Labour's Jeremy Corbyn overtakes Theresa May in UK's popularity ratings

In a significant turnaround of fortunes, Britain's Opposition Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn has edged past embattled Prime Minister Theresa May in popularity ratings for the UK's top job for the first time today, according to a new survey.

Prime Minister May seems to have taken a major hit with her snap general election gamble backfiring earlier this month and losing her a majority in Parliament, the survey claims.

The survey polls Corbyn at 35 percent as a popular choice for Prime Minister with May on 34 percent and nearly a third (30 percent) saying they were unsure.

In the days before the general election vote on June 8, May was on 43 per cent on the question—"Who would be more capable as Prime Minister" — compared to Corbyn's 32 percent, representing a major turnaround of fortunes for the two leaders, said the YouGov poll for 'The Times'.

A total of 1,670 people took part in the poll, which will come as a blow for May, who has been under fire after the Conservatives lost their parliamentary majority in the general election.

The Tories are now negotiating terms for a minority government via a non-binding agreement with Northern Ireland's Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), which is yet to be finalised. Corbyn has repeatedly stated that his party was a "government in waiting".

Meanwhile, the Labour leader told a trade union that employees aged 16 and 17 should have the same minimum wage as everyone else.

That would more than double the pay of most teen workers — who can now earn as little as £4.05 an hour.

But it would also risk damaging the economy by sending business costs soaring and could see hundreds of thousands of teenagers sacked because they are too expensive to employ. The Labour manifesto vowed to raise the minimum wage to £10 an hour for workers aged 18

and over.