Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Wednesday sought to portray himself as a straight-talking, sensible politician who the British electorate can trust.
(Bloomberg) — Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Wednesday sought to portray himself as a straight-talking, sensible politician who the British electorate can trust.
The message wasn’t subtle: he’s a different Conservative prime minister to his two predecessors last year.
“I will only promise what I can deliver; And I will deliver what I promise,” Sunak said after outlining five key promises to voters in his first speech of the year.
Still under three months in the job, Sunak was bidding to start 2023 with a reset to his premiership after he spent the final weeks of 2022 mopping up the mess left by Liz Truss and Boris Johnson. After a year of political chaos for the ruling Tory party, the Christmas period was consumed by a grim health crisis and crippling strikes that have continued into the new year.
The premier’s advisers aimed to respond to internal criticism from some Tory MPs and government ministers that he lacked positive messages and an inspiring policy platform. They also wanted to pull the rug from under a speech by opposition Labour Party Leader Keir Starmer due on Thursday.
To do that, Sunak moved forward his own 2023 preview to Wednesday, unveiling five policy pledges that he said the public could judge him on, as well as a “personal” commitment to improve numeracy skills in England.
He said his promises on inflation, economic growth, the national debt, National Health Service waiting times and illegal immigration were the “people’s priorities.” He said he was countering “misinformation” about his government’s view of nurses. The rhetoric was at times almost populist.
‘No Tricks’
“No tricks, no ambiguity,” he vowed, contrasting himself with typical Westminster politicians. “We’re either delivering for you or we’re not.”
But dig a little deeper and Sunak’s supposedly straight pledges were not quite what they seem.
The vow to cut inflation in half this year should be easily achieved, according to the Office of Budget Responsibility — which projects it falling to 3.8% from a peak of more than 11% last year. Moreover, inflation isn’t controlled by the government.
Similarly, the promise to return the economy to growth by the end of the year is in line with what the OBR expects. And the pledge to get debt falling in the “medium term” chimes with what Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt announced in his Autumn Statement. It’s a vow, moreover, that takes Sunak beyond January 2025, the latest he can hold a general election: so he may not even be around to deliver it and be judged on it.
So far, not so ambitious.
Turning to the promise to get NHS waiting lists falling. Sunak offered scant detail on how he will achieve it, how much he’ll cut them by, and by when. And while waiting times are a serious problem, the immediate issue in the headlines is with emergency care — again, Sunak seemed to have little answer to how to fix the current crisis in hospitals.
Finally, Sunak insisted he would “stop small boats” carrying migrants across the English Channel — punchy language aimed at pleasing the Conservative voter base. But that promise too came with no specific time-line or targets, beyond passing new laws to detain and remove people who arrive by boat and without permission.
‘Is That It?’
Cross-channel migration is a problem that some in government privately fear is not solvable.
The prime minister told the public he was being clear, honest and accountable. Yet by making pledges that are either easier or vaguer than they first appear, it’s an open question as to whether voters will really see that as embodying trustworthiness.
“Rishi Sunak’s five promises are all things that were happening anyway, are so easy it would be difficult not to achieve them, or are aimed at fixing problems of the Tories’ own making,” Labour said in a statement.
The ambitions set out by Sunak also contrasted sharply with the scale of the challenges around the NHS and industrial unrest that were outlined to him by journalists in the question-and-answer session that followed the speech.
“Is that it?” asked BBC Political Editor Chris Mason. Sky Political Editor Beth Rigby suggested he wasn’t living in the “real world”. Recent polling suggests many voters agree: Recent polls all give Labour a wide lead, and one survey last month even suggested Sunak would lose his seat if a vote were held immediately.
–With assistance from Joe Mayes and Philip Aldrick.
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