Whilst the net favourability of both Boris Johnson and Keir Starmer remains firmly in the negative, they have both seen a recent uptick in popularity

Johnson: -19 (+6)
Starmer: -23 (+7)

(Changes from 18 Aug)https://t.co/qmGdoW56SN pic.twitter.com/O8hjVBWlpk

— YouGov (@YouGov) September 6, 2021

The more the public see of Raab recently they appear to dislike him more. I suspect what most people will remember about Raab is his role in the ignominious withdrawal from Afghanistan and left many people who helped us at the mercy of the Taliban whilst he went and stayed on holiday.

Ladbrokes have a market up on whether Raab wins or doesn’t win ANY seat at the next general election, the 2019 election saw his majority slashed from 23,298 to 2,743 as the Lib Dems hoovered up plenty of Remainer voters but I think Raab should be safe with boundary changes, plus there’s not many other votes left for the Lib Dems to squeeze. At the next election there’s no way the Lib Dems will be able to flood all their target seats in the way they managed to do at the Chesham & Amersham by election.

Then there’s my view that Raab isn’t going to be as high profile at the next general election (I’m expecting him to be out of the cabinet by the time of the next election and certainly not occupying one of the great offices of state.)

You get the feeling that if Raab doesn’t win a seat then so goes the Conservative majority so the 6/5 looks very good compared to the 8/11 on the Conservatives failing to win a majority. The kicker might be if he decides to stand down as an MP at the next election.

However I think there’s likely to be better proxy bets on Raab winning a seat or not the closer we get to the next general election.

TSE