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Prime Ministers must be defined – that is, tell a story about why they and their party should be elected, especially if they do not have a proper electoral mandate. It is difficult to do so when they are already known for other reasons. Liz Truss was not, and did not survive in office long enough to make a difference.
Theresa May was the longest-serving home secretary in more than 60 years, and she came to the prime ministership with a reputation. But he managed to find himself, partly because of the demands of Brexit, and partly because of the image-making power of Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill, as a fighter against “burning injustices” . She also failed.
Boris Johnson was in office even longer, having served two terms as mayor of London, the first before the Coalition took office. The majority of voters wanted to do Brexit, and even with an agreement. He could present himself as the man who would deliver both – and he did. He won an election, but ultimately failed in office.
Bad luck and judgment played their part. Luckily, because his government was haunted by Covid and the war. The judgment, because he sees the economy as a kind of Roman circus: a show to entertain the masses, with tax cuts, borrowed money, public works and, ideally, lots of statues.
So the storm clouds were already gathering before Truss blew up the flood defenses. But even Johnson’s Promethean could not challenge economic reality, and his appetite for spending, plus the costs of Covid, was met by tax increases and even more borrowing.
Now the man who shares responsibility for both is in Number Ten. Unlike all three of his recent Conservative predecessors, he comes to office with that economic hurricane raging. The good news for him is that his poll ranking is ahead of his party’s. And that’s it.
He entered Downing Street during a fourth term of Conservative government. There is no precedent in modern times for a fifth. When Truss became Prime Minister, the Tories trailed Labor in the Politico poll by 31 per cent to 42 per cent. Then he crashed the car. And when he succeeded, the respective scores of the parties were 24 percent to 52 percent.
Sunak has just blown Labour’s lead. No wonder: there is no credible alternative to tax increases and spending cuts – since the markets are now the real government, at least when it comes to economic policy. And when problems come, they don’t come single spies, etc.
Norman Lamont’s verdict on John Major’s Government was that it gave the impression “of being in office but not in power”. So that’s it for Sunak today. Problems are coming fast in modern government and it seems that there are no convincing solutions – to small boats, to higher migration, to fanatics of the style of the end of Just Stop Oil, even to the closure of the Wellcome Collection exhibition.
The museum is closing its Medicine Man exhibition, which has been open for 15 years, because of its “racist, sexist and ableist theories and language”. The Wellcome Collection says it “generally” receives no government grants. So you can say that what he does is none of the Government’s business.
It’s not how Conservative members and voters see the matter. They ask: why, after 12 years of Tory-led government, is the country not more conservative? Kemi Badenoch’s popularity with activists during the summer leadership contest, according to our polls and YouGov polls, was driven by the feeling that she was the candidate who most felt their discontent.
Sunak has avoided the self-harm of the Truss and Johnson era, at least so far. There were no “alleged meetings in government premises”, Covid-style, in the words of Sue Grays report. And what can be said about Hunt’s Autumn Statement, it did not blow the roof of the laboratory, as the mini-Budget Kwasi Kwarteng did.
He may want the action of the Red Wall-focused by Ministers, of which the center is to stop the small boats. But the heart of his Government is provided by the Blue Fade MPs – like Oliver Dowden and Jeremy Quin in the Cabinet Office, at the center of government, and John Glen plus Hunt himself at the Treasury.
The danger for Sunak is that mangerialism is not enough – that a destructive Tory spiral sets in: that events come thick and fast; that the Tory rebels grow bolder; ditto, Nigel Farage; that MP withdrawals increase, that the media take on Ministers one by one, Dominic Raab being the current target, and that the Tory poll rankings remain in their current desperate range.
Simon Clarke’s onshore wind amendment to the Leveling Up Bill appears to be a response to Theresa Villiers’ housing goals. Whatever your view of the two, the conservative rebellion is clearly not dead. It is a good thing for the Commons that parliamentarians can argue these issues on the floor of the House. But it is clearly bad for Tory unity.
That Clarke’s amendment is supported by Truss – and even Johnson – is not lost on Sunak’s supporters, who say recent scores have paid off. Twelve Conservative MPs have said they are standing down, with more to follow. The most impressive announcement of the weekend was Dehenna Davison. The Red Wall Minister has been an MP for less than three years.
The curse of head writers is a misplaced confidence in their views. I am undoubtedly no less prone to that than others, but my self-confidence dries up as I gaze upon this forbidding landscape. Lord Ashcroft writes today on ConservativeHome that “while voters may have seen the advent of Sunak as a return to sanity, they did not regard it as a new beginning”.
Perhaps that is all that can be usefully said. Maybe the Prime Minister should just shrug his shoulders, and accept that his political destiny is to be a firefighter. And that any attempt to frame a different mission or send a bigger message would be shot down by the lobby with that one, dreaded, obliterating word: relaunch.
It would do Sunak no good to read of a “beleaguered Prime Minister” trying to save “his besieged Government”. Can he tell a story about himself that could cut through to voters – whose word cloud already features the words “nondom”, “green card” and (definitely) “rich”?
He does not seem well placed to cast himself as the champion of the NHS. Nor is this the most gratifying of times for him to push the main theme of his Mais Lecture as Chancellor, which William Atkinson wrote on this site at the end of last week – better productivity. And, no, temporary growth driven by higher unemployment would not mean real success.
As William said, Hunt borrowed Sunak’s line from the conference about wanting to make Britain the new Silicon Valley. Here is an aspiration that runs to the character. But it is too niche, I suspect, to have much impact on the electorate – even when supported with all that research and development money from the Budget.
The Prime Minister is a creation of the trinity that provides less demand for government – a stable family, a good education, a rewarding job. It is already in the belt in the work part of the triangle, as the Government fights with the war, an “NHS crisis” and the recession.
Family politics is a neglected land. Could there be more to him in education? His parents clearly appreciated it. So he The May and Johnson governments have been working hard in the area where education and work meet – apprenticeships, T-levels, the right to borrow for life. Is there more for Sunak and the Conservatives here?
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