Last month, the story of the Shadow Cabinet League Table was the remarkable second life of Jeremy Hunt, who put on almost 50 points since our pre-election survey in May to secure second place.
Whilst the net increase was impressive, the result itself ought perhaps not to have been surprising. With most of the Party’s attentions focused inwards for the leadership contest and Rishi Sunak largely missing in action, the Shadow Chancellor had been taking the fight to Labour in a very public way, both over public appointments and Rachel Reeves’ claims of a ‘black hole’ in the public accounts.
This month that effect has unwound a bit, although seventh place is still very respectable compared to the scores Hunt was posting as Chancellor. His place on the podium has been taken by Tom Tugendhat, who’s picked up a respectable 11.5 points since last month to claim third place.
Ahead of him are James Cleverly, who’s score is fractionally down on last month, and of course Kemi Badenoch, who has extended her lead by gaining almost six points – the first time in a while anyone has got close to a net positive score north of 50, albeit not quite.
That puts leadership contenders three for three on the podium. With Robert Jenrick on the backbenches, that just leaves Mel Stride: he remains in sixth place, albeit having gained four points.
Other than that, the other big story of the table is Sunak. Last month he was in negative territory but not by much, his -3.9 comparing favourably to the -15.4 he posted in May. One month on and it’s a very different story – at -38.3, his latest score is beneath even the floor set by the unfortunate Michael Tomlinson in our final pre-election survey.
It’s interesting that this has happened now, after he had the chance to cross swords with Sir Keir Starmer at Prime Minister’s Questions, a contest in which the latter referred to Sunak as “the PM” several times. Perhaps that was not enough to offset members’ frustration with a quiescent front bench – an unpromising omen, as there is still seven weeks and change of this contest yet to run.
