New Labour leader venturing into a landscape of change

THE opposition Labour Party will announce its new leader on Saturday after a contest which has lasted since January. While the party may now get a polling boost, the new leader faces a key, unanticipated challenge in that he or she will be entering a political landscape transformed by the last few weeks of coronavirus crisis.

Since the onset of the virus outbreak, Prime Minister Boris Johnson's poll numbers have tracked upwards significantly, like that of many other world leaders, including US President Donald Trump. Last week, Ipsos MORI showed satisfaction with Mr Johnson's performance was 52 per cent, up a significant 16 percentage points from early December, before the general election when his approval was only 36 per cent.

This appears to have stemmed from what US political scientists call the "rally around the flag" effect, rather than having anything to do with Mr Johnson's actual performance in handling the crisis so far. Indeed, the prime minister has received some significant criticism for his handling of the crisis, including his failure to introduce much wider testing, especially for frontline health workers.