Could Starmer's unimpressive personal ratings mean that the general election will be more competitive than we assume?

***puts on Canadian accent***

It's another terrrrr-ible night for the Conservatives.

So, yes, just for nostalgia's sake, I've been taking a look at Stormfront Lite to see how the regulars are coming to terms with the latest phase of the Torypocalypse, and to my surprise I actually came across something vaguely resembling a fair point.  Someone pointed out how odd it is that Labour have such a mammoth lead in voting intentions when Keir Starmer himself has a much more modest advantage over both of the plausible candidates for Tory leader.  According to Redfield & Wilton Strategies, just 42% of voters across GB think Starmer would make a better Prime Minister than Boris Johnson, compared to 39% who think Johnson would be better.  Starmer's equivalent lead over Sunak is 44%-33%.

There's a theory that the personal ratings of leaders are better predictors of election results months or years in advance than standard voting intentions, and if that's right the next general election could yet be surprisingly competitive, regardless of what happens tomorrow.

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Considering that the Conservative Party is one of the oldest and most electorally successful parties in the democratic world, it really is odd that they seem to find it utterly impossible to settle on a satisfactory method of electing their own leader.  This latest wheeze of "election-by-nomination" is very unlikely to be the Eureka moment that stands the test of time.  It suddenly struck me earlier that it may be an attempt to introduce an element of first-past-the-post into Tory leadership contests.  All previous systems of election - the magic circle in the old days, MPs' ballots between the 1960s and the 1990s, and then members' run-off ballots in this century, have aimed to find a candidate who can command the support of an absolute majority.  But arguably the aim of the new rules is to ensure at all costs that only one candidate clears the nomination hurdle tomorrow and is thus "elected unopposed", which could happen if that one person (ie. Sunak) has the support of as little as twenty-eight per cent of the Tory parliamentary party.  That doesn't strike me as the learning of lessons from the Truss disaster.

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In the time it took me to write this blogpost, Johnson has announced he will not run - I suspected that might well prove to be the case, because he has a track record of running away when the odds are against him.  So presumably Sunak will be Prime Minister by Tuesday.

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