It’s been a month in which the Covid-19 crisis has transformed British politics, and there’s no reason to expect our Cabinet League Table to be any exception. So what impact has the pandemic had on party members’ perceptions of the Cabinet?
- Sunak soars. It is a counter-intuitive political fact that the Conservatives, despite their latter-day struggles, remain the only party to have secured more than 50 per cent of the vote in a Scottish election. In a similar manner, the 92.6 score recorded by Theresa May in the summer of 2016 has remained the record for our table… until now. The Chancellor’s approval rating is just shy of an extraordinary 95 per cent.
- Johnson floats. Sunak’s outstanding score risks eclipsing an exceptionally positive showing for the Prime Minister, whose own rating lifts eight points to just shy of 90 per cent. Activists are clearly not buying the narrative around Johnson’s ‘botched response’ t the crisis.
- Hancock climbs. Another great showing, the Health Secretary takes the bronze at 89 per cent approval. Last month he was in fifth place, and this represents an increase of more than 20 points, overtaking…
Raab slips from the podium. The Foreign Secretary has not had a bad month, with a small rise in his own already-respectable score as he fights to bring home British nationals trapped overseas, but with the pandemic consuming political attention the Health Secretary has overtaken him.
An overall rally. The average scores seem to be up across the table, perhaps reflecting a similar ‘rally round the flag’ effect on the part of members that national polls are picking up in the wider electorate.
Davies falls back. The number of people putting “Don’t know” for both devolved leaders continues to dwarf those offering a view, but it is nonetheless interesting that the Welsh leader records a visible fall in his standing at the same time as Tory MPs are attacking the Welsh Government over their response to the Covid-19 crisis. Ought he not to be capitalising?