Dire warning to ‘tainted’ Tories

‘A party so exhausted, tainted and ill-disciplined’

Figures show the percentage of voters who believe that a government led by either Rishi Sunak or Sir Keir Starmer would do a good job in these 12 different policy areas The cost of living

TORIES

SIR KEIR Starmer is ranked ahead of Rishi Sunak in nearly all areas, according to bombshell polling that reveals the size of the mountain the Prime Minister must climb to win the next General Election.

Analysis by former Conservative deputy chairman Lord Ashcroft found that out of 12 different issues – such as the cost of living, the NHS, and Brexit – voters rate Sir Keir’s Labour ahead of Mr Sunak’s Conservatives on 11, including such traditionally strong Tory areas as immigration. The Tories are rated more highly on only one: national security and defence.

Following the exclusive research, given to The Mail on Sunday, Lord Ashcroft concludes that ‘the Conservative brand is in as bad a state as I have seen in all my years of polling’, with just seven per cent of respondents describing the party as ‘competent and capable’ – traditionally a Tory strength.

Although Mr Sunak and Sir Keir are closely matched in terms of personal ratings, the research suggests that the mayhem of Liz Truss’s short-lived Premiership – and its market-crashing Budget – has wrecked ‘what remained of the Tory reputation for financial competence’.

The polling is likely to deepen the sense of alarm among Tory MPs worried about keeping their seats at the next Election in the face of surveys that consistently put Labour more than 20 points ahead. The lack of a poll ‘bounce’ from Mr Sunak’s leadership victory and discontent over Jeremy Hunt’s tax-raising Autumn Statement have led to fears at Tory HQ of a mass exodus of MPs seeking a new career outside Parliament.

Focus groups run by Lord Ashcroft give credit to Mr Sunak’s ‘authority’ and his warnings about the risks of the Truss experiment, but question his grip on MPs.

One respondent said: ‘Everything he said would go wrong with Truss actually happened, but no one listened to him. It doesn’t really matter that he’s the best person for the job – the party is so broken that he’s not really able to do it.’ Others referred to Mr Sunak’s disputed reputation for ‘sticking the knife in Boris Johnson’.

Voters were not won over by Mr Sunak’s strategy of blaming the after-effects of Covid or the war in Ukraine for the country’s economic problems.

As for who would ‘do a better job running the British economy’, more chose Sir Keir and his Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves than Mr Sunak and Mr Hunt.

When those polled were given the names of 17 politicians from all parties and asked whether they felt ‘positively’ or ‘negatively’ about them, Sir Keir came top.

Home Secretary Suella Braverman ranked 16th, below Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, Labour Deputy Leader Angela Rayner, Lib Dem Leader Ed Davey and Labour’s Ed Miliband.

As a party, the Conservatives ranked behind Labour, the Green Party, the Lib Dems and Plaid Cymru.

Only 12 per cent of those polled reckoned that the Sunak Government would be successful at dealing with the issue of migrants crossing the Channel in small boats, while just 24 per cent thought it could cut NHS waiting lists. When voters were offered the choice of a Labour Government with Keir Starmer as PM, and a Conservative Government with Rishi Sunak as PM, Sir Keir won by 57 to 43.

The most chosen word for Mr Sunak in focus groups was ‘rich’, while for Sir Keir it was ‘boring’. Others for Mr Sunak were ‘competent’, ‘intelligent’ and ‘backstabber’, while for Sir Keir, they included ‘calm’, ‘honest’ and ‘weak’.

Lord Ashcroft says: ‘Sunak is up against John Major’s 1997 problem – a governing party that looked so exhausted, tainted and ill-disciplined that even a strongly recovering economy could not stave off defeat at the hands of a newly detoxified Labour opposition.’ With a nod to the World Cup, he claims that ‘in footballing terms, the Conservatives find themselves three goals down with the clock ticking’, although bringing Mr Sunak on as ‘a late substitution seems to have put the Tories back

the game and gives a glimmer of hope for extra time’.

In total, 5,210 adults, weighted to represent the British population, were polled online between October 8 and November 4. The full data is at LordAshcroftPolls.com.