On Thursday, I warned ConservativeHome readers of the need to brace for a confidence vote and leadership challenge to Rishi Sunak after the upcoming local elections – a prospect I was far from looking forward to.
From the evidence of our survey, our panel is similarly trepidatious: 39.89 per cent of respondents believe that trying to change the Party leader would damage the Conservatives’ prospects at the general election.
Only 14.73 per cent of respondents said such an attempt would help them. 5.71 per cent said they didn’t know.
But, realising these choices require a degree of nuance, we also offered our panel two options in between: 15.82 per cent of respondents said trying to change leader was more likely to help the Conservatives’ prospects at the general election than to damage them; 23.85 per cent said the opposite.
Collectively, that leaves 63.74 per cent of our panel believing an attempt to change leader would be damaging or at least more likely to be so than be helpful, with 30.55 per cent either openly believing an attempt to change leader would be a positive move, or at least leaning towards that.
That’s more than a two-to-one lean against a move to remove and replace the Prime Minister. Will that change after the local election results come in? For the time being, something for any exasperated MP considering posting a letter to Graham Brady to mull over.