Decline and Fall: Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak in numbers

How they fall. We’ve known for some time now that Boris Johnson’s ratings haven’t been particularly good. In January he polled at a similar level to Theresa May in the closing weeks of her premiership, when she was leading the Conservatives to their worst defeat in a national election — the 2019 European elections. And though there has been a meagre rally in his favour, he still plumbs depths normally seen by leaders that went on to lose the next election.

He is, at least, no longer alone down there. The Chancellor too has fallen far from grace. A recent Savanta ComRes survey exposed the dramatic fall in Rishi Sunak’s ratings from a net positivity score of plus six to minus twenty in a month. Other researchers have recorded less dramatic falls, but our poll tracker finds that the public’s attitude to Sunak has indeed become much more negative. Nevertheless, 29 to 31 per cent of Britons still retain a positive perception of Johnson and Sunak.