Can Rishi really rescue the Tories?

There is a sweet spot for party leaders in which two key conditions are fulfilled. First, the leader’s party is ahead in the polls. Secondly, the leader is more popular than the party.

At the end of his first week in office, Rishi Sunak can at least be content that the latter of these conditions has been met. Ultimately though it will be the former that determines the result of the next general election. On this score there is a huge amount of lost ground still to claw back, with the Conservatives trailing Labour by an average of more than 20 points.

Polling shows that the public already regard Sunak as a better prospect as prime minister than Sir Keir Starmer, albeit only by a single point so far – a finding shared by the latest surveys from both Redfield & Wilton Strategies and BMG Research. On the specific issue of the economy, BMG shows Sunak leading Starmer by 40 points to 30; on tax he leads by 39 points to 30. 

Yet Labour as a party leads the Conservatives on the economy by 36 points to 23 and on tax by 35 points to 22. So, while Brand Rishi is in rude health, the overall reputation of the Conservatives has clearly sustained major damage from the divisions and chaos that has unfolded this year.

At least no Tory activist can ask Sunak why he is a drag on the party’s fortunes – a hugely helpful factor given continuing ill-feeling among grassroots members about him being imposed on them by MPs. Everyone loves a winner and so long as he can sustain his personal advantage over Starmer, the Tory base will surely fall in behind him. Everyone, that is, apart from a small number of irreconcilable Boris cultists that the party can probably do without.

So where does he go from here? How does Sunak rebuild Conservative support to an extent that enables the party to go into the next election with its tail up? Just not being Liz Truss and not being beset by daily disasters is clearly a good place to start. So is a strategic decision to play on the whole pitch – not just on the economy and the NHS, where there are no easy wins right now, but also by delivering tougher policies on immigration and asylum. Resisting the unpopular attacks by the identitarian left on Britain’s history and culture helps too.

The revelation that he intends to make good on the ten point plan for border control set out in his summer leadership campaign, including bringing in a more restrictive legal definition of who should be deemed a refugee, is welcome. This will encourage back many of the voters so carelessly allowed to drift away because of Boris Johnson’s neglected promise to bring migrant numbers down. Providing, of course, that Sunak actually delivers.

These kind of issues are largely sniffed at by the political establishment. Johnson by and large chose to avoid them or to run ultra-liberal approaches under the radar. But for Sunak they have the huge merit of constituting arguments that can shift people’s voting intentions without necessitating unsustainable spending pledges. They are also issues that Labour finds extremely difficult to deal with.

Given that Starmer has by no means sealed the deal with swing voters, the fiscal cold shower that Jeremy Hunt will shortly deliver in his autumn statement could easily contain as many problems for the opposition as for the government. Labour’s commitment to no unfunded spending pledges means that Starmer will have to design his own policy platform to sit within the expenditure totals unveiled by Hunt.

Not only will that infuriate the Labour left and public sector trade unions, but it could make Labour’s offering look flat. It may well also leave the wider electorate wondering what the point of changing political horses during tricky economic times is.

There is certainly a school of thought that now believes the nearly four years of solid economic growth and improvement in public finances between Black Wednesday and the 1997 election made the Blair landslide more, rather than less, likely. Voters not only wanted change under Labour but believed the country could afford it too. If Sunak and Hunt are only a third of the way through an economic repair job come the next election, but are seen to be setting about it competently, then key groups of voters may choose to stick with them rather than twist with Starmer and shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves.

Sunak announced he will not go to the next global climate summit. He also appeared to downgrade the status of ministers on the Net Zero beat. Through this, Sunak has made a calculated overture to Conservative-leaning voters who felt Johnson set out an unaffordable prospectus on this issue.

On substance, in the battle to bring down emissions, the Prime Minister is likely to keep Britain in the international vanguard. But it clearly isn’t something he intends to assail voters with constantly. This looks like a better political balance to me: have a good eco-story to tell when challenged by the media or other parties, but don’t turn the Tory public profile into a Caroline Lucas tribute act.

Following such an approach overall should start to pull Conservative poll ratings upwards as the next election looms closer. Indeed, given where Liz Truss left them it would be hard for Sunak not to preside over some kind of recovery. The sweet spot may not prove out of reach after all.