Rishi Sunak languishes in Tory popularity survey

2022-12-29

Rishi Sunak continues to languish in Tory popularity survey as Jeremy Hunt remains in NEGATIVE rating after Chancellor’s tax raid – but Ben Wallace still rides high

Rishi Sunak continues to languish in a popularity survey among Tory members
ConservativeHome survey shows PM still failing to enthuse party’s grassroots
Chancellor Jeremy Hunt remains in negative territory after his autumn tax raid
Defence Secretary Ben Wallace again tops ranking as he leads Ukraine response

Rishi Sunak is continuing to languish in a popularity survey among Tory members, while Jeremy Hunt has remained in negative territory after his autumn tax raid.

This month’s survey of party members by the ConservativeHome website has revealed the Prime Minister is still failing to enthuse the Tory grassroots.

More than two months into his leadership of the Conservative Party, Mr Sunak remains outside the top 20 in a league table of net satisfaction ratings for Cabinet ministers.

The PM scored a net satisfaction rating of 13.1, which is below the average of 24.2.

Meanwhile, the Chancellor continues to suffer a negative rating (-6.7) in the wake of his Autumn Statement.

But Ben Wallace is still riding high in the rankings, with the Defence Secretary’s popularity among Tory members enduring as he leads Britain’s response to the Ukraine war.

It means Mr Wallace has remained the most popular Cabinet minister among Tory members throughout the year under Mr Sunak and his two predecessors, Liz Truss and Boris Johnson.

The Defence Secretary’s current net satisfaction rating stands at 85.5.

This month’s survey of party members by the ConservativeHome website has revealed the Prime Minister is failing to enthuse the Tory grassroots

Rishi Sunak and Chancellor Jeremy Hunt are continuing to languish in the popularity survey among Conservative members

Ben Wallace is still riding high in the rankings, with the Defence Secretary’s popularity among Tory members enduring as he leads Britain’s response to the Ukraine war

In last month’s survey, Mr Sunak had a lower net satisfaction rating of 9.0, having fallen from 49.9 in October’s survey.

Mr Hunt also saw a slight improvement in his score this month compared to November (from -9.9 to -6.7) after he fell into negative territory in the wake of his tax hikes.

When he was drafted in as Chancellor in the dying days of Ms Truss’s premiership, Mr Hunt reversed almost the entirety of her tax-cutting mini-Budget.

He then oversaw a ‘stealth’ tax raid by freezing income tax thresholds until April 2028 in his Autumn Statement on 17 November.

This month’s ConservativeHome survey also showed Home Secretary Suella Braverman is continuing to recover her popularity among Tory members.

She had sunk to fifth from bottom in October, the month she was forced to resign her post for breaking ministerial rules.

International Trade Secretary Kemi Badenoch and Foreign Secretary James Cleverly continue to make up the top three most popular ministers – along with Mr Wallace – for the fourth survey in succession.

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