Exclusive: Voters Want Liz Truss To Be This Election's 'Michael Portillo Moment'
Voters want Liz Truss to be this general election’s “Michael Portillo* moment”, according to to a new poll.
Britain’s shortest-serving prime minister is the Tory most people would like to see lose their seat in the early hours of Friday morning.
Truss was re-elected MP for South West Norfolk in 2019 with a huge majority of 26,195.
However, she faces a tougher challenge from Labour on Thursday.
And it seems as though million of people across the country will be rooting for her main opponent, Terry Jermy.
A poll by Portland Communications, seen by HuffPost UK, asked voters which high-profile Conservative at risk of losing their seat on Thursday would they most like to see lose.
Truss comfortably came out on top with 28%, well ahead of Jacob Rees-Mogg on 15%.
Alarmingly for Truss, 38% of those planning to vote Tory in the election were among those who want her out.
Jeremy Hunt was next on 10%, followed by Penny Mordaunt on 6%, with Iain Duncan Smith and Grant Shapps both on 4%.
The findings are further evidence of Truss’ enduring unpopularity following the chaos caused by her 49 days in office.
The billions of pounds of unfunded tax cuts in the mini-Budget delivered by her chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, led to a collapse in the value of the pound, soaring interest rates and nearly brought down the UK’s pensions industry.
Gabriel Milland, head of research at Portland, said: “When it comes to which senior Tory the public as a whole most want to see lose their seat, Liz Truss is head and shoulders above the competition.
“Worryingly for her, she has an even bigger lead among people who voted Conservative in 2019 and among those saying they would vote Tory in 2024. If even Tory loyalists want her out, that could spell big trouble for her in South West Norfolk.
“Being more than twice as unpopular as Jacob Rees-Mogg takes some doing, frankly.
“But the most surprising figure perhaps is that only 27% of people saying they would vote Conservative this week said they wanted none of those we named to lose their seat. Even dyed-in-the-wool Tories want senior figures like these to be gone.”
* Tory big beast Michael Portillo famously lost his Enfield Southgate seat to Stephen Twigg in the New Labour landslide of 1997, despite defending a seemingly-safe majority of 15,563.
Portland Communications polled 2,742 adults between June 25 and 27.
