Boris Johnson’s bust-up with girlfriend Carrie Symonds has handed a shock poll lead to his leadership rival Jeremy Hunt.
Two exclusive surveys by this newspaper – one taken before and the other after news broke of Friday’s dramatic incident – found that Mr Johnson’s lead of eight per cent on Thursday had turned into a three per cent deficit yesterday among all voters.
Among Tory voters, Mr Johnson’s lead as the man who would make the best Prime Minister has more than halved, from a 27-point lead to just 11.
Boris Johnson’s bust-up with girlfriend Carrie Symonds has handed a shock poll lead to his leadership rival Jeremy Hunt
The reversal of fortune comes as allies of Mr Johnson accused ‘aggressive, Leftie’ neighbours of orchestrating a ‘stitch-up’ by leaking a tape of the row, despite police telling them that there was no case to answer.
Last night the couple – one of whom is an anti-Brexit playwright who has received EU backing – admitted to releasing the recording, arguing ‘it is reasonable for someone who is likely to become our next Prime Minister to be held accountable for all of their words, actions and behaviours’.
However, a close friend of the couple claimed reports of the row were overblown, saying: ‘They are very loved up and sweet together but I’m guessing the pressure on them right now is immense. So they had a tiff. So what. Doing this to them is not fair.’
In other dramatic developments yesterday:
Mr Johnson was cheered by Tory delegates at the first hustings of the leadership contest when he refused to answer questions about the argument;Mr Hunt provocatively put ‘character’ at the centre of the contest;Senior Tory figures said they were preparing for an attempt by Jeremy Corbyn to bring down a Boris Johnson Government on his first day in Downing Street;Former Tory Attorney General Dominic Grieve suggested that he could vote with Labour to stop Mr Johnson from taking the UK out of Europe without a deal;Eurosceptic Tory MPs said they would move to oust Mr Johnson if he reneged on his promise to leave the EU without a deal if necessary;This newspaper learned that Nigel Farage held a ‘summit’ with Tory MPs at an exclusive Mayfair members’ club to discuss a pro-Brexit, anti-Corbyn pact.Mr Johnson tried to brazen out the furore over his domestic row at his first hustings with Mr Hunt yesterday.
Two exclusive surveys by this newspaper – one taken before and the other after news broke of Friday’s dramatic incident – found that Mr Johnson’s lead of eight per cent on Thursday had turned into a three per cent deficit yesterday among all voters
At the public appearance in Birmingham, just hours after it was revealed police had been called to the flat he shares with Ms Symonds, the former London Mayor avoided answering questions about the incident.
The audience of Tory members cheered as he gestured towards them, saying: ‘I don’t think they want to hear about that kind of thing.’
His questioner, the broadcaster Iain Dale, was booed when he tried to press Mr Johnson over the incident.
Before the event started, Foreign Secretary Mr Hunt released a letter he had sent to Mr Johnson in which he called for televised debates to test both contenders on their ‘plans, policies’ and – pointedly – ‘our character’.
The Left-wing Guardian newspaper which
