Rishi Sunak packages U-turns as challenges to consensus politics – an improbable effort to rebrand as the candidate for change
It enables them to set the agenda, rally the core membership and supporters around key themes, and speak to the wider audience of electors.
- It enables them to set the agenda, rally the core membership and supporters around key themes, and speak to the wider audience of electors.
- The Conservative party has now had five different party leaders giving conference speeches as prime minister at this time of year since 2015.
- This is the third party leader to give a speech in the past three years.
The optics
- After trailing the speech as a reset, Sunak continued to play the decline theme in arguing that the British political system is “broken”.
- He presented himself as the change candidate after “30 years of a political system that incentivises the easy decision, not the right one”.
- U-turns on the HS2 high-speed rail project and net zero timelines were therefore presented as a challenge to “consensus politics”.
Health and education: supply and demand
- On health, he promised a free vote in parliament on raising the legal smoking age by a year, each year.
- Sunak acknowledged that restricting choice was not conservative, but weaved it into his narrative of making hard long-term decisions.
What about the economy?
- “I know you all want tax cuts,” he told the party conference audience before insisting that at the moment, bringing down inflation represented the best “tax cut” available.
- The goal seems instead to continue on this path, claiming the UK has shown hints of a strong recovery and that growth will follow.
Values, values, values
- There was also the customary announcement of a crackdown on those claiming welfare benefits through ill-health.
- Sunak also repeatedly stressed family values and insisted that the UK was not a racist country but a multi-ethnic democracy.
Dividing lines
- While Sunak attacked the Labour party and Keir Starmer as lacking ideas, this speech attempted to create dividing lines – and not just with the opposition.
- Without mentioning his predecessors, Sunak was setting up battles with a wide range of players on both HS2 and net zero.