The Tories are the party that are 4 goals down in a football game and are facing an opposition that is sitting deep making sure they can’t score even one goal. The party has the most to do and has had the most time to effectively prepare. Yet, as things stand, the Tory brand has in the last week become somewhat of a difficult thing to watch. There is a Simpsons meme (kind-of-funny online picture) where there’s a child crying “stop hitting him he’s already dead”. Much like watching Joe Biden, it just makes for unpleasant viewing watching something overtly struggle to do what it is expected to do.
Rishi Sunak called this snap general election; he held all of the initial cards. It is widely speculated that following the bad but not disastrous local elections in May of this year that Rishi Sunak was fully prepared to call for a General Election. The question was when. As speculation rose as to whether Sunak’s flagship Rwanda policy was ever going to really happen, along with nothing to really be able to give economically following a slew of sluggish economic forecasts, probably ruling out tax cuts altogether before January next year, Sunak chose the time and the place and so awarded himself a little momentum and manoeuvrability that would only shrink as time went on. Coupled with the real and present danger of the Reform Party eating into the prospects of the Tories surviving the next election, Sunak had to have been planning this July election weeks in advance.
What have we really seen since the decision to declare an election has been a public relations failure. Blunders on the campaign trail mostly dominated by really bad photograph optics like standing outside the Titanic quarter in Belfast, throwing out a Sky journalist at the big press launch, caught on camera seemingly unaware that Wales did not qualify for the Euros this summer, just haven’t helped the Tory brand as one that is trying to get its act together. Sunak needed more than anyone to be fully on the ball with a clear message reinventing the Tory brand as competent, deserving of another 4 years after 14 years of a government legacy that has seen little, if anything, actually get better. He had to get the parliamentary party in line and believing in him. Sunak had to show off the dynamic policies to claw back people voting Labour (which is actually a small percentage, not even a quarter of 2019 Tory voters), to woo back people voting Reform (currently about a third of 2019 Tory voters and rising) and to enfranchise voters who are planning to stay at home and not vote for anyone (currently the biggest group in the election so far). It is a big ask and one that can only be achieved with momentum from the off. The Tories have no momentum it seems, and their brand is far too weighted down with a bad legacy of decline.
Perhaps the toughest ring round the Prime Minister’s neck that has an almost impossible weight to shift is the parliamentary desertions. Over 70 sitting MPs are choosing to not contest their seats at this General Election. This includes Micheal Gove, John Redwood, Theresa May, Mike Freer and so many others. Now, for a fair few this is simply a matter of retirement. After so many years there is an understanding that there is more to life than politics and so now would be the time to stand down. For Mike Freer’s case, he is standing down due to security fears for his life and his family as he is Jewish and openly standing with Israel. With many death threats one could completely understand his decision, and that is a crying shame. For many other Tory MPs this looks like cowardice or an unwillingness to look their legacy in the face and take the punishment. The Tory Party simply don’t believe that they will hold on to so many seats let alone win the election! Around 8 cabinet ministers are under threat of losing their seats, including the Chancellor of the Exchequor Jeremy Hunt. The sheer failure to maintain hope within the party itself is one that will keep the Tory brand in the shade for pretty much the whole election.
It is clear through contacts within the Tory party that many found this decision madness, not least because it has meant that hundreds of Tory party men and women are about to lose their salaries 4 months earlier thanks expected. Sunak and a very close-knit group made the decision and it is clear that they did not take the rest of the party with them, evidenced by the last-minute attempt to try to oust him as leader in a bid to stop the election. Had it been known that Sunak was going to go for a July election well in advance there is enough evidence to suggest that he would have faced a significant back-bench rebellion, and perhaps even front-bench. There is no belief in the brand from within the party as well. This only serves to make the Prime Minister’s words seem all the more hollow. Why should we vote for the party that has no belief, no unity and no strategy? The Tory right can’t stand the Tory centrists and the backbenchers have no love for the frontbenchers. To Tory voters are not enamoured with their party and the party has ignored their voters by pursuing un-conservative policies. When you put it like that what on earth is going on?
Sunak has very recently pivoted to appealing to Tory core voters. With the policy of National Service unvelied, popular to Brexit voters, 2019 Conservative voters and voters aged 65+ this seems like a play to simply close the gap by finding voters not currently flirting with the Labour Party, and there are lots and lots. But is this not too little too late? The voters were put off by the Tory legacy and it seems a bit difficult to have the legacy acolytes, of which Sunak is very much one of them being the Chancellor from 2019 onwards, saying for the fourth time “we’re different. We’ve changed”. In reality you only really change when you are in opposition. It is almost impossible to fundamentally change whilst in government. It’s been done before with Ted Heath in the 1970s but that ended disastrously for this government anyway. Perhaps it is dawning on some Tory MPs that a change of leader might have been prudent after all! A Kemi Badenoch or even a Stella Baverman might have made the “we’re better now” argument more convincing.
What does Sunak need to do? He is probably doing the right thing now by appealing to core voters but is he the right man to do it? Why not wheel out someone else to help you out? Where have all of his senior associates gone? After all, despite what the media are trying to do, this is not a presidential election. We are not voting in a Prime Minister. The dumbing down of our politics to an American-style Mano-e-Mano showdown is ludicrous and there needs to be some proper analysis of the state of play and the actual choice for voters. Starmer and Sunak are only heads of the coalition on the centre-right and centre-left and so the attention surely needs to shift away from the two of them. In fairness that should be easy to do as they are some of the most uninspiring people in politics ever. Even Lord David Cameron did a better job when he was leader of the party. Gordon Brown, for all of his mistakes (and good lord did he make many mistakes), was an excellent spokesman for the Labour Party when he was leader and not accusing members of the public of bigotry. Sunak needs to bring around him a team of politicians that can show him to be actually showing off change; but he can’t. The Tory party are too divided and we are certain that there are men in grey suits in the shadows preventing him from wheeling out popular allies for fear that in doing so his party will lurch to the right. It is almost as if Sunak still believes he can win a majority in the House of Commons on July 5th and so he can’t make too many moves. If we could tell him one thing we’d say “you have a predicted chance of zero. Throw caution to the wind!” Sunak is cautious, and that might be his personal downfall.
The Labour Party are almost sitting on deckchairs letting the Tories do the work for them. Kir Starmer simple just has to not be associated with the Tory brand. In that he is doing a brilliant job, despite his policies being exactly the same in all but certain more leftist social issues. Sunak is floundering in the water trying to get back on the boat but Starmer is seemingly in a coal paddle-steamer pulling away as the majority of voters sit by the shore with their hands over their eyes. It simply isn’t good to watch. Having an election when you can predict with a high degree of certainty who is going to win is boring, undemocractic and worrying when you think about the state of debating in this country. Sunak, with this election system, has a duty to provide an actual alternative but at the moment he is leaving his goal wide open for Labour to score their 5th goal as the Tory strikers are busy retiring from the field. If Sunak doesn’t get his players on the field, let alone trying to actually go on the offensive, he is going to have to do something with the Tory brand that is lying exhausted on the turf.
This article first appeared on the TDL Times. For more information, articles and more please visit www.thetdltimes.com.
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