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EXCLUSIVE: ‘Get back to your Real Job’ Voters tell Boris Johnson and Liz Truss as they Jet off to Earn Millions
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EXCLUSIVE: ‘Get back to your Real Job’ Voters tell Boris Johnson and Liz Truss as they Jet off to Earn Millions

Polling for Byline Supplement finds voters want the ousted former PMs to focus on their constituents - and stop the grand-standing

Josiah Mortimer
Feb 17, 2023
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EXCLUSIVE: ‘Get back to your Real Job’ Voters tell Boris Johnson and Liz Truss as they Jet off to Earn Millions
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  • 68% of voters - rising to 73% among Tories - think Liz Truss should stop trying to regain a major role in national politics

  • Similar levels of frustration at Boris Johnson’s galivanting

  • Poll reveals major opposition to Johnson’s attempts to pack the House of Lords

  • Public firmly believe money buys power in UK politics


New polling commissioned by Byline Supplement reveals that the public's patience in Britain’s globe-trotting, ousted Conservative Prime Ministers is waning. 

The poll by Omnisis asked voters whether they thought Boris Johnson should continue to have a major role in national politics - or focus on serving his constituents. 

By a large margin - 61% - voters think that he should concentrate on his job as Uxbridge MP. Just 21% think he should still have a major national role, a blow for the ex-PM as he tours the world giving political speeches and earning millions in the process. 

Only 31% of Conservative voters say he should continue to have a major role in national politics. These results suggest that even the Conservative base is losing faith in the former PM. 

The only party’s voters who feel that Johnson should still retain a major national role was Reform UK, with 55% of their voters supporting his continued political ambitions. 

It comes as the absentee MP faces a looming parliamentary standards committee investigation over the partygate scandal - while at the same time he brings in record sums for speeches across the world. 

If the public is growing tired of Johnson's antics and his attempts to remain in the political spotlight, he can at least be reassured he’s not alone. 

Omnisis found that an even larger proportion of voters - 68% - think Liz Truss should focus on serving her constituents, while just 11% say she should continue to have a major role in national politics. But most damningly for the former PM’s prospects of a return to power, the figure urging her to focus on her constituents rises to 73% among Conservatives.  Only 15% of Tory voters think she should still pursue a major role.

The findings follow Truss’s 4,000 word Telegraph defence of her record-breaking short stint as PM - in which she blamed hostile forces of the “establishment” for the market volatility and political crisis that booted her from office. 

Will the two ex-PMs listen to voters? Boris Johnson appears to be getting even further from his constituents if anything - as the Mirror reports he and wife Carrie are looking at buying their “forever home” in the Cotswolds - 70-odd miles and a three-hour train journey from the seat he’s pledged to restand in. 

It’s no surprise then that voters do not look kindly on Boris Johnson’s attempts to pack the House of Lords with cronies even after he leaves office - as we can reveal below. 

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Lords Awaiting

The disgraced ex-premier is said to be planning to hand out dozens of new peerages - including Daily Mail man Paul Dacre, giving them seats in the House of Lords for life. 

While the appointments have been held up by the House of Lords appointments commission, their jitters over appointing friends, family members and party donors can be overruled by PM Rishi Sunak. The public's views on the planned appointments are clear:

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