YouGov have once again tested how a Boris-led Tory party would compare to a Cameron-led one in the polls. When they last did so in October, they found that Boris was worth a seven-point bump: with Cameron as leader, the Tories were nine points behind Labour; Boris narrowed the gap to just two. The results this time — reported by Joe Murphy in the Evening Standard — are very similar: the Tories do six points better under Boris than under Cameron. That’s enough to eliminate Labour’s lead entirely. With Cameron, it’s Labour 37, Tories 31. With Boris, it’s 37 all.
As I said last time, switching to Boris probably would not be enough to give the Tories a majority. (In fact, on a uniform swing, 37-37 would put us just about in hung-parliament territory, with Labour only four seats short of a majority.) And it’s worth repeating the two caveats to such hypothetical polling I mentioned before:
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