When the king abdicates, who inherits the throne? Following Ben Wallace’s departure as Defence Secretary, it seems that Kemi Badenoch has now seized his crown as the toast of the Tory grassroots. For 18 months, Wallace topped the ConservativeHome league table of party members. But his exit from the political stage means there’s a vacancy and with a satisfaction rating of +59 points, it seems that the Business and Trade Secretary has filled his place. Just in time for Tory conference too…

Most of the other ratings are broadly in line with the last ConHome table, though the Prime Minister will be disappointed to see his name fall into 25th place with negative ratings of -3.8 points. Always a bad sign when you’re polling below the Leader of the House of Lords. Penny Mordaunt took the silver medal behind Badenoch with +47.5 followed by James Cleverly with the bronze on +43.9 – no surprise that they’re both favourites to replace Sunak. Johnny Mercer did well with an impressive +39.5 while new girl Claire Coutinho came in at +6.9: hardly a surprise given she only took the job a week ago.

More worrying for Sunak is the fact that only five Tory cabinet ministers now rank above 30 points among Tory members. As Paul Goodman, the editor of ConHome puts it: ‘A bleak return for the government as parliament resumes.’