Liz Truss has fast become the bookies favourite to become Britain’s next Prime Minister. The foreign secretary has a ‘significant lead’ according to the YouGov poll.
New polling from YouGov revealed a ‘significant lead’ by the foreign secretary. Of the Conservative Party members questioned, 62% were backing Ms Truss as opposed to just 38% in Rishi Sunak’s corner.
The results put the foreign secretary ahead by 24 points. Both candidates were grilled on various issues yesterday as their race to No 10 gathers pace.
Ms Truss was forced to defend comments made while she was a Liberal Democrat at university in 1994. As a teenager she said her party did not believe people are born to rule.
She defected to the Conservatives two years after making the speech. Questioned on when she realised she did not want to scrap the monarchy, Ms Truss told reporters in Peterborough: Almost immediately after I’d made that speech.
She added: I’ve got the ability to learn from mistakes I’ve made, things that I’ve done that are wrong and move on.
Meanwhile Mr Sunak has claimed that in December 2021 he flew home from overseas to stop a Covid lockdown hours’ away from being announced. Omicron had spread with speed, particularly across London, at the time.
But the former chancellor said he feared the country was sleepwalking into another national lockdown.
Last night’s YouGov survey, carried out after the two final candidates had been announced, on Wednesday and Thursday, excluded those who do not know or would not vote. It polled 730 Conservative Party members.
The current size of the Conservative membership is unknown, but at the last leadership election in 2019 there were around 160,000 members, and insiders expect it to have grown, meaning the polling is not representative of the party.