Boris Johnson is a “drag” on Tory votes and Rishi Sunak would do better as leader, a humiliating poll has found.
Pollsters Opinium gave Labour a seven-point lead over the Tories - the latest in a string of leads enjoyed by Keir Starmer.
But this rose to a 12-point lead when people were specifically told Boris Johnson would be the leader of the Conservative Party going into an election.
By comparison, this shrank to a three-point lead when people were told Chancellor Rishi Sunak - who is long said to have coveted the leadership and shares promotional graphics emblazoned with his own name - would be the party leader.
The difference would be enough for the Tories to win 60 fewer seats under Boris Johnson than under Mr Sunak, according to the pollster.
All five scenarios posed by Opinium had Labour in the lead, with between 37 and 43 points - and there’s bad news for Rishi Sunak’s main rival too.
Liz Truss, the Foreign Secretary, topped a survey by Tory bible ConservativeHome of who its readers would like to lead the party next.
She scored 23% among the Tory faithful compared to 20% for Mr Sunak and 9% for trade minister Penny Mordaunt.
Yet Ms Truss, whose leadership pitch is so subtle she has posed like Margaret Thatcher in a tank and had it recorded by a taxpayer-funded photographer, would lead the Tories to a 16-point defeat against Labour, the Opinium survey claimed.
Former YouGov president Peter Kellner told The Guardian: “It might be expected that simply reminding voters of the names of the two main party leaders would make little difference to voting intentions.
“The fact that it shifts the party lead by five points suggests that Johnson is now a significant drag on Tory fortunes.”
Voters were asked: “Please imagine that at the next election [NAME] was leader of the Conservative party and Keir Starmer was the leader of the Labour party. Who do you think you would vote for?”
The worst result of all was for if Michael Gove was leading the Tories.
In that scenario, just 23% of people said they intended to vote Conservative compared to 41% who said they would vote Labour.
Labrokes installed Ms Truss today on 5/1 to take the Tory leadership next - but Mr Sunak is still ahead on 2/1.
Opinium surveyed 1,902 UK adults between December 15-22.
