What's his angle - is he one the 'won't be happy until they dig up actual Hitler and put him in charge' ones?
Paywall broken:
"The Conservatives must oust Rishi Sunak or face an electoral “massacre”, one of the Prime Minister’s former Cabinet allies has said, as a poll suggests a new Tory leader could beat Sir Keir Starmer.
Sir Simon Clarke, who was Mr Sunak’s No 2 at the Treasury, believes “extinction is a very real possibility” for the Conservative Party if Mr Sunak leads it into this year’s general election.
Writing for The Telegraph, he says that while Mr Sunak has many admirable qualities, “he does not get what Britain needs and he is not listening to what the British people want”.
A YouGov poll of 13,000 voters suggests that a new Tory leader, championing core Conservative values, could secure a convincing victory over Labour.
When people were asked who they would prefer as prime minister – Sir Keir or a new, tax-cutting Tory leader with a tougher approach to legal and illegal migration – voters in 322 constituencies in England and Wales preferred a new Tory leader, while Sir Keir came out on top in only 164 seats.
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As well as putting potential leadership rivals on the alert, it will provide food for thought for Tory election strategists, amid fears that the party will shed votes to Reform UK in some areas and to the Lib Dems in others if it does not pursue a more traditionally Conservative agenda.
Sir Simon, who was chief secretary to the Treasury when Mr Sunak was chancellor and served as levelling up secretary under Liz Truss, is the most senior Tory to call publicly for a change of leader.
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Sir Simon said: “The unvarnished truth is that Rishi Sunak is leading the Conservatives into an election where we will be massacred.”
While Mr Sunak is not entirely to blame for the party’s current unpopularity, “his uninspiring leadership is the main obstacle to our recovery”, he writes. “Rishi Sunak has gone from asset to anchor.”
YouGov conducted their poll using the multi-level regression and poststratification method, regarded as the gold standard in electoral polling, which allows results to be broken down to constituency level and which accurately forecast the outcomes of the 2017 and 2019 general elections. It was commissioned by a group of Conservative donors called the Conservative Britain Alliance.
The poll did not present respondents with names of possible alternative Tory leaders, but asked if they would prefer as prime minister: Sir Keir or a new Tory leader who was stronger on crime and migration, who cut taxes and got NHS waiting lists down."
