The silly season is finally over, after a summer which painted a less-than-flattering portrait of Cabinet ministers at odds and eyeing the top job. But party members don’t seem to have let these stories drive any serious shift in their attitudes, and with rumours of a reshuffle in the air the post-election pattern is holding pretty steady.
- Davis. Gove. Fallon. These three ministers top our table for the third month in a row, with Michael Gove recovering the second-placed position he lost last month. Since the election the Brexit Secretary seems to have a firm hold on the top spot, at least for now.
- May is back in the black. Prior to the election, the Prime Minister was consistently hitting record scores in this survey, consistently reaching the 80s and occasionally the 90s. The shock setback in June led to a 137-point slump in her ratings, but it seems that members agree with the assessment that May has bounced back a little over the summer.
- The bottom is otherwise unchanged. Justine Greening, Philip Hammond, and Patrick McLoughlin seem to have as tight a grip on the bottom of our table as do our chart-topping trio on the top. The Chancellor’s score is slightly up, whilst the Chairman’s has slipped into the minus-30s, but they’re essentially the same. Can Hammond lift himself out with his Budget?
- Brokenshire in fifth? The local press have described the Northern Irish Secretary’s attempts to revive devolution in Ulster as “going backwards”, but it appears that an obscure brief and near-radio silence is a winning combination for ministers aiming for a Championship slot in our table.