Friday, February 7

Boris Johnson voted most competent PM of 2022


Boris Johnson is regarded as the most competent of 2022’s three prime ministers, a new poll has found.

In a year which saw three Conservative party leaders, the largest share of British adults came out for Mr Johnson, according to a survey by People Polling.

A total of 32 per cent of respondents said they thought Mr Johnson had been the most competent, followed by 29 per cent for Rishi Sunak.

Just three per cent said Liz Truss, who lasted just 45 days in Downing Street before standing down following a disastrous mini-Budget, which saw the pound crash and the Bank of England forced into an emergency intervention to calm market turmoil.

The same question was asked to those who voted for the Conservative Party in the 2019 election. Among Tory voters, 62 per cent said Mr Johnson was the most competent, followed by 22 per cent who said Mr Sunak and just four per cent who said Ms Truss.

Prof Matt Goodwin, who carried out the polling, said: The Boris brand may be damaged but he remains voters top choice when they are asked which of the three prime ministers they preferred. This is especially true among Conservative voters who clearly still have a soft spot for Johnson.

Earlier this month, Sir Jake Berry, the former Tory party chairman, told The Telegraph that Tory members were furious about the loss of Mr Johnson from No 10, combined with their perceived disenfranchisement after Ms Truss was driven from Downing Street.

Following Mr Sunak’s coronation as Prime Minister, the party was warned that tens of thousands of Tory members would leave the party in anger at being denied a vote.

If two leadership candidates had passed the threshold of 100 nominations from Tory MPs, members would have been allowed to vote online.

Although Mr Johnson had enough endorsements from MPs to run as prime minister for a second time following the downfall of Ms Truss, he ultimately decided not to, leaving the path clear for Mr Sunak.

And Penny Mordaunt’s failure to get the numbers needed meant that the party’s 160,000 members did not get the chance to vote.

The poll, commissioned by GB News, also found that a majority (57 per cent) of the British public believe that nothing in Britain works anymore.

It comes amid a series of crippling public sector strikes from ambulance drivers, rail and bus staff, postal workers, driving examiners, road traffic officers and the Royal College of Nursing for the first time in its history.

A majority of the public are clearly very dissatisfied with the state of the country and how, in their eyes, nothing appears to be working, Prof Goodwin said.

Amid the strikes, the cost of living crisis and economic volatility, many people are now united by a palpable sense that nothing really appears to be working anymore.