Probably the most brutal polling for the Conservatives I’ve seen from us.

6 in 10 tell @IpsosUK they don’t care who the next Tory leader is https://t.co/i2QZoYzIlA pic.twitter.com/nIraYa12bo

— Keiran Pedley (@keiranpedley) August 13, 2024

Cleverly narrowly leads with 18% of Britons believing he would do a good job, followed by

?17% Patel
?17% Tugendhat

However, 44% say Patel would do a bad job, giving her a net approval rating of -27 – the lowest of any candidate

?https://t.co/9qabrBfm4i pic.twitter.com/YuU6X3GpW3

— Ipsos UK (@IpsosUK) August 15, 2024

Considering the rather low vote share on a very low turnout it isn’t surprising that 62% of the public do not care who wins the Tory leadership, what must worry the Tories is that over a third of people who voted Tory last month also do not care who will succeed Sunak.

As a lifelong Tory I am wondering if this is how the Liberals started feeling in the early part of the twentieth century as they were eclipsed. A Labour activist friend pointed out to me earlier on this week that if at the next general election the new Tory leader made the same number of net gains that Starmer’s Labour did at the 2024 election the Tories would barely win a majority.

I think the Tories being eclipsed by the Liberal Democrats in terms of seats at the next election is more likely than the Tories being the largest party in a hung parliament after the next election.

TSE