Cameron slides. In a month without many dramatic changes, one very noteworthy result is the sharp fall in the Prime Minister’s personal rankings. From a relatively respectable -8.2 last month, his net satisfaction now stands at -21.6, a decline of more than 13 points. This is testament to the damage that this campaign is doing to David Cameron’s standing in the party, and suggests the scale of the challenges he will face after the referendum is over.
Boris sinks… Not that all the bad news is on the Remain side: the former Mayor has suffered a fall in his own standings of more than 12 points. This score makes him less popular than any of the pro-Leave cabinet members save Whittingdale (of which more below), and contrasts markedly with Gove’s steady slowly rising score. If this trend continues then assumptions that the referendum might provide Boris with a leadership platform may need to be re-examined.
…as does Whittingdale. The Culture Secretary’s standing still stands at a comparatively healthy plus 19, but that’s down from 31 last month. This has broken the stranglehold of pro-Leave Cabinet ministers on the top spots in our table: David Mundell and Stephen Crabb have overtaken Whittingdale. The Scottish and Welsh Secretaries are the only pro-Remain members of the Cabinet with net satisfaction scores of more than 20.
Gove climbs. Against a backdrop of generally declining scores, the Justice Secretary has bucked the trend. Our editor judged Gove to have had a good TV debate last week, and respondents to our survey clearly think he’s doing a good job for the Leave campaign. His 2.4-point increase is relatively small, but it stands out when his pro-Leave colleagues have all recorded multi-point falls in their own standings this month.
Davidson soars. We headlined last month’s results with the news that Ruth Davidson was the most popular person on our league table, and her score of 74.9 stood several points clear of second-placed Gove. We said then that the Scottish election could dramatically change her score, and last month’s fantastic results certainly have: at 84.4 she has one of the highest nest approval ratings we’ve ever recorded in this survey, and stands almost 15 points clear of Gove.