No clear alternative to Sunak as party leader among 2019 Tory voters, poll suggests
There is no clear alternative to lead the Conservative Party if Rishi Sunak were to be ousted, new polling has suggested.
Questions about the prime minister’s future have been raised by the calls for him to go from Sir Simon Clarke, and the defection of his pollster Will Dry to a group seeking his removal.
Researchers at Ipsos UK carried out a survey of 1,087 UK adults – although before Sir Simon and Mr Dry’s actions were public.
Politics latest: Sunak facing ‘really serious’ plot to dethrone him
According to the polling, among 2019 Conservative voters, 42% have a favourable view of Mr Sunak, while 29% have an unfavourable view.
The two closest contenders to Mr Sunak, in the view of 2019 Tories, are both not eligible replacements – Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson.
Neither are currently MPs.
Both men have a 43% favourability rating among the cohort, while 29% have an unfavourable view of Mr Farage and 34% have an unfavourable view of Mr Johnson.
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How serious is plot to oust PM?
Other potential replacements include Chancellor Jeremy Hunt and Home Secretary James Cleverly.
Mr Hunt has 38% favourability among 2019 Conservatives and 31% unfavourability.
Mr Cleverly has 28% favourability and 26% unfavourability.
Read more:
Sir Simon Clarke calls for Sunak to step down
PM’s former aide joins effort to oust him
According to pollsters, 53% of the whole population have an unfavourable view of Mr Sunak, and 24% have a favourable view.
This is almost unchanged from September last year.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer doesn’t fair much better, with 41% viewing him unfavourably, and 28% viewing him favourably – again similar to the last polling in September.
See the state of the parties with the Sky News poll tracker
When it comes to the parties as a whole, the Labour Party has a 33% favourability score, and 39% unfavourability.
The Tories meanwhile have a 22% favourability score, with a 51% unfavourability.
The Greens have 26% favourability and a 31% unfavourability.
The Lib Dems have 20% favourability and a 36% unfavourability, while Reform has 18% favourability and a 39% unfavourability.
A fifth of 2019 Tories said they were likely to consider voting for Labour – 28% said they would consider choosing Reform.
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Keiran Pedley, director of politics at Ipsos, said: “With a majority of Britons unfavourable towards Rishi Sunak, six in 10 saying things are heading in the wrong direction and Labour maintaining a large poll lead over the Conservatives in voter preferences, leadership speculation is to be expected.
“However, it is unclear who would do a better job. No obvious alternative stands out among 2019 Conservative voters so far.
“Plus, given at least half of Britons have held unfavourable opinions towards the Conservative Party since early 2022, it’s not a given that a new leader will improve the party brand any time soon.”
Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin, marks their 50th birthday amid a year of rising institutional and geopolitical adoption of the world’s first cryptocurrency.
The identity of Nakamoto remains one of the biggest mysteries in crypto, with speculation ranging from cryptographers like Adam Back and Nick Szabo to broader theories involving government intelligence agencies.
While Nakamoto’s identity remains anonymous, the Bitcoin (BTC) creator is believed to have turned 50 on April 5 based on details shared in the past.
According to archived data from his P2P Foundation profile, Nakamoto once claimed to be a 37-year-old man living in Japan and listed his birthdate as April 5, 1975.
Source: Web.archive.org
Nakamoto’s anonymity has played a vital role in maintaining the decentralized nature of the Bitcoin network, which has no central authority or leadership.
The Bitcoin wallet associated with Nakamoto, which holds over 1 million BTC, has laid dormant for more than 16 years despite BTC rising from $0 to an all-time high above $109,000 in January.
Satoshi Nakamoto statue in Lugano, Switzerland. Source: Cointelegraph
Nakamoto’s 50th birthday comes nearly a month after US President Donald Trump signed an executive order creating a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and a Digital Asset Stockpile, marking the first major step toward integrating Bitcoin into the US financial system.
