The latest survey shows most people feel Boris Johnson is only interested in becoming an MP as a route to 10, Downing Street.
YouGov polling * just released shows that 69 per cent of people questioned think the Mayor of London would only stand ‘to enable him to one day become the leader of the Conservative party’.
If broken down into party affiliation, it differed little among Conservatives, where 68 per cent agreed with the statement and 21 per cent disagreed, with the remainder undecided.
Labour voters overwhelmingly said Boris was only using a Parliamentary seat as a route to the top, by 81 per cent to six per cent.
The results might be of concern to anyone in the Uxbridge and South Ruislip constituency who is worried Boris would be an ‘absentee MP’ if elected to the safe seat, more bothered about matters elsewhere than issues concerning his patch.
And in West London as a whole, among self-identified Tories, opinion is evenly split on whether Boris would be a good thing.
To the statement: “I would like it if Boris Johnson became my local MP”, 32 per cent of Conservatives said they would like it, 31 per cent said ‘no’ and 31 per cent expressed no preference either way, with seven per cent ‘don’t knows’.
However, figures released earlier this week , carried out by Lord Ashcroft’s polling organisation among people in the Uxbridge and South Ruislip constituency alone, showed the Mayor of London would win at a canter if he stood, increasing the Conservatives’ not inconsiderable majority.
Now everyone just waits to see if Boris will throw his hat into the ring when he returns from holiday this week.
* YouGov polled 1,200 London adults, August 8-13, 2014.
