Undecided voters are starting to see Truss as being ‘authentic’

THE increasingly frantic tone of the leadership election suggests that the Conservatives are making a momentous decision that will define their party for years to come. In fact, the idea that the Tories face a grand strategic choice is an illusion. With two years until the next General Election, the new leader’s only option is to turn out as many of Boris Johnson’s 2019 supporters as they possibly can.

Over the past decade, the Tory vote has become much more working class and culturally conservative – more Brexity – than when David Cameron became Prime Minister (a result, ironically, of his decision to hold the EU referendum that ended his premiership). It will not be easy to reassemble Boris Johnson’s big, diverse voting coalition.

The trick will be even harder to pull off because none of the three stars that aligned to make the 2019 result possible – the Brexit deadlock, Jeremy Corbyn and Johnson himself – is still in its place.

Most people who voted Tory in 2019 agree it was time for Johnson to go. But as I found in my new research, published today, that doesn’t mean they’re happy about his resignation.

While two thirds of them disapproved of his character and conduct, 84 per cent say he did a good job as PM. They still rate him higher than either of the challengers for his job. And, for many of them, his unconventional approach to politics was part of his appeal as well as his downfall.

That is one reason Rishi Sunak is finding it hard to make headway. Even those who think Johnson’s departure was overdue are reluctant to give Sunak any credit for helping to bring it about.

‘He resigned to tee things up for himself – he stabbed Boris in the back,’ a man in our focus groups put it. This is not the former Chancellor’s only hurdle.

FIRST of the things our groups mentioned about him were always his wealth and his wife’s tax status. Tory voters don’t disapprove of financial success – they just want to feel their leaders can relate to them and play by the same rules.

Views about his record as Chancellor were mixed: people praised the furlough scheme and his calm authority but grumbled about wasted money, bungled PPE contracts and rising taxes.

People questioned in our research knew less about Liz Truss, and often wrongly assumed she was the less experienced candidate. Seeing clips of her campaign events led many to find her to be direct, authentic and believable, and more impressed by her than they expected to be.

In our poll of 10,000 voters, the word most often associated with Sunak was ‘rich’; for Truss the word was ‘unsure’. Part of Truss’s advantage is that she hasn’t yet disappointed them and is, for many, a blank canvas on to which they can project their hopes.

Many had also clocked the big dividing line between the two: their approach to tax and debt.

In principle, many agreed with Sunak that we should not land the next generation with bills we are not prepared to pay.

However, they felt people are struggling and need help now (as one woman put it, ‘I wonder if he would be saying the same thing if he was on my wage’).

The Truss pledge of early tax cuts found a ready audience; Sunak’s own subsequent promises sounded to many as though he was playing catch-up and undermined his dismissal of what he had called her ‘fairy tale’ plans.

Such contrasts of policy and style have so far made little impression on voters in general: in my poll, 56 per cent said they would prefer Starmer and Labour to a Sunak-led Conservative government, compared to 55 per cent who would prefer a Labour government to the Tories with Truss.

Only one in three think Sunak and Truss would be very different prime ministers; nearly half say what happens in Britain over the next few years will be pretty much the same whoever is chosen. People say their likelihood of voting for each party varies little between these still hypothetical scenarios.

The question is who is better placed to keep together more of the unwieldy Johnson coalition, with its competing demands for low taxes, high spending, worldly realism and boundless optimism.

Tories themselves are coming to a view. They say Truss is more likely to get things done, to be honest with the public, and to care about people like them. And while voters in general think Sunak would be more likely to win a General Election for his party (perhaps being a non-Tory’s idea of what a Tory should be like), Conservatives see Truss as the more likely leadership victor.

Two years before the last change of government, in 2008, I was the Conservative Party’s deputy chairman in charge of polling. I remember how the Tories enjoyed huge double-digit poll leads at a time of impending economic crisis and rising living costs. Two years later, they just crept over the line.

LABOUR’S lead is not on the same scale – but the economic outlook is worse and the Tories have suffered more mishaps than the BlairBrown administration. The message that it is time for change will be hard to counter, even among those who rejected Labour in 2019. Sunak wants to reassure them with sound Tory prudence; Truss wants to come out swinging.

We will soon see which route their party will take. l Lord Ashcroft is a businessman, author, philanthropist and pollster. His research is available free at LordAshcroftPolls.com. Follow him on Twitter @LordAshcroft