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The Conservatives are doomed to lose the election because voters will not forgive the behavior of Boris Johnson and Liz Truss, according to Britain’s top pollster.

Professor Sir John Curtice said Johnson’s No 10 lockdown parties and Truss’s economic catastrophe have made it impossible for Rishi Sunak to cling to power.

The Prime Minister squandered his only hope of repairing the electoral damage caused by Johnson and Truss when he did not condemn their conduct strongly enough, Professor Curtice said.

Johnson and Truss each helped ruin the reputation of the Conservatives, a party that has been in power for 14 years, in the space of just a few weeks, he claimed.

Conservative ratings fell six points in six weeks after Johnson’s Downing St lockdown parties scandal was revealed, and a further six points in the six weeks after Truss’s economic policies collapsed, the professor said Curtice, professor of politics. at the University of Strathclyde.

Asked whether the Conservatives could reverse their decline in the popularity ratings in time for this year’s election, Professor Curtice said: “The ships probably sailed so long ago that it is now difficult for them to do much about it.”

He explained: “If you look at the timeline of why we are where we are now, there are two crucial events in about 12 weeks.”

The first calamitous six-week period for the Conservatives was when revelations about lockdown parties in No 10 emerged; the second came after Mrs Truss’s chaotic short tenure.

Conservative ratings in opinion polls fell to 25 per cent after Mrs Truss was ousted, and have barely budged since, now standing at around 24 per cent.

Professor Curtice said: “These are two things the Conservative Party urgently needed to distance itself from.”

But he has not done so because Conservative MPs, including Sunak, did not vote en masse against Johnson when parliament held a vote on whether he had lied to the Commons about the parties.

“Mr Sunak did not vote and the gains he had made in the polls literally disappeared overnight,” the top pollster said. The Daily Telegraph. “Equally, it is only very recently that the government has begun to directly distance itself from Liz Truss.

“The problem the government has is that, basically, once we start any debate on the economy, all the opposition has to say is ‘Liz Truss’, (and that’s the) end of the argument.

Overall, the Conservatives could count on support from voters concerned about immigration, Professor Curtice said. However, he continued: “But if you add to that concern about the economy, Boris Johnson’s ethics, the economy, Liz Truss, the incompetence, then you are going to go somewhere else.”

He said all top party leaders suffer from a woeful lack of star quality.

“Rishi Sunak – unpopular, uncharismatic, can’t do the vision thing. Keir Starmer: boring, uncharismatic, can’t do the vision thing. Ed Davey: Nice guy, little impact, can’t do the vision thing. Humza Yousaf is a good guy, but he has all kinds of political problems… and he can’t do the vision thing.”

Voters are “not as enthusiastic” about Sir Keir Starmer’s Labor Party, Professor Curtice said, as they were when Tony Blair’s New Labor came to power in 1997. This means a hung parliament, where Labor wins a majority of seats in the House of Commons, but not an overall majority, cannot be ruled out, the professor said.

But the Conservatives would be wasting their time if they dumped Sunak in a bid to revive their fortunes.

Professor Curtice said: “The idea of ​​the Conservative Party getting rid of Mr Sunak… I mean, look guys, do you really think you’re going to persuade the electorate to vote for you by saying, ‘We’re so sorry?’ . We have fired three prime ministers who in the end did not turn out to be very good. But could he vote for us again, because now we have found him another room?’

“It will not work. The Conservatives are certainly, for better or worse, for all practical purposes, stuck with Mr Sunak, however limited their options.”