Is the row over the attempt to overturn Owen Paterson’s suspension affecting the opinion polls?

The Conservative lead seems to have narrowed slightly, while Boris Johnson’s approval rating hit an all-time low of minus 20 according to one survey, reports John Rentoul

Owen Paterson, listening to debate about whether he should be suspended (PA)

There have been three opinion polls carried out since Wednesday, when Conservative MPs were whipped to block the suspension of Owen Paterson, a former Tory cabinet minister who broke the rules banning paid lobbying. The Conservatives remain ahead in all of them, but only by one percentage point in two, and three points in the other.

This is a further narrowing of the Tory lead that peaked at 12 points in May when vaccine euphoria was at its height, but it is not the dramatic shift that might have been expected after the prime minister made what he in effect admitted was a bad decision. Asking Tory MPs to vote to overturn the independent standards committee verdict against Paterson looked corrupt; reversing that attempt and leaving Paterson feeling he had no choice but to resign his seat looked incompetent. Yet the penalty in the court of public opinion seems so far mild.

In part, this is because the typical voter pays little attention to politics, even when it dominates the headlines. It is also too early to be sure how much of an impact those headlines have had. Two of the polls (YouGov and Deltapoll) started their surveys on Wednesday itself when the impact of the reporting would not have begun until the evening, and the big effect of the prime minister’s U-turn the next day would not have been felt until Thursday or Friday.