Osborne tops Cabinet league table but Tory members prefer Boris

By Tim Montgomerie
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Last month we changed the way we rated the Cabinet. In addition to asking people to rate every Cabinet minister we asked people to name the three most impressive Cabinet ministers. Again George Osborne leads the pack with IDS in the number two spot and Gove at number three. This makes sense. Most Conservatives would agree that deficit reduction, welfare reform and schools policy were the Coalition's three most promising initiatives...

1. George Osborne: 55%
2. Iain Duncan Smith: 50%
3. Michael Gove: 40%
4. William Hague: 37%
5. Eric Pickles: 28%
6. Theresa May: 22%
7. Liam Fox: 18%
8. Philip Hammond: 11%
9. Danny Alexander: 10%
10. Ken Clarke: 5%
11. Jeremy Hunt: 4%
12. Andrew Lansley: 4%
13. Francis Maude: 3%
14. Vince Cable: 2%
15. Baroness Warsi: 2%
16. Sir George Young: 1.6%
17. Lord Stratchclyde: 1.2%
18. Andrew Mitchell: 1.1%
19. David Willetts: 1.0%
20. Owen Paterson: 0.8%
21. Oliver Letwin: 0.7%
22. Patrick McCloughlin: 0.7%
23. Caroline Spelman: 0.6%
24. Cheryl Gillan: 0.3%
25. Chris Huhne: 0.3%
26. Michael Moore: 0.2%

The Chancellor may be top of the Cabinet poll but we asked who Tory members "Who would make a better leader of the Conservative Party, Boris Johnson or George Osborne?" This followed recent speculation that one of these two men are the likeliest successor to David Cameron. 57% of members chose the Mayor of London and 43% chose George Osborne. Boris has recently been putting lots of clear blue water between him and the Cameron government and the Tory grassroots clearly like what they see. It's of course far, far too early to think about the next leadership election but it's a bit of fun.