Now Boris Johnson pays price at the polls: Labour race ahead of the Tories by SIX points as survey reveals scale of public anger over PM's handling of sleaze scandal

 A shock poll last night handed Labour a six-point lead in the wake of the Tory sleaze scandal.

The survey for the Daily Mail revealed the scale of public anger over Boris Johnson’s handling of the crisis.

According to the Savanta ComRes survey, a three-point Conservative lead last week has become a six-point deficit.

The rapid turnaround ramps up pressure on the Prime Minister to get a grip and could spark panic among Tory MPs. One said he was on the brink of submitting a formal letter of no confidence in the Prime Minister.

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A shock poll last night handed Labour a six-point lead in the wake of the Tory sleaze scandal. The survey for the Daily Mail revealed the scale of public anger over Boris Johnson’s handling of the crisisThe poll found that voters overwhelmingly believe Mr Johnson should apologise for his botched handling of the scandal. He has stubbornly refused to do so.

The vast majority think Tory grandee Sir Geoffrey Cox should stand down for earning earned hundreds of thousands of pounds from a second job that saw him vote in parliament remotely from the Caribbean.

According to the poll, half of voters believe MPs should be banned from taking second jobs, with barely a quarter saying the current system was acceptable.

Conservative support has slumped four points in one week to 34 per cent. Labour jumped by five points to 40 per cent – their biggest lead since May 2019.

The findings came as:

• Parliament’s powerful liaison committee announced it would grill the PM on his handling of the sleaze crisis in a two-hour session next week;
• The Prime Minister’s ethics adviser Lord Evans warned that Britain could become a ‘corrupt country’;
• Pictures emerged of the luxury villa in the British Virgin Islands from which former attorney general Sir Geoffrey cast his Commons votes by proxy;
• Dominic Cummings claimed the PM spent time during the run-up to the Covid crisis writing a book on Shakespeare to help pay for his ‘very expensive’ divorce;
• Analysis by the Mail revealed that Sir Geoffrey’s brief stint in government allowed him to double his average hourly earnings as a barrister;
• New research found that 139 MPs have second jobs, with 25 moonlighting for more than eight hours a week;
• Tory MP Natalie Elphicke, who told footballer Marcus Rashford to ‘stick to the day job’, was revealed to have a second job paying £36,000;
• Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries brushed aside the crisis, telling Tory MPs the expenses scandal was ‘a billion times worse’ and had not stopped the Conservatives ‘monstering’ Labour at the following election;
• Scotland Yard ruled out a probe into cash for honours allegations over the appointment of wealthy donors to the Lords.The poll findings cap a dire ten days for Mr Johnson, which began with a botched attempt to block the suspension of former Cabinet minister Owen Paterson for breaking lobbying rules.

  The Prime Minister ordered Tory MPs to push through measures to tear up anti-sleaze rules to help Mr Paterson. The vote was passed, but dozens of Tory MPs rebelled and the PM was forced to abandon the plan the following day.

  The Government was then rocked by the Mail’s revelation that Sir Geoffrey had been working in the British Virgin Islands, a tax haven accused of corruption.

  He has earned more than £5.5million from his second jobs since 2009. In some years he averaged more than 30 hours a week on his outside interests.

  Mr Johnson told MPs this week to ‘put your job as an MP’ first, and said that rule-breakers should be punished.

  But he has repeatedly refused to apologise, prompting concern among ministers that he has failed to grasp the scale of public anger.Senior ministers have let it be known they were not consulted on the PM’s decision to back Mr Paterson, who was accused of an ‘egregious’ breach of lobbying rules on behalf of two firms that paid him more than £500,000. Chancellor Rishi Sunak hinted at tensions over the issue, saying the Government had to ‘do better’ on the toxic issue.

  Today’s poll shows that 66 per cent of voters believe Mr Johnson should apologise for his handling of the Paterson scandal. Only 19 per cent say he should not.

  Even among Tory voters, 60 per cent want an apology. In a further blow to the Conservatives, the poll reveals widespread anger at Sir Geoffrey’s refusal to step down as an MP – with 62 per cent saying he should resign.

  In a defiant statement this week Sir Geoffrey denied wrongdoing and boasted that voters in his Torridge and West Devon seat kept re-electing him.

  The poll found that 50 per cent of voters felt all MPs should be banned from having second jobs. Tory supporters were especially keen on a ban.

  Today’s poll follows a string of surveys showing Labour closing the gap or even inching ahead.

  

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  Today’s poll shows that 66 per cent of voters believe Mr Johnson should apologise for his handling of the Paterson scandal. Only 19 per cent say he should not

  A YouGov poll for the Times put the two main parties neck and neck on 35 per cent. But the fieldwork was conducted on Tuesday and Wednesday.

  The Mail’s survey was conducted over Thursday and yesterday, suggesting that public attitudes might be hardening.

  Chris Hopkins of Savanta ComRes said: ‘These latest poll numbers are obviously striking, and while recent polls have begun to show slim Labour leads, none have been quite as comprehensive as this one.’

  Mr Hopkins said Labour still faced an ‘uphill’ battle because some disaffected voters were switching to the Lib Dems and Greens and Sir Keir Starmer’s party was ‘possibly not completely immune from sleaze allegations themselves’.

  He said the survey suggested that an apology from the Prime Minister could ‘fix everything’ for some wavering Tories.

  Savanta ComRes interviewed 2,019 UK adults online. 

  Ethics chief: Never stop fighting sleaze 

  The standards watchdog last night reiterated his warning that Britain could become a ‘corrupt country’ unless politicians continually strive to act ethically.

  Lord Evans, chairman of the committee on standards in public life, said our economic prosperity would be under threat if people no longer believe the UK is above reproach.

  The comments echoed his devastating criticism last week of the Government’s handling of the Owen Paterson case. In the blistering attack, widely seen as critical in the decision to make a U-turn, he said creating a committee to review Mr Paterson’s case would be an ‘extraordinarily inappropriate way to look at standards’.

  He has now called on ministers to go further and fully overhaul the standards system.

  And he declared: ‘The past week has shown that standards do matter to the public. Ethical standards are important for making democracy work. The public does care about this.’

  Lord Evans, previously director general of the Security Service, made his comments at an event organised by University College London.

  ‘We could become a corrupt country if we don’t attend to ensuring that we maintain standards,’ he said. He added: ‘Standards matter for our democracy, they matter for our economic prosperity and for our international influence.’