KEIR Starmer has said he doesn’t not listen to "punters" or opinion polls when questioned on Labour’s dropping support in Scotland.
Speaking to media at the Scottish Labour conference on Sunday, the Prime Minister was asked about comments from the eminent pollster Professor John Curtice, who last week said he was the most unpopular politician in Scotland.
Commenting on Scottish Labour support having “drained away in all directions”, Curtice wrote in The Times: “Much of the blame lies in Westminster.
“Sir Keir Starmer emerges from today’s poll as Scotland’s least-liked politician, with a rating slightly worse even than that of Donald Trump. Even those who voted Labour in July give him the thumbs-down.”
Asked about the comments, Starmer said he had not even discussed the opinion polls with Scottish party leader Anas Sarwar.
“Since I've been in government, I've focused on delivering for the people of Scotland,” the Prime Minister said.
“I don’t get up and start rummaging around opinion polls or look at what punters are saying.
“I've been working with Anas [Sarwar], particularly in the last few weeks because Anas and I've been very closely working on the Grangemouth announcement.
“We've been focused on that. We've not even discussed the polls.”
The Grangemouth announcement referenced had been made in his speech to conference on Sunday morning. Starmer told delegates that the UK Government would provide £200 million to find a future for the site.
He later told media that he hoped that would bring in private investment of "three times that", so £600m for a total of £800m.
Starmer told journalists: "We’re so pleased we're able to make the announcement about Grangemouth because you will all remember the commitment I made before the election in relation to Grangemouth, and obviously what we've done is work up a really credible opportunity now.
"That's what I wanted to do, so I was really pleased to be able to make that announcement here today.
"It's a really important announcement for reasons that you all understand very, very well."
