Prime Minister Rishi Sunak recorded a short video promoting some good news about his government on Thursday, just days before the Conservatives suffered a heavy blow in local elections.inside eight second clipMr Sunak poured milk from a pint bottle into a tall glass filled with the steaming dark drink, with the figure “900 pounds” scrawled on the side.
“Payday is coming,” Mr Sunak wrote, referring to the savings ordinary wage earners could make by cutting compulsory contributions to Britain’s National Insurance system.
The jeers soon began. Some people said he added too much milk. Others said his numbers didn’t add up. One commentator asked why Mr Sunak would opt for a pint bottle just days after opposition Labor Party deputy leader Angela Rayner dismissed him as a “pint bottle loser” in parliament How about taking off bottles as props?
However partisan her attacks may be, Sunak is finding the loser label increasingly difficult to shake off, even among members of his own party. Sunak, 43, has lost seven special parliamentary elections and two consecutive local elections in the 18 months since he succeeded his failed predecessor Liz Truss.
Last week’s local elections saw the Conservatives lose about 40% of the 985 seats they defended, just the latest sign on what analysts say is a path to general election defeat. National polls show Labor leading the Conservatives by more than 20 points, a gap the Prime Minister has been unable to close.
The bad news casts new light on Sunak’s leadership and the future of his party.
For now, Sunak appears to have put to rest rumors that a group of Conservative MPs will try to oust him ahead of the vote, which is expected to take place in the autumn. The local results, while bad, were not as catastrophic as imagined, preventing colleagues from going into a full-blown panic. The Conservatives have had three prime ministers since the last election and are running out of alternative leaders.
Despite Sunak’s troubles, he seems likely to limp into the general election as the standard-bearer for a tired and divided party.
“The broader view is that it is now better for Risch to stay in his job, absorb the impact of defeat and prepare his successor for what happens after Labour’s landslide win,” says UK University Politics Matthew Goodwin said.
“He does look like a zombie, to be honest,” said Tim Bell, a political science professor at Queen Mary University of London and an expert on the Conservative Party.
Sunak’s supporters say he is a victim of the global economic headwinds brought about by the coronavirus pandemic and the toxic legacy he inherited from Ms Truss, whose plans for sweeping tax cuts frightened It disrupted financial markets and damaged Britain’s reputation for fiscal integrity.
Britain’s persistent inflation, high mortgage rates and a stagnant economy all predate Mr Sunak’s arrival. Inflation has fallen to 3.2% from 11.1% when he took office, although this is largely due to the Bank of England.
Sunak does win credit for stabilizing markets and restoring Britain’s credibility after succeeding Ms Truss. But critics say he has never adopted a convincing strategy to spur growth. He also failed to deliver on two other promises: to reduce NHS waiting times and to stop small boats carrying asylum seekers from crossing the English Channel.
“Liz Truss has destroyed the party’s reputation for economic prowess,” Professor Bell said. “But it’s also down to Sunak: he doesn’t have the control, charisma or authority needed to carry out the rescue effort.”
Critics say this partly reflects Sunak’s political shortcomings. He can be whiny in his interviews with the media, and his attempts to connect with voters are often ignored. While promoting his tax policy, he drew ridicule when he posed in a pair of Adidas Sambas, a sneaker favored by celebrities including Rihanna and Harry Styles. British GQ magazine said: “Sunak took a forever cool sneaker and ruined it for everyone.”
Some say Mr Sunak, the former Goldman Sachs banker whose wife is Akshata Murthy, the daughter of an Indian tech billionaire, is not a relatable figure at all. Before he was mocked for wearing Sambas, he was criticized for wearing £490 ($616) Prada suede loafers to a construction site.
Labor leader Keir Starmer took aim at Sunak’s preference to fly across Britain instead of taking a train. “I’m sure from the vantage point of his helicopter everything looked fine,” Mr Starmer said in parliament, “but that’s not the reality of the experience for those on the ground.”
Mr Sunak once had a “smart coffee cup” on his desk that retailed for £180 – an image that has stuck with critics of his milk-pouring videos. “If anyone can afford a £900 cup of tea, it’s the Prime Minister,” journalist Robert Hutton wrote on social media.
Others pointed to Mr Sunak’s claim workers could save £900 through lower National Insurance contributions misleading, because the government froze the income tax threshold. Because of inflation-adjusted wages, people pay higher taxes but take home no extra money.
Sunak didn’t spend much time in the political trenches before becoming chancellor. He entered parliament in 2015 and rose to become chancellor under Prime Minister Boris Johnson in just five years. He was defeated by Ms Truss in her first leadership contest after precipitating Mr Johnson’s downfall.
However bumpy his tenure, Sunak insists his government has made progress on the economy, immigration and defence, and has pledged to increase UK military spending to 2.5% of economic output by 2030.
Writing in the Daily Telegraph on Saturday, Sunak drew a sharp distinction between the Conservatives and Labour. Voters, he said, will choose between “planned and unplanned, bold principled action versus U-turns and prevarication, a clear record of delivery versus political gamesmanship.”
Sunak has invested the most political capital in immigration. He won passage of a controversial law that would put asylum seekers on one-way flights to Rwanda and now vows to get planes in the air before the July election.
Rwanda’s policy of permanently deporting asylum seekers without hearing their asylum applications is anathema to rights activists, constitutional lawyers and courts. But it was welcomed by rank-and-file Conservatives – and aimed at winning over voters in the Midlands and the north of England who had opposed the Conservatives in local elections.
These areas have traditionally been Labor strongholds and have earned the nickname “Red Walls” after the party’s campaign colours. But they switched to the Conservatives in 2019 as Johnson promised to “get Brexit done”. Now, the alliance he cobbled together appears to be unraveling. The red wall is turning towards Labour.
Take the northern seaside district of Blackpool South, where Labor won a Tory-controlled seat in a special election on Thursday. In 2016, the wider Blackpool area voted 67.5% to leave the EU.
Professor Goodman accused the Conservatives of not taking more aggressive action to cut immigration. The results, he said, “underscore how out of touch they are with Britain’s post-Brexit political adjustment.”
For other analysts, however, Sunak’s woes are proof that such adjustments have always been a mirage. In the Conservative heartland of the south – known as the “blue wall” – voters want low taxes and stable government. Some are tired of the anti-immigration tone of Rwanda’s policies.
These freer market, socially liberal priorities are often at odds with the aspirations of many voters in the Midlands and the North. This puts Sunak in a dilemma, the political equivalent of squaring a circle.
“He’s being asked to pursue two different strategies at once,” said pollster Robert Hayward, a Conservative member of the House of Lords. “Tackling a blue wall on one side and a red wall on the other. It’s not easy to identify a common strategy that can solve both problems.
Stephen Castle Contributed reporting.
