GR Decides - Tory Leadership

Tomous wrote:Wow, that's a huge spin by the media

The headlines I saw said Hunt had "branded leave voters Little England" which is pretty much a total lie reading the actual tweet.

Rex Kramer wrote:He only needed to drop the 'little' and he'd have been fine.

Even though it's true.

The gap between Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt has narrowed slightly at the end of the first full week of campaigning in the battle for the keys to 10 Downing Street, an exclusive poll reveals today.

Mr Johnson is still just ahead as having what it takes to be a good prime minister, researchers at Ipsos MORI found — but both men’s ratings have improved after a week of campaigning that has seen the lesser-known Mr Hunt benefit from increased exposure.

The survey for the Evening Standard found no evidence of damage to Mr Johnson’s image from the furore when police were called to his partner’s flat last week. Instead, his rating is up among both the public and Conservative supporters.

Key findings show:

Mr Johnson could marginally improve the Tory vote share if he was leader rather than Mr Hunt. Some 36 per cent said they would consider voting Conservative with him in charge, compared with 32 per cent if Mr Hunt was leader. The data suggested that Mr Johnson was more attractive to voters who support other parties.

Some 41 per cent think Mr Johnson could get a good Brexit deal, compared with 37 per cent for Mr Hunt. Over half of voters think neither could do it.
Mr Johnson beat his rival for having “lots of personality” by 79 to 18, as “patriotic” by 64-50 but was seen as more “out of touch” by 62-53 and “more style than substance” by 54-29.

Mr Hunt scored highest as a “capable leader” by 37 to 33, “good in a crisis” by 32-27, sound judgment by 36-27, a good representative for Britain on the world stage by 41-28 and “more honest than most” by 31-25.

The proportion of the public who think Mr Johnson would be a good prime minister is up from 25 per cent to 34 per cent. The proportion who disagree is down from 64 to 53 per cent.

Mr Hunt’s “good PM” score has jumped from 19 to 31 per cent, with the proportion who do not think he has the right ingredients coming down from 52 to 42.

Johnson & “Johnson”
The further adventures of Boris

The Telegraph pays him £275,000 a year. The Evening Standard is edited by a fellow Bullingdon boy. The Guardian is too puritanical to get properly stuck into the muck and journalists at the Mail are already being courted for potential comms gigs at No.10 – so it looks like no-one's going to bother asking this question unless we do...

Pundits have wondered why Boris Johnson and his team seem so keen to avoid addressing the substance of this "lovers' tiff". If anyone could bluster his way through some half-arsed excuse and emerge unscathed, it's him.

Could it be that the row he had with Carrie Symonds in her Camberwell flat actually went on significantly longer than has been reported so far – and that it contained many more personal details about the current state of his relationships?

YouGov wrote:Jeremy Hunt now leads Boris Johnson as the public's preferred successor by 41% to 29%. Among Conservative voters, Johnson is ahead by 48% to 39%.

As the Conservative leadership race comes down to the final two, Boris Johnson is falling back among the public, but perceptions of Jeremy Hunt are improving.

A quarter (25%) of people now think that Boris Johnson would be a good Prime Minister, and 58% think the opposite (a net figure of -33, compared to -18 a fortnight ago).

Views of Jeremy Hunt are moving in the opposite direction: 28% believe he’d make a good Prime Minister, and 43% imagine he’d make a bad one - a net figure of -14, compared to -24 a fortnight ago).

There have been similar increases across all questions on qualities and personality traits that we asked, with perceptions of Johnson falling across the board and perceptions of Hunt rising.

Despite this, Boris Johnson continues to have better ratings on being likeable and doing a good job of Brexit. Jeremy Hunt is now seen as more honest than Johnson, less divisive and is significantly more likely to be seen as having a good moral character.

It is impossible to tell whether the changes are because of the coverage of Boris Johnson's personal life, the campaign itself, or just a reflection of Jeremy Hunt becoming the sole "anti-Boris" candidate, and therefore being seen more positively by those people opposed to Johnson's coronation.

Whatever the reason, it’s important to remember that while Hunt may have pulled ahead among the public, it will ultimately be the Conservative members who have the final decision.

That's not to say that the public's attitude towards the candidates will not influence how Conservative party members vote. One of Boris Johnson's attractions to the Conservative Party has always been his reputation as an election winner, as someone who can win votes off people who would not otherwise vote Conservative. This latest poll casts some doubt even on that.

Last week we ran a test asking how people would vote in four different scenarios, based on whether Boris Johnson or Jeremy Hunt were leader and whether the Government had managed to deliver Brexit or not. The results suggested that while Boris Johnson did outperform Jeremy Hunt, how well the Conservatives did was far more dependent upon whether they delivered Brexit.

Even that small Johnson advantage has now vanished. Asked the same hypothetical question - if Brexit is delivered, then Johnson and Hunt would deliver identical 10 point Conservative leads, both on 33%. If the government has failed to deliver Brexit then either leader would lose to the Brexit party, with Hunt on 21%, Johnson on 20%.

If the Conservatives are looking towards Boris Johnson as a magic election winner, the evidence is simply no longer there. A decade ago he had a reputation as the Tory who could reach voters other Tories could not, and significantly outperformed his party in the 2012 mayoral election. However our latest polling does not suggest he offers any innate electoral advantage over Jeremy Hunt.

