Latest polls show that after the fall-out over partygate, if a General Election was held now Prime Minister Boris Johnson would lose his seat. According to YouGov, the Conservatives face the prospect of largescale losses in Con-Lab battlegrounds up and down England and Wale.
Out of 88 battleground seats that the Tories won from Labour in 2019 or hold a slim majority, they would hold on to just three: Ashfield, Bassetlaw, and Dudley North. Among the seats the Conservatives would lose is Uxbridge and South Ruislip - the constituency of Mr Johnson - where a current result would see Labout taking it by five points.
James Johnson, a former Downing Street pollster during Theresa May’s tenure, said the results could prove to be even worse than the model predicts. Remember that MRP does not pick up tactical voting or local seat effects,” he said on Twitter. "Tactical voting helps Labour and the Lib Dems at the moment, so it’s highly likely that the current picture for the Conservatives is even worse than this polling indicates.”
Discontent in the Conservative ranks is growing as MPs start to fear they may lose their seats over the Downing Street lockdown parties fallout, a former cabinet minister has said. Boris Johnson critic David Davis said his colleagues “see their own seats disappearing” as Tory popularity continues to languish in the wake of the so-called partygate saga.
Mr Davis, a former Brexit secretary, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that potential Tory losses and the “distraction” of questions about the No 10 parties was focusing minds in terms of thinking about the party’s leadership.
He implored Mr Johnson to quit in January, telling him to “in the name of God, go”, and said he had not “changed my mind about that”. Asked whether discontent was spreading in the Tory party, Mr Davis said: “There is no doubt about that, for two reasons.
“Number one, frankly they see their own seats disappearing in many cases, they see themselves losing the next election on the back of this. Also, it has a bad effect on the country … it is a distraction on everything you do and it doesn’t help the reputation of the country.”
