Rishi Sunak has not addressed the Partygate affair which dogged ex-PM Boris Johnson, said Sir John (Image: GETTY)
Rishi Sunak’s Tories have been badly damaged by the fallout from the Partygate affair, Professor Sir John Curtice has said. And the veteran pollster believes the Prime Minister’s failure to resolve the situation may ultimately cost him his job.
The Conservative Party has been lagging well behind Labour in the polls for months, with Mr Sunak’s popularity rating slumping to a record low of -49 in a survey published by YouGov last week.
The research was published in the wake of heated wrangling over Mr Sunak’s Rwanda Bill. But for Sir John, and with an election almost certain to be called in 2024, it is another issue which lies at the heart of his Government’s ongoing unpopularity.
He said: “Certainly one event that damaged them, and it's when the reverse started, was the failure of the Conservative parliamentary party, including Sunak, to fall in behind the Privileges Committee report about Boris Johnson having misled the House of Commons.
“The party badly needs to try to distance itself from Partygate. That was its one opportunity to do so, it failed to do so and it lost support as a result.”
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READ MORE: Keir Starmer as unpopular as Labour leaders who never became PM, says pollster
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer (Image: Getty)
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Sir John, who is Professor of Politics and the University of Strathclyde, continued: “So the internal politics of the Conservative Party got in the way of what it actually needed to do, as far as taking what was the one serious opportunity last year to distance itself from something which the polling still picks up as being one of the things that people remember about this government, to its detriment.
“It then fell further during the midst of all of the various attempts at resetting, starting with a change of climate change policy in September; support if anything fell away further.”
Sir John suggested the reluctance to address the matter adequately stemmed from a deeply ingrained belief among the party faithful that the public did not care - an assessment he was not convinced was accurate.
He said: “The problem that the Conservative Party faces is that it's essentially trying to press all the buttons that Tory MPs believe in, that its activists believe in. But it's not necessarily what the public believes in or is concerned about.”
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John Curtice says by-election losses 'bad news' for Tories
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Bookies are also convinced the Tories are likely to lose the next election, whenever that may.
William Hill is offering odds of 1/10 on Labour coming out on top in the next General Election, the shortest Keir Starmer’s party has been since 2019, with the likelihood of a vote of no confidence against Rishi Sunak currently priced at 7/4.
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The bookmaker also make it 9/4 for Sunak to not be leading the Tories at the next General Election, with Kemi Badenoch at 3/1. Having returned from the I’m A Celeb jungle, Nigel Farage is 20/1 to be lined up as his replacement.
William Hill spokesman Lee Phelps said: “The next General Election is only swinging one way as things stand. Labour has been a short price for a while, and continued interest in Keir Starmer’s party winning the most seats is now down to a historically low price of just 1/10, suggesting there’s a 90 percent chance they will come out on top when the UK goes to the polls.
“Rishi Sunak has a ship to steady and we’ve seen plenty of interest in our vote of no confidence betting since the market opened. Priced up at 11/4 on December 1, that was quickly snapped up and Sunak is now just 7/4 to face a vote of no confidence.”
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