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The poll which shows Jeremy Corbyn has a big problem to overcome

Jeremy Corbyn has been in office less than a week and has already faced some of the most intense media scrutiny the British press has to offer.

It looks like it will only get worse, thanks to the brutal results of a YouGov poll commissioned by The Times.

The poll of 1,649 British adults gauged the reaction to Corbyn’s victory, as well as early judgements on the new Labour leader.

It wasn’t optimistic.

There was a mixed reaction across party supporters to his election, with only 31 per cent expressing positive sentiment to his victory, compared to 34 per cent expressing negative.

In addition, the public as a whole believed he would do a poor job as Labour leader. Only in Labour supporters did optimists outweigh pessimists.

In addition 61 per cent believed Labour were unlikely to win at the next election under his leadership, compared to only 17 per cent who thought it was a likely outcome.

The issue with confidence in Corbyn deepens when it comes to perceptions of his policies.

Only a small portion of the public appear to trust Corbyn to make the right decisions across a range of issues.

(All issues published in YouGov results included)

He gathers the most trust in the public with the NHS, with 40 per cent believing he would make the right decision, compared to 34 per cent who would not trust him.

The majority of the public do not trust him with defence or with managing the economy, and the political parties to the right of Labour have little confidence in him.

In the May election, 66.1 per cent of the electorate cast votes, which represented the highest number in 18 years.

If Corbyn is to appeal to voters already allied to parties he may have little luck, as these polls suggest - but if he can engage those disinterested in the current political climate, who knows what could change?

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