Do falling poll numbers spell the end for Boris Johnson?

Speculation is mounting that Boris Johnson’s reign in No. 10 could soon come to an end amid multiple scandals and a plummeting popularity rating.

A YouGov poll for The Times found that Labour now holds a four-point lead over the Conservatives, the biggest since January when the country was in the middle of the winter lockdown. The survey put Labour on 37%, with the Tories on 33%.

In more bad news for the embattled prime minister, three-quarters of respondents told the pollster that there was a Christmas party in No. 10 “in which coronavirus rules were broken”, while 68% said Johnson was not telling the truth when he denied it.

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Poll problems

A Survation poll for the Daily Mirror this week painted an even gloomier picture for Johnson, with the “astonishing” results putting Labour six percentage points ahead of the Conservatives, at 40% to 34%.

That polling came hot on the heels of other troubling surveys for the PM, with Metro reporting that researchers from Savanta Comres found that 54% of the public felt he should resign and 76% believed he should apologise over the party controversy.

An Opinium survey for Sky News found that less than one in ten people believed Downing Street’s claim that no party took place last December.

Controversy over the Christmas party shows no sign of abating after ITV reported that Johnson’s press chief “addressed staff and gave out awards” at the event that is now the subject of an investigation by Cabinet Secretary Simon Case.

BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg said Jack Doyle, the aide in question, is “in charge of the government’s messaging”, adding that “this week the message has misfired, which makes his confirmed attendance a very big problem”.

Any suggestions that the party did not take place are disintegrating, with The Times’ political editor Steven Swinford reporting that it “was planned for three weeks with invitations sent to officials and advisers on WhatsApp while the UK was in full lockdown”.

Invitations “were circulated at the end of November”, Swinford said, “asking people to attend the press office’s ‘secret Santa’ gathering with an exchange of gifts.

“The invitation said it would be held on 18 December and that there would be food and wine,” he added.

Rebels and red faces

As the Christmas party scandal rumbles on, another headache for Johnson is the growing scale of the Tory backbench revolt over the introduction of “Plan B” Covid-19 restrictions.

Dozens of Tory backbenchers have threatened to rebel or abstain in the Commons vote on the rules, posting on Twitter about their fury over the proposed measures and Johnson’s handling of the Christmas party scandal.

“At least 30 Conservative MPs” are “already expected to vote against regulations on masks, home working and vaccine passports”, with “many more now vowing to stay away from Tuesday’s vote”, The Guardian said.

This means that Johnson “could be left relying on Labour support to win”.

But that could be enough to get the measures over the line, however, after shadow health secretary Wes Streeting told Radio 4’s Today programme that Labour will back the prime minister’s latest packages of restrictions.

“The whips will be doing a lot of work this weekend,” one Tory MP told The Guardian. “It’s all about saving the PM’s blushes.”

As Johnson yesterday celebrated the birth of his baby daughter, the Electoral Commission also announced that the Conservatives will be fined £17,800 for breaching electoral law over his Downing Street flat refurbishment.

The fine has given rise to suggestions that Johnson’s standards adviser is “on brink of quitting” after his boss “allegedly misled him” over the refurb, The Telegraph said.

Christopher Geidt is waiting to see if the prime minister can “satisfactorily explain why he did not share vital evidence with him when he investigated the affair earlier this year” before deciding whether he can remain in his post, the paper added.

‘Sensing blood’

According to The Spectator’s political editor James Forsyth, those within the Conservative Party “who hate Boris now sense blood”.

Writing in The Times, Forsyth – whose wife, Allegra Stratton, resigned following the leaked Christmas party video – said that the Tory party only accepts Johnson’s “heterodox conservatism and the drama of his leadership because he is a winner.

“If that aura goes, then he’ll be in real trouble,” he added.

Allister Heath, the editor of The Sunday Telegraph, agreed, arguing that Johnson now “doesn’t have any allies and isn’t really a Westminster creature”.

The “double catastrophe” of “partygate” and the new restrictions could be “potentially calamitous” for the prime minister. “For the first time” Johnson’s “grip on power is starting to look shaky, and his MPs are openly discussing a post-Johnson future”.

With scandal seemingly following scandal, “it’s no longer just about whether voters care, but whether MPs sent out publicly to defend the line can look themselves in the mirror”, said Gaby Hinsliff in The Guardian.

Instead, the Conservative Party “must ask itself whether it is content to keep being humiliated like this by its own leader or whether, like a long-suffering mistress tired of spending weekends alone, it can finally summon the self-respect to break free”.

Labour leader Keir Starmer has sounded a similar note, arguing that Johnson is “unfit” for office and asking Tory MPs how long they were prepared to keep on “defending the indefensible” in what the Daily Mirror called “his strongest comments yet”.