Related: Bitcoin at 16: From experiment to trillion-dollar asset
Nakamoto’s legacy: a “cornerstone of economic sovereignty”
“At 50, Nakamoto’s legacy is no longer just code; it’s a cornerstone of economic sovereignty,” according to Anndy Lian, author and intergovernmental blockchain expert.
“Bitcoin’s reserve status signals trust in its scarcity and resilience,” Lian told Cointelegraph, adding:
“What’s fascinating is the timing. Fifty feels symbolic — half a century of life, mirrored by Bitcoin’s journey from a white paper to a trillion-dollar asset. Nakamoto’s vision of trustless, peer-to-peer money has outgrown its cypherpunk roots, entering the halls of power.”
However, lingering questions about Nakamoto remain unanswered, including whether they still hold the keys to their wallet, which is “a fortune now tied to US policy,” Lian said.
Related: Bitcoin’s next catalyst: End of $36T US debt ceiling suspension
Is Satoshi Nakamoto wealthier than Bill Gates?
In February, Arkham Intelligence published findings that attribute 1.096 million BTC — then valued at more than $108 billion — to Nakamoto. That would place him above Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates on the global wealth rankings, according to data shared by Coinbase director Conor Grogan.
Satoshi’s new addresses. Source: Conor Grogan
If accurate, this would make Nakamoto the world’s 16th richest person.
Despite the growing interest in Nakamoto’s identity and holdings, his early decision to remain anonymous and inactive has helped preserve Bitcoin’s decentralized ethos — a principle that continues to define the cryptocurrency to this day.
Magazine: 10 crypto theories that missed as badly as ‘Peter Todd is Satoshi’
The United States stock market lost more in value over the April 4 trading day than the entire cryptocurrency market is worth, as fears over US President Donald Trump’s tariffs continue to ramp up.
On April 4, the US stock market lost $3.25 trillion — around $570 billion more than the entire crypto market’s $2.68 trillion valuation at the time of publication.
Nasdaq 100 is now “in a bear market”
Among the Magnificent-7 stocks, Tesla (TSLA) led the losses on the day with a 10.42% drop, followed by Nvidia (NVDA) down 7.36% and Apple (AAPL) falling 7.29%, according to TradingView data.
The significant decline across the board signals that the Nasdaq 100 is now “in a bear market” after falling 6% across the trading day, trading resource account The Kobeissi Letter said in an April 4 X post. This is the largest daily decline since March 16, 2020.
“US stocks have now erased a massive -$11 TRILLION since February 19 with recession odds ABOVE 60%,” it added. The Kobessi Letter said Trump’s April 2 tariff announcement was “historic” and if the tariffs continue, a recession will be “impossible to avoid.”
Source: Anthony Scaramucci
On April 2, Trump signed an executive order establishing reciprocal tariffs on trading partners and a 10% baseline tariff on all imports from all countries.
Trump said the reciprocal tariffs will be roughly half the rate US trading partners impose on American goods.
Related: Bitcoin bulls defend $80K support as ‘World War 3 of trade wars’ crushes US stocks
Meanwhile, the crypto industry has pointed out that while the stock market continues to decline, Bitcoin (BTC) remains stronger than most expected.
Crypto trader Plan Markus pointed out in an April 4 X post that while the entire stock market “is tanking,” Bitcoin is holding.
Source: Jeff Dorman
Even some crypto skeptics have pointed out the contrast between Bitcoin’s performance and the US stock market during the recent period of macro uncertainty.
Stock market commentator Dividend Hero told his 203,200 X followers that he has “hated on Bitcoin in the past, but seeing it not tank while the stock market does is very interesting to me.”
Meanwhile, technical trader Urkel said Bitcoin “doesn’t appear to care one bit about tariff wars and markets tanking.” Bitcoin is trading at $83,749 at the time of publication, down 0.16% over the past seven days, according to CoinMarketCap data.
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