Voters Think Starmer Would Be Better PM Than Johnson, Political Poll Suggests

Good Morning. It is the second day of the Conservative Party online conference and, as is customary for Sunday’s conference, Boris Johnson is being interviewed by Andrew Marr on the BBC. The Andrew Marr Show starts at 9 a.m. and Johnson should be on shortly after 9:30 a.m.

It is the first conservative conference since Johnson won an 80-seat majority in the general election, and in a normal political cycle, this should be a moment of triumph. But 2020 has been anything but normal and instead, as Michael Savage reports in the Observer, the conference is being held with conservatives increasingly concerned about Johnson’s lackluster performance as prime minister and party leader.

For starters, Johnson now ranks second in the ConservativeHome website’s monthly survey of how party members rate the performance of cabinet members. Only Gavin Williamson, the education secretary, is considered worse off. It’s just a poll, of course, but the ConservativeHome party member poll is seen as a reliable guide to opinion in the party, because its findings are usually pretty much in line with the results of internal party elections.

As editor of ConservativeHome Paul goodman explains in her article, it is not unprecedented for a conservative PM to get a negative rating on this table – Theresa May did a lot worse at one point – but nonetheless, “it’s a rotten springboard from which to jump into the party conference “.

And there is worse news today in the Mail on Sunday, which has published details of an extensive poll, using polls and focus groups, conducted by Lord Ashcroft, the former vice chairman of the Conservative party who is now a polling specialist.

Here is an excerpt from Glen owenDrafting.

Thirty-seven percent of voters think Sir Keir would be the best prime minister, ahead of Johnson by 30 percent.

And when asked to choose between parties under their current leaders, 53 percent choose Labor and 47 percent choose Conservatives.

The research also suggests that support for the Conservatives in the ‘Red Wall’ seats where Labor voters traded the Conservatives by the thousands to hand an 80-seat majority to Johnson last year is also reasonably soft, at 31 percent. saying they would switch back to Labor, while 69 percent would stay with the Conservatives.

No 10 will be concerned by Lord Ashcroft’s finding that only 27 percent believe Johnson is doing a good job, while 21 percent think he would be a good prime minister ‘in different circumstances’ and 39 percent think that it would not be a good premiere whatever the situation.

And here is an excerpt from Lord AshcrofIt is the own account of his findings. His full 23-page report is here (pdf).

While 27 percent in my survey said he was doing a good job, one in five said he could be a good prime minister in different circumstances, but he wasn’t the kind of leader we need right now. Some wonder if he has really recovered from his own encounter with Covid. In my survey, the most frequently chosen words to describe him were “out of reach” and “incompetent.”

However, as always with surveys, it is important to keep the findings in perspective. The Conservative Party has consistently been ahead of Labor in opinion polls all this year. Its median lead has been falling (from 16 points on average in January to three points on average in September, according to an analysis by psephologist David Cowling), but so far only one poll has put Labor ahead. The ruling parties often lag far behind the opposition and continue to win.

Here is the agenda for the day.

8.30 am: Brandon Lewis, the secretary of Northern Ireland, and Douglas Ross, the Scottish Conservative leader, are interviewed at Sky’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday.

9 am: Boris Johnson is interviewed on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show. Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow health secretary, is also showing up.

1.30 pm: Robert Jenrick, the community secretary, participates in a question and answer session at the Conservative online conference.

2 pm: Matt Hancock, the health secretary, speaks at the conference.

15:00 h: Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, speaks at the conference.

4 pm: Robert Buckland, the attorney general, speaks at the conference.

Today I will mainly focus on the Conservative Party conference, although the broader developments of the coronavirus in the UK will also be covered. Here’s our global coronavirus live blog.

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