Rishi Sunak's sacking of Suella Braverman as Home Secretary and subsequent cabinet reshuffle comes amid a dire outlook for the Conservatives in the polls.

The Telegraph’s poll tracker shows the Prime Minister's party now lags behind Labour by around 20 percentage points in voting intention, suggesting the Conservatives are set for heavy losses at the next general election, which will take place before January 2025. 

Mr Sunak will hope his cabinet reshuffle — including the surprise appointment of former Prime Minister David Cameron as Foreign Secretary — will give him a chance to reset his and the Conservatives' standings with voters. 

Labour has led in the polls since the beginning of 2022, as Boris Johnson came under fire over Partygate during his final days in office, and this lead widened in the wake of the backlash over Liz Truss’s mini-Budget.

The Conservatives' position in opinion polling is now at its lowest since the last general election in 2019, despite recent efforts by Mr Sunak to reverse his party’s fortunes.

Such dire polling contrasts with the beginning of 2020, when the Conservatives enjoyed strong public support after Mr Johnson’s election win and then a further boost as the country rallied around the Government when faced by the threat of Covid-19. 

This polling lead soon dwindled as public dissatisfaction over the Government’s handling of the pandemic grew in the latter half of 2020, particularly around the time of the second national lockdown in England. 

The UK’s fast vaccine rollout and lifting of Covid restrictions in 2021 helped to restore public confidence in the Conservatives, with voting intention peaking in the summer of that year.