This morning’s Times brings news that will come as no surprise to anyone except the one or two most delusional members of Rishi Sunak’s Number 10 team. Even if the economy does improve before the election, voters will not reward the Prime Minister. 47 per cent of those YouGov polled would vote Labour, compared to 26 per cent who would vote Conservative.
That isn’t as bad as the figures for if the economy got worse – 50 per cent and 19 per cent respectively – so one can’t deny that an uptick in growth would have no impact. But it would only slightly soften the approaching hammer blow. Sunak’s dream that a recovering economy combined with National Insurance cuts would reap electoral rewards looks hollow.
This should hardly be surprising. Matthew Goodwin explained for us, pre-Budget, how unlikely any bounce would be. Across every metric that usually decides a government’s popularity – competence, strength of leadership, optimism for the future – the Conservatives have ratings so abysmal that they’d make Prince Andrew blush. Handing back a little in NI won’t shift that.
Every morning brings another postcard from the gloom. Even if we may have already exited a recession, workers have less disposable income than five years ago. GDP per capita has been shrinking for almost two years. The NHS has record-low approval ratings as the number waiting more than 24 hours in A&E surges to ten times its 2019 level. Five pledges? What five pledges?
Putting lipstick on this pig would trouble even the most effective political operation. A CCHQ withdrawing a ludicrous poster declaring Britain the world’s second most powerful country – featuring a “football team that has not won a big trophy in decades, a prime minister with record low ratings, a Swiss-owned container ship, a US fighter jet and a large image of a smiling King” – is not that.
Even when the Government does have something nice to say – as with last week’s announcement of £35 million for grassroots cricket – it is quickly overshadowed by the latest backbench scandal. One can be sympathetic to William Wragg’s plight – I am not – while seeing the honourable thing would be for him to resign and bring us another by-election calamity to mull over.
Through all this, ministers trudge on, the absence of a positive agenda filled with growing speculation about the scale of the coming defeat. At least MPs appear to be waking up to their plight. Last week’s MRP poll predicting the party would be left with only 155 MPs was treated as a good result, if only because one earlier in the week had suggested a figure of just 98.
MPs have three options. They can believe Number 10’s Comical Ali routine, hope that a small uptick in growth leaves voters feeling better, and pray for re-election. Or they can be realistic, announce they are standing down, and begin the hunt for a more rewarding career. Or they can indulge in their favorite hobby: leadership speculation. Smash the glass marked ‘Sir Graham Brady’.
As the locals loom, with the Government having little positive agenda, the newspapers and airwaves become clogged with the latest posturing. How many letters have gone in? Could a Mordaunt-Patel double act work? Can I be Foreign Secretary? Polls are produced, scenarios written up, journalists briefed, all in the hope that a fourth leader in three years would change a damn.
The plotters’ problem is not only is their scheme logistically unworkable and set to hasten the general election shellacking they aim to avoid, but because with every mention of a leadership change, voters are reminded of just why they hate the Tories. Rather than fiddle whilst Rome burns, we plot whilst Britain crumbles. We are far too self-indulgent; we gossip, rather than govern.
Hence why even a recovering economy couldn’t help us now. The public are sick of hearing from us. Not only are voters worse off than they were five years ago, they have been bruised and battered by Covid, inflation, and the rest, and we have utterly failed to embrace the promises made in 2019. The realignment is dead. We have been in government too long and the voters want us out.
The obvious parallel is with 1997. But John Major could point to a booming economy and a genuinely charismatic opponent. Sunak will lose much more heavily to a Labour leader without a smidgen of Tony Blair’s appeal, nous, and charm, simply because the record he will be running on will be far, far shallower. Cling to the mantra: a 1997-style result would be a good one.
Of course, unlike in 1997, there is the chance that the Conservatives could come third. Reform UK now consistently poll within five per cent of the Government, even before Nigel Farage has decided whether he wants one last Parliamentary punt or enjoy a comfortable life as Donald Trump’s cross-Atlantic consigliere. The reason for their success is simple: out-of-control legal and illegal immigration.
Can Sunak patch this wound pre-election? Of course not. His threats to leave the ECHR are empty unless he removes the Whip from the 100 plus One Nation MPs who would refuse to run on a manifesto containing it. Even if one or two half-empty flights make it to Rwanda, hundreds of millions will have been wasted on a failed deterrent. The Treasury will refuse to countenance slashing legal numbers.
Perhaps Labour’s lead will narrow as the election approaches, growth ticks up, and the myriad horrors of 450 Starmtroopers clogging up the Commons become ever-more apparent. But the greater likelihood is that Tory ratings will stagnate or drift further downwards, as disillusioned voters become ever more impatient for us to get off their screens, out of their lives, and into Opposition.
The Times suggests only between 1 and 11 per cent of the public favour an election in one of the last three months of this year. Sunak seems set to milk his time in Downing Street for what it’s worth. He is a hardworking man, with clear talents, overcome by a vile inheritance and his own lack of political nous. The longer he vainly waits for a recovery, the worse his position becomes.
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Author: William Atkinson
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