Johnson going could lead to CON leading the polls again
What happened with the Thatcher exit in 1990
The above Wikipedia table is of the opinion polls for the final 6 weeks of 1990 when Mrs Thatcher was effectively pushed out by her MPs and John Major became prime minister.
There is little doubt by the time of the events of autumn of that year Maggie had become an electoral liability for her party. There had been the shock loss of Eastbourne to the LDs in a by-election caused by the murder of the Tory MP. A few weeks later a leadership contest was forced on her by Tory MPs which she won but not by a big enough margin as required the then rules of the party for that to be end of the matter. It was the possibility of a second round of voting that caused her to change her mind.
I was introduced to Mrs T, by then a Baroness, at a Cambridge garden party in the late 1990s and she told me that “there was no need for a second ballot”. This still rankled.
Looking at politics today I wonder whether the collapse of the Tory poll lead over the past few months has been driven by the growing dislike of Boris Johnson. His leader ratings have been in free-fall and has almost certainly become an electoral liability. If current events do force an exit could we see Tory poll leads once again?