Happy local elections day, one and all. As voters head to the polls across the country, the talk in Westminster is how bad the result is going to be for Rishi Sunak. His party is tipped to lose around 500 councillors, with mayors Andy Street and Ben Houchen among the potential casualties. Faced with the loss of so many seats, it is no surprise that Tory plotters are talking about a leadership challenge. So it is with exquisite timing then that new polling by FindOutNow for Labour Together offers little comfort to the Prime Minister, with his own party activists saying they would prefer a different leader.

More than half of Tory party members surveyed say that they would rather see Penny Mordaunt in the top job than their incumbent PM. Nearly six out of ten said that they would rather vote for the sword-brandishing Leader of the House than Sunak, after ‘don’t knows’ were excluded. And in a sign of how despondent party members are about current events, more than half of the Conservative membership would swap out their Tory leader for, er, a politician from a completely separate party. Their preference would be, of course, none other than Reform’s Nigel Farage, who beats Sunak in member preferences by 55 points to 45.

In fact, Farage fares rather well in the membership survey of 537 activists, conducted from 12 to 17 April last month. When quizzed on their preferred pick of party leader from a long-list of high-flying Tories – including Tom Tugendhat and James Cleverly – the membership went for Farage again. In fact, the Reform UK leader comes in at four points above Mordaunt who, in turn, is four points above Sunak in third place. And in fourth place, above the likes of Kemi Badenoch and Michael Gove, comes the, er, ‘don’t knows’. Inspiring stuff…

And how does the membership feel about today’s local elections? It’s mixed news for Sunak: activists would support their current leader if the Tories lost a third or even half the council seats that they are defending. But if, under the incumbent PM, the Tories lose more than half of the seats that they are currently defending, 41 per cent of party members believe he should do the honourable thing and resign. Good luck Rishi…