The polling chart that won’t help Sunak keep his job – politicalbetting.com

At the weekend yet another pollster, Opinium, came out with Sunak’s ratings in sharp decline and there is little doubt that Rishi is struggling with public opinion. The chart says it all with the PM’s net rating down to minus 30%.
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Oh.
Tory MPs have no idea what number is going to come up if they roll the leadership dice and dumping Sunak will only help if his replacement can clearly do a better job. Firstly, can someone do a better job of both articulating an attractive vision and running a government, and secondly, if there is such a person (or such people) what are their chances of winning and what are the risks if they don't?
I think that barring an almighty screw-up over a particular issue, Sunak is there for the duration now. It's just too disruptive and too risky for too little return to change leader yet again - particularly when running a leadership contest is, of itself, likely to hit Tory polling merely for the navel-gazing.
The problem is not the leader; the problem is the party.
The issue is they wouldn't get her as leader.
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I have just checked your posting history. On nearly every day for several weeks it seems you have submitted a post ramping up the Lib Dems' chances in Mid Beds, and relatively little on anything else. I think you're taking us for fools. It's almost like you're a Putinbot operating from Lib Dem HQ.
Mentally ill people strike out at the first people they see, which seems to have been the case here.
Her time.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/10/15/liz-truss-growth-commission-alternative-growth-budget/
"Liz Truss task force to challenge Treasury orthodoxy with alternative ‘Growth Budget’"
Lab: 47% (+4)
Con: 27% (-1)
LibDem: 10% (-2%)
Fieldwork 13th-16th October.
The Budget won't change anything. A steady-as-she-goes one will make no impact; a radical tax-cutting one might unsettle the markets and even if it doesn't, will completely cut across everything Sunak's been saying since the 2022 leadership elections and will be so transparently cynical that it won't work (and Sunak will not be able to defend it in interviews because he's commendably rubbish at lying).
Also, calling an election in March will be right off the back of a really serious NHS winter, which will have been all over the media.
https://twitter.com/DeltapollUK/status/1713917188363468986?t=rI2BNOfVrYrytBqSTMwYkA&s=19
Have you appropriated the Tories' username?
But I fully expect a LAB win and almost certainly an overall majority.
No, the problem was Liz Truss, who transformed normal mid-term unpopularity into a 20-point deficit, from which Sunak hasn't recovered, and from which he seems to lack the political skills to recover. Though given rapidly falling living standards, rising and general exhaustion, I think even Tony Blair in his prime would have difficulty being popular at the moment.
Con 28 (-1)
LDs 10 (-1)
11-13 Oct
Johnson was Johnson. Enough people could write him off as sui generis that had the Tories reverted to something normal, they'd have been forgiven his behaviour. The point of no return came when Truss blew everything up - not just because she did but because Tory MPs and members were willing to back her, despite her nonsense; indeed, because of her nonsense. They own that.
And Jan 2025 as really really desperate!
https://www.opinium.com/polling-tables-archive/
In terms of polling, while Sunak's ratings have dropped markedly, the overall picture hasn't: Labour has retained a lead in the mid- to high-teens for about a year now. I don't think things will automatically get worse for the Tories. They may but then again they may not - and politicians tend to be an optimistic lot.
The former president of the United States is using data protection laws to sue a London-based intelligence consultancy founded by a former MI6 agent who produced a dossier of alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Hugh Tomlinson KC, Trump’s lawyer, told the court that his client “brings this case because he seeks vindication of his legal rights”.
Trump wants to prove that the “shocking and scandalous claims about [his] personal conduct” are false and “intends to discharge that burden by giving evidence in this court”, he added.
Christopher Steele, 59, who ran the Secret Intelligence Service’s Russia desk before co-founding Orbis Business Intelligence, was in court for the preliminary hearing.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/donald-trump-sue-british-spy-christopher-steele-dossier-court-trial-jqt7h6cxq
The earlier that you're kicked out of office, the earlier that you can expect to return to office.
The most charitable thing you can say about him is that he's not as shit as his two immediate predecessors.
There has been polling on the effect of comparative leaders, by More in Common.
