This is the penultimate Cabinet League Table of the Boris Johson Government from our ConservativeHome Party members’ panel. Since we published the last one a month ago, the Cabinet has lost Sajid Javid, Michelle Donelan, Brandon Lewis, Michael Gove and Rishi Sunak (in descending order of popularity then).
And in have come Johnny Mercer (as Veterans’ Minister, entitled to attend), James Cleverly, Robert Buckland, Greg Clark, Andrew Stephenson and Shailesh Vara.
That this Cabinet is a bird of passage hasn’t stopped most previous members’ ratings from rising slightly: Liz Truss, Suella Braverman, Dominic Raab, Kwasi Kwarteng, Kit Malthouse, Therese Coffey, Simon Clarke, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Grant Shapps, George Eustice and Mark Spencer are all up – Truss by 13 points, the largest rise in this group.
Nadine Dorries, Nadhim Zahawi, Steve Barclay and Anne-Marie Trevelyan are down – the first and second significantly. Dorries evades negative ratings only marginally. Last November, the Culture Secretary was fourth in the table on 61 points. A month later, she came in on 25 points, and has been scoring poorly ever since. Zahawi plunges from second to eighth from bottom.
Of the newcomers, Johnny Mercer soars into third place on 54 points, James Cleverly is tenth on 39 points and Robert Buckland mid-table on 23. Mercer’s rating along with chart-topping Ben Wallace’s (his slip by a sliver is statistically insignificant) confirms that Conservative activists like former members of the armed forces, especially if they speak their minds on defence matters.
Behind these ups, downs and arrivals lies a story:
- Most scores have recovered modestly because last month’s totals were so low – extremely so. They came in at a time when Boris Johnson was clinging on, but in negative ratings in the table, with over half our panel wanting Conservative MPs to remove him as Prime Minister. There was no way of reading the return other than as a collective rebuke to the Cabinet for not forcing Johnson out.
- The Prime Minister’s score is still dire: he is back in positive ratings, but not by very much. Though a substantial minority of the panel want him on the leadership election ballot and/or would vote for him had they the option, a larger majority of it does not: the split is two thirds against him, a third for him at best.
- However, loyalty to Johnson isn’t necessarily been punished this month. In the case of Dorries, it is – spectacularly (and the survey went out before the latest row). In the case of Truss, say, it isn’t. Obviously, the League Table couldn’t poll for Sunak this month, but June’s ratings – Truss was third from top, he was third from bottom – help to explain what’s happening in the leadership contest.
- In essence, if you’re on the centre-right of the Party, have been minding your ps and qs, and have behaved in a way that the panel considers honourable, your rating will almost certainly be up. But if a Minister is seen to be missing one of these characteristics, don’t look for them anywhere near the top of the table.