A new poll suggests the Tories would have a better chance of winning the next election if they embraced traditional Conservative values.
This news is about as surprising as the Pope's Catholicism and the fact that bears relieve themselves in the woods. The poll, commissioned by long standing Conservative Party supporter Lady McAlpine, found that eight in ten one-time Conservatives, those who have voted Tory in the past but are now planning to back another party, agreed with the statement that the party would have a better chance of winning the next election with someone who has more traditional Conservative values than it does with Rishi Sunak.
Now, I don't doubt that this is true, but the problem predates Rishi Sunak. Boris Johnson's promise to political revolution in 2019, failed to materialise, with Red Wall seats levelled down rather than up, largely thanks to Bojo's three disastrous national lockdowns and the economic catastrophe that followed.
Liz Truss's blink and you'll miss it stint as Prime Minister and her gamble on growth was snuffed out by the BLOB. And yes, the bookish and managerial Rishi Sunak, the 21st century's answer to John Major has failed to get anyone's pulse racing, with the possible exception of Mrs. Sunak.
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And who could disagree with Britain's most fearless political academic, Professor Matthew Goodwin? Taking to Twitter on Friday, he said to his army of followers: "The Tories said they would lower migration, then put it on steroids. The Tories said they'd control the borders, then lost control.
"The Tories said we're sovereign but won't leave the ECHR. The Tories blame Labour but won't change New Labour law. The Tories promise a new economy, then gave us more of the same."
Matt Goodwin goes on: "This isn't hard. People are leaving the Tories because they were promised one thing only for the opposite to happen."
And whilst Goodwin is right, and the findings of this poll are unarguable, the choice in May or November of this year remains a simple one, Conservative or Labour.
Why is a country which this polling suggests wants more robustly Conservative policies about to deliver a Labour government? Well, I think it's far from certain that they will.
In our increasingly presidential system, when faced with a choice of Starmer and his U-turns and woke politics, versus sensible Sunak, the kind of boy you'd happily bring home to meet your parents, it's no contest. The Tories may be hated, and perhaps rightly so, but there's no great love for Labour either.
And frankly, I'm not sure that Sunak has to shift to the right of Attila the Hun. All he's really got to do is deliver.
And I'd argue with the return of power sharing in Stormont, reduced inflation, fewer illegal crossings and the avoidance of a deep economic downturn, Sunak has done just that.
He's only been there, don't forget, for over a year. If Rishi Sunak can get growth up, stop the boats, tackle the debt and fix the NHS, and yes, remember why he became a Conservative in the first place, he may prove a lot of people and the polls wrong.
