and chris hopkins, director of politics and media research at comres savanta. welcome to you all.hank you for coming on. let's start by unpicking the candidates media strategies. there are eight contenders laugh right now. so as fraser was mentioning with voting happening this afternoon, but into the programme that number will have been whittled down. rosamond, what are they trying to do do you think when it comes to the media? well, they want us to put forward their agenda, they want us to be sympathetic to the issues that they raise and they want us to promote their cause and make them seem like the most credible leader. and what we've seen is actually, quite a lot of conversation around other issues, apart from the cost—of—living crisis. i thought it was really interesting, penny mordaunt this morning in the times was talking about childcare, which is not something that actually, i thought it was a clever thing because she's reaching beyond, the electorate the here, is mostly tory party members. that's perhaps not in issue that is particularly high up on their list but it certa

it seems like the perfect moment to bring in chris hopkins because we want to see if there is any empiricalually has in the country in terms of picking election winners. what do we know, chris? did borisjohnson get the backing of some newspapers, did that affect the 2019 general election result? is there any actual research on that? i don't think it affected the 2019 general election results. i tend to side with fraser on this. i think that people and the electorate, they create their own echo chambers. they will seek out journalist, publications, friends, families, etc that tend to agree with them rather than the other way around. i think there's very few people who can, hand on heart, excusing the political class but there are very few political people can hand on heart and truthfully say that they seek out alternative views to the who immerse themselves in alternative opinions to educate themselves and broaden their horizons, itjust doesn't happen. look back at 1992 and the claim from the sun newspaper, it was the sun that won it. that's been debunked, frankly. as fraser mentioned, circu

earlier, ahead of the announcement from the foreign secretary, we heard from pollster chris hopkins aboutk among the public, the most preferred candidate. still only support about i7% of the boat. ben wallace was hanging around 3%. there was an uptick in support for him. ultimately, any sort of polling is a name recognition exercise. anyone who isn't rishi sunak will have a long way to go to compete with someone like keir starmer. there's likely to only be about half a term for this new conservative leader to be competing with keir starmer. i think anyone other than sunak would face a battle to get the recognition and hope the conservatives win the next election. and hope the conservatives win the next election-— next election. polling is not the aeneral next election. polling is not the general public _ next election. polling is not the general public will _ next election. polling is not the general public will choose - next election. polling is not the general public will choose the l next election. polling is not the - general public will choose the party leaders, it will go out to the

let's talk about the candidates a little more with chris hopkins, associate director at savanta comreslcome to you. great to see it. tell us a bit more about your latest polling and what it is telling us about these candidates and their chances. , ., , , about these candidates and their chances. , ., _ , , chances. obviously because candidates _ chances. obviously because candidates are _ chances. obviously because candidates are joining - chances. obviously because candidates are joining the i chances. obviously because - candidates are joining the race and dropping out of the race, our most recent poll conducted on friday is already out of date, but what that shows is that rishi sunak among the public definitely the most preferred candidate but is only scored about 17% of the vote. second with ben wallace who has since dropped out, i think what was really interesting to see there is when we pulled it earlier in the week, three or lg%. there was an increase in support for him, but he has since dropped out. i think at this stage, ultimately, any sort of polling especially among the pub