Polling expert Professor Sir John Curtice has said the Conservatives will find it "extremely difficult" to win the next General Election. This is despite some signs of a recovery for the party under new Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
Sir John, who is president of the British Polling Council, said that while the new Prime Minister is significantly more popular than his party, voters were unlikely to forgive the Tories for the financial crisis which his predecessor Liz Truss unleashed. “No Government that has presided over a financial crisis has eventually survived at the ballot box," he said at a briefing for Westminster journalists.
"Voters don't forget Governments being forced to do a U-turn by the financial markets." Sir John said that at the height of Ms Truss's unpopularity, the Conservatives had been trailing Labour by more than 30 points in the polls, suggesting they could have been left with fewer than 60 seats if that pattern had been repeated at a General Election.
