The Tories are still leading Labour by a nose in the polls despite two weeks of Parliamentary sleaze scandals.
A YouGov poll published on Friday morning, conducted on Wednesday and Thursday, put the governing Conservatives two points ahead of the Labour Party opposition
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer's failure to capitalise on the Tories' troubles raised fresh questions about his fitness for the job.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson has been fighting a rear-guard action over his U-turn on reforms to the Parliamentary Standards Committee and a vote two weeks ago to overturn its recommended suspension of Tory MP Owen Paterson for allegedly asking questions on behalf of two firms for which he did paid consultancy work. Paterson has since resigned.
The sleaze scandal was compounded by claims that former Attorney General Geoffrey Cox had made around £1 million in legal work on the side, some of it allegedly done from his taxpayer-funded House of Commons office in breach of Parliamentary rules.
Starmer floundered on BBC Breakfast on Friday morning after presenter Jon Kay pointed out his hypocrisy in attacking Tory MPs for their second jobs when he had earned over £113,000 in private legal work since his election as an MP in 2015.
Kay also brought up Starmer's previous opposition to the HS2 high-speed rail link, after he attacked Johnson and his government on Thursday for delaying completion of its Birmingham to Leeds branch beyond Nottingham.
Starmer claimed he opposed the project, conceived of by the last Labour government of PM Gordon Brown, because its its southern terminus will be at Euston station in his Holborn and St Pancras seat. He said he had wanted it moved to Old Oak Common in fellow Labour MP Andy Slaughter’s Hammersmith constituency.
A small consolation for the Labour leader was a marginal lead in YouGov respondents' opinion of who would make the best prime minister — although the 30 per cent who backed him were still outnumbered by those undecided.
A Survation poll published on Wednesday showed the two main parties neck and neck.
Twitter users, frustrated at Johnson's seeming teflon-like invulnerability, called for the Labour leader to quit.