Labour Party

• Sunak recently watered down his climate change mitigation policies, and refused to “speculate” on the future of rail project HS2.
• The Sunak government is seemingly unable to reverse a harmful narrative or maintain its own.
• But political leaders are successful when they present a grand narrative and find a way to connect themselves to it.
• Simply finding a bigger narrative is not enough – political leaders must be compelling characters within their narrative.

Contradictions in Sunak’s narrative

• The audience (in this case, the voting public) must feel able to personally connect with the narrative and the narrator.
• It is difficult to align yourself with a revival narrative, or an everyman narrative, from a position of privilege.
• It’s possible that Sunak’s wealth and privilege may render him singularly incapable of connecting to a bigger narrative at this moment in British history.

A narrative of decline

• As argued in an article in The Economist: “There is just one problem with this narrative.
• He may follow the example of Thatcher: when faced with a decline narrative, she chose not to reverse it but to embrace it – and blame it on her opponents.
• Whatever Sunak decides, reversing the narrative of an impending British collapse or leveraging decline to his advantage, his search for a grand narrative is already replete with incongruities.
• In the end, the stark realities outside Westminster may force him to acknowledge decline and his role within it.

• Deputy Premier Jacinta Allan, from the Socialist Left faction, was widely tipped to become the next premier, especially as she had Andrews’ endorsement.
• But who is Jacinta Allan and what challenges await her as premier?

From Bendigo East to premier

• She became the youngest female elected to the Victorian parliament when she first won the seat of Bendigo East at age 25 in 1999.
• After holding several ministerial positions, Allan was selected as the deputy leader of the Labor Party, and therefore deputy premier of Victoria, in 2022.
• This was interpreted as a clear indication that Premier Daniel Andrews had anointed her to take over if he was to retire before the next election.

Public profile

• Such was his dominance, and the media’s interest in him, that other ministers have often struggled to increase their public profile.
• Allan has arguably developed a stronger public profile than other potential challengers.
• As the minister responsible for the games, Allan was the target of the opposition’s attacks on the government.

Victoria’s second female premier

• The late Joan Kirner made history in 1990 when she became the first woman to be premier of Victoria.
• Kirner was also left with a divided Labor Party that had been in power since Cain first led the party to victory in 1982.
• The new premier must now work through the fallout from the pandemic.
• Read more:
  Is 5 senior ministers quitting Victoria’s Andrews government a sign of renewal – or decline?

• This is not the first time politicians have used cars to sell themselves to voters.
• The cultural and economic importance of cars may have waned, but they remain important enough for politicians to use for electoral gain.
• And it reveals a new tactic from the political right to maintain relevance as the climate crisis unfolds.

What’s changed since 1997?

• In the lead-up to 2023, there has similarly been a lot of direct action by protesters against cars.
• Then, as now, a Conservative government lurching from crisis to crisis has sought popular issues to revive its fortunes.
• In 1997, the Tories were embroiled in a series of corruption scandals and nurturing an internal war over the EU.


Because of these changes, Sunak’s championing of motorists today works differently to the Mondeo man appeal in 1997. Then, both major parties agreed on the social and economic value of the car and sought to sideline and undermine the road protest campaigns. Both shored up this pro-car ideology and competed over who could best serve it.

Two pro-car parties

• In practice, there remains little difference between the two parties on the question of cars.
• Both assume that society will continue to be dominated by cars, but both have introduced enough (modest) policies to limit car use and promote alternatives.
• To actively promote cars now requires a clearer affirmation and creates the possibility of using it as a wedge issue to attack the opposition with.
• This rhetoric also borrows from populists undermining climate policy more generally, because the political logic of promoting cars is now one of backlash which claims “the people” have lost out from the various anti-car initiatives of both parties.

• Whatever fate awaits Annastacia Palaszczuk over the coming weeks, Queensland’s 39th – and only the second woman – premier will never lose her standing in the Australian Labor pantheon.
• Palaszczuk, the state Labor leader since 2012 and premier since 2015, is already Australia’s most successful female political leader.
• If Palaszczuk can survive the building pressure on her to resign, she could next year become Queensland’s fourth longest-serving – and Labor’s second longest-serving – premier since 1860.
• Worse for Labor, Resolve now pegs LNP first-preference support at 38% (up three points since the 2020 election), with Labor at just 32% (down seven).

A perception of a ‘checked-out’ premier

• A year after securing her third term as premier in the 2020 election, Palaszczuk was wholly untroubled by a virtually unknown opposition leader.
• The effect was rapid and seismic: the hitherto Teflon Palaszczuk now looked flawed, and opinion polls soon reflected Labor’s vulnerability.
• Palaszczuk was then framed as a “checked-out”, “red carpet” premier more interested in mixing with celebrities and attending glitzy gala events with her new partner.
• Read more:
  Queensland is not only trampling the rights of children, it is setting a concerning legal precedent

Who might step into her large shoes?

• In short, Palaszczuk has been Labor’s best asset in Queensland since 2012; now she appears a liability.
• It’s almost certain Queensland will have a new Labor premier, possibly by the end of this month.
• Either way, the next Labor leader would have very large shoes to fill.
• Even those in regional Queensland warmed to a Labor leader who looked and sounded like a friendly next-door neighbour.
• But it’s foolish to completely write off the party that has dominated Queensland politics for 28 of the past 33 years.