Rishi Sunak’s ‘narrow path’ to winning the next election

Cabinet ministers at today’s Chequers awayday must be tempted to contemplate the end of Conservative rule, writes John Rentoul

If Rishi Sunak wins the next election, stranger things will already have happened to him (PA Wire)

The time has come for me to assess my prediction that Rishi Sunak would win the next general election. It is what superforecasters do, according to Professor Philip Tetlock, who invented the concept. They constantly revisit and revise their assumptions.

Since I made my forecast six weeks ago, events seem to have conspired against the prime minister, and the prime minister himself has failed to rise as confidently above them as he did when he was first tested as the coronavirus chancellor. The most important things to have gone wrong are the NHS and public sector strikes. In early December, I assumed that the nurses dispute would be over by Christmas. It seemed obvious that the money would be found to pick off the most popular group of workers, who just happen to be critical to solving the NHS’s problems.

It didn’t happen, and I hear the rumble of suggestions that relations between Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, and Steve Barclay, the health secretary, are in a bad way. But if Hunt is holding to an excessively hard line on the money, it can only be because Sunak agrees with him, in which case it is the prime minister’s judgement that must be questioned.