See
https://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2023/08/18/what-would-be-happening-if-corbyn-was-still-lab-leader/
When I looked at the data tables then available, I found that, as well as Corbyn, More in Common also asked about Johnson in the same poll and found that the polling deficit that Johnson would have generated would have been significantly smaller than with Sunak as PM. But the data now seems to have been removed from their tables. Maybe there's still something on X?
Anyway, even if Labour does become unpopular - at they probably will, though they're finally putting a positive platform together - there's no guarantee the public will return to the Tories. That's what Labour banked on in 2010-15. And that's assuming the Tories don't go completely bananas in opposition, which is what most parties who've been in government a long time tend to.
As for Penny Mordaunt, let's not forget just how abysmal she was when she did stand in the leadership contest. Admittedly Liz Truss was even worse, and that didn't seem to be a barrier to her becoming leader, but in terms of improving their electoral chances, the party would be mad to even think about it.
They are done up like a kipper, as it were.
As soon as mortgage interest rates got hit and inflation hit, that upset most people in the coalition.
The Budget, even though it can't be an immediate giveaway, could set a programme of tax cuts over several years with some rabbits out of the hat on IHT etc. It's a decent set-piece to go into an election on "this is all only possible if you give Rishi a mandate..."
Furthermore, the May local elections are likely to be really bad, partly because the Tories have a high base from 2021 (about half of which were deferred from 2020 due to COVID). The news today suggests that, while Bone might fight the dying of the light for a while, there's a by-election coming in Wellingborough, and there may always be more to cause a nuisance.
As you say, the longer it goes on, the more the cries of "chicken" grow louder.
The obvious thing against that is a large Labour poll lead. But Theresa May knows polling leads can be a bit deceptive, and it wouldn't surprise me if Sunak got a bit of credit for going in the Spring despite the polling position, and found himself with at least a little momentum.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qg5m7j7e-N4
Labour's new 1-minute video shows Keir Starmer standing up, sitting down, and walking around.
"The headline More in Common VI with Sunak and Starmer as leaders is:
Lab 44%
Con 29%
LD 11%
Ref 6%
Grn 6%
SNP 3%
Apply the net change found if Corbyn were to replace Starmer and you would get
Lab 34% (-10)
Con 36% (+7)
LD 15% (+4)
Ref 6%
Grn 6%
SNP 3%
Incidentally, More in Common also asked about the impact if Johnson not Sunak were Conservative leader and found that the Labour lead under Starmer would fall by 6%. The gloss really has worn off Sunak."
The campaign would feature the anniversaries of the Liz Truss premiership, Labour's grid would write itself.
The country feels rudderless and hopeless right now. It felt like this before the Truss debacle. and there's no evidence that had Sunak replaced Johnson we would feel any better towards the Tory Party than we do now
But the polls looked bad and the promises looked shaky, so he switched to a populist appeal which he doesn't really have the charisma to carry off, and that is completely at odds with Sunak Mk.1.
Even if there were some untapped talent waiting in the wings, a fourth PM in one parliament is beyond ludicrous. Personally I think there should be a GE if the party in charge decide to change leader
- Continuing with the Rwanda nonsense
- Compounding this by campaigning on 'Stop the Boats' when he hasn't and won't
- Cancelling (if he actually has!) a huge infrastructure project in an announcement which seems to have been put together on the back of a fag packet in a hotel room in Manchester and which fell apart within 24 hours
- Totally mishandling the Net Zero issue, where the decisions may have been rational but the presentation made them look arbitrary and irrational
- Announcing plans for education which are clearly not thought out and which will never happen
He was meant to bring stability and properly-considered policy making. Instead the chaos has continued.
Boris managed to the BS of I won't be a typical Tory, I am going to spend spend spend, throw money at levelling up, haaazzaahh.
What more do you want?
https://x.com/HTScotPol/status/1713914933560180846?s=20
See Eat Out to Help Covid Out.
Will you be voting for Sirs Ed or Keir, next time? Or sticking with the Tories?
What exactly is the attraction?
Kudos due.
Partly her backstory (if you focus on the "worked at McDonalds/did an engineering degree" bit, rather than the "daughter of a GP and an globetrotting academic/law and financial consultant/worked at the Spectator" bit).
Partly because of the Father Ted ("not a racist") bit.
I can see the point, but by itself that shouldn't be enough.