Since last June’s general election, “other” – that’s to say, “none of the above” – has come first, first, second and second in four successive Next Tory Leader surveys.
Last month, the sugar rush given to Boris Johnson by his Daily Telegraph article on Brexit propelled him into first place after he hit a record personal low the month before.
That month, Moggmania saw the North-East Somerset MP zoomed to the top of the table after we offered him as a choice for the first time: we had noted his rise in the “write-ins”.
But a brooding, nagging feature of this survey question and answer since last summer has been Party member dissatifaction with the choice on offer. That is starkly evident again this month.
The Foreign Secretary has drifted down very slightly (by two points), Rees-Mogg is more or less exactly where he was…and the rest of the field is below ten per cent each.
Activists are suspending judgement, and this week’s turbulent events are unlikely to have changed this. These have delayed the publication of these results, since there’s been so much other Westminster news to write about.
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Elsewhere, there’s almost no change in the proportion of respondents who want Theresa May to “announce her resignation as party leader, thus triggering a Conservative leadership election”. 51.6 per cent think she should; last month, that was 51.2 per cent. Those who think she shouldn’t do are now 35 per cent of the whole as opposed to 30 per cent. However, the survey was, as we say, undertaken before this week’s events, and next month’s findings will be worth watching.