Who should Labour fear most at the ballot box – Rishi Sunak, Penny Mordaunt or Liz Truss?

Keir Starmer has defined himself as the anti-Boris Johnson but that effect is now disappearing, and the terms of the debate are changing, writes Sean O’Grady

Bridging the gap: Keir Starmer in Gateshead earlier this week (Getty)

Who should Labour most fear: Rishi Sunak, Penny Mordaunt or Liz Truss?

The most obvious, but most superficial answer, is Rishi Sunak. A JL Partners poll, heavily promoted by the Ready for Rishi campaign, shows that he enjoys a lead over Keir Starmer as best prime minister of… 1 percentage point. The other candidates, such as Liz Truss and Penny Mordaunt, lag far behind the Labour leader by 12 to 15 points, respectively. So everything is relative, yet that single poll finding hardly justifies the Twitter graphic with the banner heading “Only Rishi can beat Labour”.

For one thing it dates back to before the first round, effectively a lifetime ago. Second, common sense tells one that it would be heavily driven by the fact that only Sunak and Liz Truss are remotely recognised by the public. And, sadly, the latest similar survey, by Savanta ComRes, albeit before the second round ended, placed Starmer ahead of Sunak by 39 per cent to 36 per cent – a deficit of three points (and a “don’t know” factor of 25 per cent).

Of course all of this is heavily influenced by the large number of unfamiliar candidates and a slightly unsavoury atmosphere of an election where only 358 Tory MPs have a vote. Indeed, the most striking thing about this story is how little known the various candidates are. That same Savanta ComRes poll that provides mild encouragement to Sunak also reveals that only two-thirds of the voters could identify him from a photograph. That is good when compared to the one in three who recognise what Liz Truss looks like – and just 11 per cent of the public and 16 per cent of Conservative voters can correctly name Penny Mordaunt when shown a photo of her. A couple of voters mistook Mordaunt for Adele. Kemi Badenoch is still virtually unknown.

As those lesser-known candidates, including Tom Tugendhat, become more famous, the public may well come to know like them more. This may then influence both the way MPs and activists vote in the leadership election, and how the wider electorate vote in a general election.

Two sets of qualitative research, by the i newspaper and BBC Newsnight do seem to indicate that the “fresh” candidates – Mordaunt, Badenoch and a Tugendhat – enjoy a markedly warmer welcome than the likes of Sunak and Truss. The Newsnight group, in Rother Valley, were also more interested in policy than personality. In Wolverhampton, the i group of 2019 first time Tory voters favoured Mordaunt who to them spoke from the heart, with Sunak seeming a bit too “slick” and “out of touch”. Truss came off worst – “seems a bit cold” and as “a John Major, grey-type character”.

In other words, the more the voters see Truss, the more they like, and the mud being chucked at her by rival camps probably won’t stick. Could she overhaul Labour’s lead and Starmer’s standing?

As ever, it all depends on what she actually does in office – the policies. As a more honest version of Boris Johnson, she’d likely improve the Conservatives standing, but she would still be faced with intractable issues such as inflation, strikes, Brexit and the Northern Ireland protocol, war in Ukraine, and, possibly, a fresh wave of Covid-19.

The good news for the Tories is that Starmer isn’t that popular or well-rated by the public. At the end of June, in an Ipsos Mori poll, a majority of Britons (58 per cent) said that Starmer does not look like a prime minister in waiting. A measly 22 per cent could envisage him in front of No 10’s famous black door. People were also divided on whether Starmer is competent (36 per cent) or not (32 per cent), and they tend not to see him as a strong leader (44 per cent vs 22 per cent who do).

Starmer does lead Johnson on both of these attributes and, shrewdly, he defined himself against Johnson in that way. Every fresh scandal and U-turn only served to substantiate Starmer’s claim that he was different and had more integrity – up to the point where about half of Johnson’s ministers agreed with the public, and the government collapsed.

That effect is now disappearing, and the terms of the debate are changing. Soon the focus may turn again to the Labour leadership.