I've been trying to figure out what's/who's behind this YouGov/WPI Strategy poll. Large chunks of the Express article in the OP are verbatim (like word for word) in the Sun article linked in Newton Dunn's tweet. It looks like somebody wants to pump up Davidson for some reason.
The exclusion of at least Rees-Mogg (who's fared well in similar polls in the past, and is, you know, actually an MP already) among the ones you've mentioned is inexplicable.
By the by, Rees-Mogg is skating on thinner ice than usual at the moment. There's a fairly big kerfuffle about recent shenanigans on the floor of the House between him and Brexit Minister Steve Baker.
It's one thing to claim that every economic projection the government's ever done has been wrong, as Baker did the other day, to deflect from the BuzzFeed leak of the Brexit assessment.
It's another to follow this up by having Rees-Mogg pitch a seemingly connived question in the Commons that gave Baker the opportunity to allege that the Civil Service are in the habit of producing Brexit-unfavourable estimates because they want the UK to stay in the customs union (or even abandon Brexit altogether).
It's yet another to have that line of argument blow up in your face when a recording of the discussion you lied about emerges!
Brexit minister forced into apology for maligning civil service
One of Theresa May’s Brexit ministers has been forced to apologise after airing claims in parliament that civil servants had deliberately produced negative economic models to influence policy.
...
The row began after Baker was asked by Jacob Rees-Mogg, a senior Eurosceptic Tory backbencher, to confirm that a Europe expert had told him Treasury officials “had deliberately developed a model to show that all options other than staying in the customs union were bad, and that officials intended to use this to influence policy”.
...
Rees-Mogg was referring to an alleged conversation between Baker and Charles Grant, the director of the Centre for European Research and an expert on EU negotiations, at a lunch at the Tory party conference.
However, several individuals present at the event challenged the claim, including Grant himself and a Tory MP, Antoinette Sandbach. Prospect magazine later issued an audio of the conversation in which there is no suggestion about officials trying to rig the analysis.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/feb/01/brexit-minister-steve-baker-accused-for-second-time-of-maligning-civil-service
Time was when misleading Parliament was a resigning/sacking offence. Those were the days.
Anyhow, skeptical as I am about one-off polls, it would be interesting to see a similar match-up with the names you've mentioned thrown into the ring.
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