But 12% sticking with Johnson

With just the possibility of a Tory leadership election then we should expect more “named leader” polling as featured in the Guardian this morning. This, I should state, is a very controversial form of polling that is likely to come under fire from supporters of those Tory figures, including Johnson, who come out of this badly.

As well as the normal voting intention question voters were asked Voters were asked: “Please imagine that at the next election [NAME] was leader of the Conservative party and Keir Starmer was the leader of the Labour party. Who do you think you would vote for?”

You can argue that simply by asking the questions in this form makes them leading.

The LAB lead in each scenario is shown in the chart above and the thing I find quite remarkable is the huge differences that were found.

The Labour lead numbers that are probably the most important are Sunak, Johnson and Truss who has been moving up in the betting and, indeed, has now slipped a bit with this poll.

That sticking with Johnson could mean the party doing substantially worse is not going to be liked by the PM’s supporters and expect these numbers to come under fierce attack.

Peter Kellner, the former president of YouGov opinion polling organisation, is quoted by the paper as saying : “It might be expected that simply reminding voters of the names of the two main party leaders would make little difference to voting intentions.The fact that it shifts the party lead by five points suggests that Johnson is now a significant drag on Tory fortunes.”

Mike Smithson