UK polling…

Perhaps not entirely surprising:

Labour leader Keir Starmer has overtaken Boris Johnson as the public preferred choice for Prime Minister, according to the latest Opinium poll for The Observer.

Starmer is preferred to lead the country by 37% of voters polled on Thursday and Friday last week, compared with 35% who say Johnson would be the best Prime Minister.

Though:

While the Tories remain four points ahead of Starmer’s party on 43% to Labour’s 39%, the gap has closed from over 20% in February and early March when the Tories enjoyed a regular commanding lead as the country rallied behind the government, and Jeremy Corbyn was reaching the end of his time as Labour leader.

Which makes the events at the weekend in relation to the sacking of Rebecca Long-Bailey seem both contrived and cynical and part of a broader push to reposition the image of the BLP. But perhaps worse, they seem unnecessary even in that most cynical of calculations.