, handed back the keys, and somehow still thinks she was right. The lettuce, at least, knew when it was done. The lettuce had more self-awareness than the entire Truss Cabinet combined. The lettuce had a plan. Something about turning over a new leaf, perhaps.
Fab, Liz. Absolutely fab.
And now, flop pickers —
The moment you’ve all been waiting for.
This week’s — this month’s — this year’s — number one.
The one that’s been sitting at the top of the chart since October 2024 and shows absolutely no signs whatsoever of coming down —
Not ‘arf —
Keir Starmer! — Net Minus Sixty-Six! The worst net satisfaction rating Ipsos has recorded in nearly fifty years of asking — recorded in September 2025, confirmed in November 2025, and still historically low as of this week!
Now. Before we play him out, flop pickers, it’s worth acknowledging something.
He came in with four hundred and twelve seats. The biggest Labour majority since Blair. Fourteen years of Conservative government gone in a single evening.
The country breathed out. And breathed out. And breathed out. And then stopped breathing entirely.
Labour’s vote share was thirty-three point seven percent. The smallest of any majority government since records began in 1830. No. Not half past six, flop pickers.’
The country hadn’t really voted for Labour. It had voted against the Conservatives in every direction at once, and first-past-the-post had converted that fragmentation into something that looked, from the outside, like a mandate.
It was considerably thinner than it looked. Marginally better than a salad leaf, perhaps. Just marginally, mind. As they say, up north.
The cracks were there before he walked through the door. The landslide papered over them. Paper, as it turns out, is not a structural material.
The winter fuel payment cut — announced with a bluntness that managed to target pensioners with surgical political ineptitude. The employer’s National Insurance rise. The farmers’ inheritance tax, so perfectly calibrated to produce photogenic tractors outside Parliament that you’d swear Reform had commissioned it themselves.
The Tate Modern missing out, on this occasion. Though it would have made a marvellous installation. Off red in colour. Of course.
Perhaps only a shark in formaldehyde could have punctuated the occasion more accurately.
Then Peter Mandelson. Ambassador to Washington.
Peter Mandelson.
Although, rearrange the letters of Ambassador and what do you get?
Badassador.
The perfect title for someone who represents an edgy brand, a rebellious community, or simply handles their business with unmatched confidence.
Peter Mandelson was none of those things. But the title fits the chaos he left behind.
He didn’t just appoint a controversial figure. He appointed a controversial figure who then had to be removed for lying about Jeffrey Epstein. That’s not a misjudgement. That’s a masterclass in how to answer a question nobody was asking.
Worth asking, though, quietly, who needed all of this to happen. Reform’s membership figures tell their own story. So does the Green Party’s victory in the 2026 Gorton and Denton by-election — a seat Labour lost to Green candidate Hannah Spencer, coming third. So does Nigel Farage’s diary.
And then this week. What Wikipedia is already calling the 2026 United Kingdom government crisis. Ninety-two of his own MPs calling for him to go. Wes Streeting sitting across from him Thursday morning for a meeting that lasted less than twenty minutes.
That’s not a negotiation.
That’s a notification. Delivered, signed, and back out through the door before the tea went cold.
Seventy-four percent of the British public now think he won’t win the next election. That includes fifty-nine percent of people who voted Labour in 2024. Likely not about to vote again.
Is it practical? Is it logical? What’s the likely outcome?
You already know. You worked it out before I got there.
His own voters have stopped believing he can win. Ladies and gentlemen — your number one. Still in the building. Won’t take requests. Refuses to leave the stage.
Here’s the thing though, flop pickers.
He’s not a bad man. Former Director of Public Prosecutions. Barrister of genuine distinction. The leader who dragged Labour back from the Corbyn years and delivered the landslide. Only to create a different kind of landslide within all of two years in office.
All of that is true. Every word of it.
And somewhere in that gap — between what he was and what the moment needed — is where the real story lives. Not the comedy. Not the chart. The genuine human cost of a serious man deployed in the wrong role at the wrong time.
The problem was never who he was. It was what the moment needed. Those two things turned out to be different in ways that no amount of competence or careful management could bridge.
He came to govern a country. The country had already decided it didn’t want to be governed. It wanted something it couldn’t quite name. He couldn’t give it that either. And the gap between those two things is exactly where minus sixty-six lives.
Minus sixty-six. Don’t forget.
Nearly fifty years of Prime Ministers, all of them leaving a number behind when they went.
His is the worst.
He built it himself. One decision at a time. Over six hundred and seventy-nine days. Or, 113 round trips to the moon. Mind you. Achieving construction and deconstruction simultaneously isn’t something they teach at space, or law school. To the best of my knowledge.
And he’s still there. Just about. Hanging on to the only part left of this metaphorical Titanic. The toilet paper dispenser.
Still saying he’s won every fight he’s ever been in. Pillows and paper bags excepted.
Some people climb Everest. Some people run marathons. Some people spend six hundred and seventy-nine days dismantling their own government until Ipsos hands them a number nobody has ever seen before.
There is something almost geological about it. The slow accumulation. The weight of it. The silence after.
What the country does next — that’s the ninety percent nobody’s talking about. The ten percent happened in Downing Street. The ninety percent happens everywhere else. In polling booths. In living rooms. In conversations that don’t make the papers.
The lengths some people will go to get themselves into the Guinness Book of Records.
Not ‘arf, Keir. Not ‘arf.
It takes a special kind of skill.
Presumably one that requires a law degree.
After all this dies down, he should stick with the bar.
Presumably the one that serves copious amounts of alcohol to drown his sorrows.
