Sunak holds away day to regroup amid sleaze scandals and poor polling

The Prime Minister yesterday hosted an “away day” for his cabinet at the grace-and-favour country house alongside two of his ministers who are under investigation for misconduct allegations.

In addition to the cabinet, it was reported that advisors such as Isaac Levido, the Australian political strategist who helped Boris Johnson to his 2019 election victory, were in attendance to give a sobering assessment of what needs to be done to win the next election.

Speaking to reporters at the residence in Buckinghamshire, Mr Sunak said that he would await the result of the investigation into Dominic Raab, his Justice Secretary and Deputy Prime Minister, following reports that the probe contains more than two dozen complaints.

He told broadcasters: “I appointed an independent investigator to have a look at that matter, I’ll await for that independent investigator to complete that investigation and report back to me.

“In the meantime, what I’m doing is focusing on delivering on the five priorities that I set out for the country.”

Mr Sunak has said that no issues about Nadhim Zahawi’s tax affairs were raised with him when he appointed him as Conservative Party chairman, adding that he would not prejudge the outcome of the investigation into him.

Earlier in the day Jim Harra, the boss of HMRC said that there are “no penalties for innocent errors” when quizzed by MPs about whether Mr Zahawi broke ministerial rules over the estimated £4.8 million bill he settled with HMRC while he was chancellor.

Outside of his cabinet, Mr Sunak’s Government was also revealed to be spending more than £200,000 on defending Boris Johnson from allegations over “Partygate”.

At a meeting of the Commons Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee (PACAC) on Thursday, Cabinet Office permanent secretary Alex Chisholm revealed that the amount had since increased to £222,000, due to the length of the Privileges Committee inquiry and could increase again depending on how long the inquiry takes.

A GB News poll yesterday put Labour on 50 per cent of the vote, 29 points ahead of the Conservatives, suggesting that Mr Sunak has failed to rally voters behind his party since public opinion turned against them under Liz Truss.

It comes alongside further research from Portland which showed that the voters under the age of 60 were beginning to become more aligned with the views of their children, rather than their parents, as older generations of voters continued to move away from the Tories.

Gabriel Milland, Research Partner, Portland said: “Younger people and older people think about things in a very different way. But one of the surprising things about this research is that middle-aged people are in many ways more similar to their children than they are to their own parents.

“People in their 50s are supposed to be drifting into middle age conservatism. But what we found is that they are hanging on to ‘younger’ views much longer.”

Alex Donaldson, report author and Senior Consultant said: “Our findings dispel the myth of a snowflake generation and instead point to an avalanche of social change.

“Rather than a steady decline into conservatism the older we get, Britain is experiencing a tectonic shift with older and younger generations’ views diverging. The impact could be seismic, for businesses, politicians and employers alike.”

Yesterday afternoon Sir Rod Stewart, rang Sky News live on air to say that although he had been a Tory for a long time, it was time for the Conservatives to leave office due to the state of the NHS,

"This government should stand down now and give the Labour Party a go,” he said.

“In all my years in this country I've never seen it so bad.”