DML wrote:

Johnson & “Johnson”
The further adventures of Boris

The Telegraph pays him £275,000 a year. The Evening Standard is edited by a fellow Bullingdon boy. The Guardian is too puritanical to get properly stuck into the muck and journalists at the Mail are already being courted for potential comms gigs at No.10 – so it looks like no-one's going to bother asking this question unless we do...

Pundits have wondered why Boris Johnson and his team seem so keen to avoid addressing the substance of this "lovers' tiff". If anyone could bluster his way through some half-arsed excuse and emerge unscathed, it's him.

Could it be that the row he had with Carrie Symonds in her Camberwell flat actually went on significantly longer than has been reported so far – and that it contained many more personal details about the current state of his relationships?

KK wrote:Just released today:

YouGov wrote:Jeremy Hunt now leads Boris Johnson as the public's preferred successor by 41% to 29%. Among Conservative voters, Johnson is ahead by 48% to 39%.

As the Conservative leadership race comes down to the final two, Boris Johnson is falling back among the public, but perceptions of Jeremy Hunt are improving.

A quarter (25%) of people now think that Boris Johnson would be a good Prime Minister, and 58% think the opposite (a net figure of -33, compared to -18 a fortnight ago).

Views of Jeremy Hunt are moving in the opposite direction: 28% believe he’d make a good Prime Minister, and 43% imagine he’d make a bad one - a net figure of -14, compared to -24 a fortnight ago).

There have been similar increases across all questions on qualities and personality traits that we asked, with perceptions of Johnson falling across the board and perceptions of Hunt rising.

Despite this, Boris Johnson continues to have better ratings on being likeable and doing a good job of Brexit. Jeremy Hunt is now seen as more honest than Johnson, less divisive and is significantly more likely to be seen as having a good moral character.

It is impossible to tell whether the changes are because of the coverage of Boris Johnson's personal life, the campaign itself, or just a reflection of Jeremy Hunt becoming the sole "anti-Boris" candidate, and therefore being seen more positively by those people opposed to Johnson's coronation.

Whatever the reason, it’s important to remember that while Hunt may have pulled ahead among the public, it will ultimately be the Conservative members who have the final decision.

That's not to say that the public's attitude towards the candidates will not influence how Conservative party members vote. One of Boris Johnson's attractions to the Conservative Party has always been his reputation as an election winner, as someone who can win votes off people who would not otherwise vote Conservative. This latest poll casts some doubt even on that.

Last week we ran a test asking how people would vote in four different scenarios, based on whether Boris Johnson or Jeremy Hunt were leader and whether the Government had managed to deliver Brexit or not. The results suggested that while Boris Johnson did outperform Jeremy Hunt, how well the Conservatives did was far more dependent upon whether they delivered Brexit.

Even that small Johnson advantage has now vanished. Asked the same hypothetical question - if Brexit is delivered, then Johnson and Hunt would deliver identical 10 point Conservative leads, both on 33%. If the government has failed to deliver Brexit then either leader would lose to the Brexit party, with Hunt on 21%, Johnson on 20%.

If the Conservatives are looking towards Boris Johnson as a magic election winner, the evidence is simply no longer there. A decade ago he had a reputation as the Tory who could reach voters other Tories could not, and significantly outperformed his party in the 2012 mayoral election. However our latest polling does not suggest he offers any innate electoral advantage over Jeremy Hunt.

poshrule_uk wrote:I kinda want borris to win, just so the brexiteers can see him strawberry float it up

A minister and a former Conservative MP have asked the information watchdog to investigate whether Boris Johnson’s campaign to become party leader is breaching data protection laws.

Harriet Baldwin, a foreign office minister, and Ben Howlett, a former MP for Bath, have also asked the party’s chair, Brandon Lewis, to launch an inquiry after receiving allegedly unsolicited requests for support from the BackBoris.com.

Both suspect that Johnson’s campaign has relied upon old email lists or phone numbers from previous campaigns to ask for support.

twitter.com/wallaceme/status/1147030549229375488

YouGov wrote:Trust Deficit: The security services allegedly kept certain information from Boris Johnson when he was Foreign Secretary, leading to questions about the extent to which the Tory candidate could be trusted as Prime Minister

Brits are slightly more likely to think Jeremy Hunt (29%) is more trustworthy than Boris Johnson (22%).

But half (49%) don’t know.

Conservatives are more likely to say Johnson is most trustworthy (37%), compared to Hunt (30%)

Donald Trump would make a good British prime minister, say Conservative Party members

The YouGov poll of Conservative party members for Channel 4, found that 54% believed Trump would make a good prime minister of the UK, as opposed to 43% who disagreed.

The poll paints a stark picture of the views of the Tory electorate, on issues of crime, race, religion and sexuality, which is close to that of Trump himself. It found that:

58% of Conservative members would like the return of the death penalty.
56% believe Islam is a threat to the British way of life.
42% believe having people from a wide variety of racial and cultural backgrounds has damaged British society.
46% believe concerns about climate change have been exaggerated.
49% believe schools should not be required to teach children about LGBT relationships.