Now. Before the comments section does what comments sections do —
“This is unfair to Starmer.”
Ipsos compiled the chart. We just read it out. Take it up with them. They’ve been doing this since 1977 and they don’t appear to have a vendetta.
“The polling will recover.”
It’s been historically low since September 2025. The May 2026 local elections saw Labour lose more council seats than any governing party in over three decades. Welsh Labour ended a hundred years of Labour control of Wales. Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar publicly called for Starmer to resign. That’s not a dip. That’s a geological feature. You don’t recover from a geological feature. You build around it and hope nobody notices.
“You’re helping Reform by publishing this.”
Reform’s membership figures were climbing before this piece existed. They’ll continue climbing after it. The suggestion that not mentioning minus sixty-six makes it go away is the political equivalent of closing your eyes on a rollercoaster. The rollercoaster is unimpressed.
“Ipsos is just one pollster.”
YouGov had him at minus fifty-seven in January 2026 — joint lowest of any Prime Minister they have ever recorded, bar Liz Truss. Opinium had him at minus forty-six in the same period. The only poll in which Starmer is performing well is the one that hasn’t been conducted yet, by a polling company that doesn’t exist, commissioned by a think tank with a very specific brief. We await the results.
“Blair was worse. Thatcher was worse. Major was worse.”
They were not worse. That is the point of the chart. The chart has been running since 1977. The chart is not subjective. The chart simply counts. Minus sixty-six is the number at the top. His name is next to it. These are facts. Facts are, famously, indifferent to feelings.
“This isn’t serious political analysis.”
Neither was the lettuce. It still won.
“You’re just a blogger.”
Correct. No press card. No party. No advertiser. No proprietor. No party whip. No career to protect. No invitation to withdraw. Just the numbers, the history, and Alan Freeman’s ghost demanding we count them down properly.
Not ‘arf.
This has been Pick of the Flops.
Written by John Langley — founder and publisher of The Almighty Gob, Bristol’s independent publication. Independent Bristol mayoral candidate 2016 and 2021. Author of The Sexual Philanthropist. No press card. No party. No tribal allegiance.
thealmightygob.com
© 2026 John Langley / The Almighty Gob. Where reproduced, John Langley must be named as source in full.
Sources and Citations.
Polling Data.
Ipsos Political Monitor — Prime Ministerial Satisfaction Ratings 1977–2026: https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/political-monitor
Gideon Skinner, Senior Director of UK Politics, Ipsos — September 2025 statement confirming Starmer’s net satisfaction rating of -66 as the lowest recorded since Ipsos began asking in 1977
YouGov Political Favourability Ratings, January 2026 — Starmer net favourability -57, joint lowest of any Prime Minister bar Liz Truss: https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/53907-political-favourability-ratings-january-2026
YouGov Political Favourability Ratings, May 2026: https://yougov.com/en-gb/articles/54772-political-favourability-ratings-may-2026
FullFact — “Is Sir Keir Starmer the most unpopular PM in recent times?”, February 2026: https://fullfact.org/politics/keir-starmer-popularity/
Wikipedia — Named Entities.
James Callaghan: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Callaghan
Winter of Discontent: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_of_Discontent
Tony Blair: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Blair
Iraq War: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_War
Gordon Brown: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_Brown
Global Financial Crisis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007%E2%80%932008_financial_crisis
David Cameron: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Cameron
Theresa May: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theresa_May
Geoffrey Howe’s resignation speech: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey_Howe%27s_resignation_speech
Margaret Thatcher: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Thatcher
Poll Tax: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poll_tax_(Great_Britain)
John Major: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Major
Black Wednesday: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Wednesday
Birmingham bin dispute: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birmingham_bin_dispute
Boris Johnson: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Johnson
Partygate: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partygate
Liz Truss: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liz_Truss
October 2022 United Kingdom government crisis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_2022_United_Kingdom_government_crisis
Keir Starmer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keir_Starmer
2026 United Kingdom government crisis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_United_Kingdom_government_crisis
Peter Mandelson: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Mandelson
Wes Streeting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wes_Streeting
Andy Burnham: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Burnham
2026 Gorton and Denton by-election: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Gorton_and_Denton_by-election
Reform UK: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reform_UK
Alan Freeman: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Freeman
Pick of the Pops: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pick_of_the_Pops
The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living (Damien Hirst): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Physical_Impossibility_of_Death_in_the_Mind_of_Someone_Living
Tate Modern: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tate_Modern
The Onion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Onion
Wikidata
The Almighty Gob (Q139104487): https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q139104487
John Langley (Q139105363): https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q139105363
Further Reading
France 24 — “Why is the UK’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer so unpopular?”, May 2026: https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20260513-why-is-the-uk-embattled-prime-minister-keir-starmer-so-unpopular
Al Jazeera — “Who could challenge Keir Starmer for the UK PM’s job?”, May 2026: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/5/11/who-could-challenge-keir-starmer-for-the-uk-pms-job-meet-the-candidates
NPR — “Keir Starmer’s party lost big in UK local elections. Here’s what comes next”, May 2026: https://www.npr.org/2026/05/10/nx-s1-5817491/uk-elections-keir-starmer-resign-reform-green
The Conversation — “Prime ministers have always faced political scandals — so why can’t they weather them now?”, 2026: https://theconversation.com/prime-ministers-have-always-faced-political-scandals-so-why-cant-they-weather-them-now-281357
My dad used to call Top of the Pops "Flop of the Burps". Which is almost tangentially relevant to your piece...