More people think moon landings were faked than the number who believe PM is telling the truth about parties

People are more likely to believe the moon landings were faked than believe Boris Johnson is telling the truth about the alleged Christmas parties, according to a political pollster.

Opinium Research’s Head of Political Polling Chris Curtis this morning told BBC News that the string of party allegations have rocked the government’s popularity and ratings.

Curtis’s appearance on BBC News follows yet another allegation facing the government. This time, it’s been alleged that Downing Street staff were invited to a bring-your-own-booze (BYOB) event in May 2020.

Speaking on Tuesday morning, Curtis spoke of a poll published on December 8th, just after ITV published a leaked mock press conference from Downing Street.

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Curtis said: “One question we asked, which really sums up how bad this is for the government, was ‘do you think Boris Johnson is telling the truth about what’s happening?’.

“And just 12 per cent of people thought he was telling the truth.

“That’s fewer than the number of people who believe that the moon landings were fake, so there isn’t much trust in the prime minister when it comes to this issue among the British public at the moment.”

A 2019 poll from Opinium Research found that 21 per cent of UK adults believe that Apollo 11 mission was a hoax (which broke down into 8 per cent who believed it was definitely faked, and 13 per cent who said it was probably faked).

When it comes to the Christmas party allegations, just 12 per cent believed the Covid rules were followed at the supposed shindig, whereas 65 per cent believe they were not.

Commenting on Twitter, Curtis wrote that although these statistics relate to the Christmas allegations, “I would imagine you would get a similar (or worse) result if we asked about May.”

Just one in ten believe Boris Johnson told the truth when asked about the allegations, compared to 63 per cent who believed he was fibbing.

More Conservative voters were likely to believe him (20 per cent) in comparison to Labour voters (5 per cent).

Labour voters were significantly more likely to believe the prime minister was telling porkies (85 per cent) in comparison to just under half (46 per cent) of Conservative voters.

Curtis also noted that the prime minister’s approval ratings were at a low at the end of December, before making a slight recovery in the new year.

Either way, it looks like Sue Gray has her work cut out for her…