Rishi Sunak is all but sunk – and out of time to turn around the sinking Tories

From inflation to debt, the prime minister has spent the year talking up his government’s achievements – but it has had little impact on opinion polls. Labour retains a huge lead over the Tories and, with an election in sight, time is slipping away fast for Rishi Sunak, says Andrew Grice

The prime minister has tried painting a positive picture of his time in No 10 – but does it stand up to scrutiny? (PA Wire)

“It’s been an incredibly successful year,” Rishi Sunak said. Unfortunately for him, he was talking about King Charles’s first year as monarch, in the BBC’s behind-the-scenes documentary about the royals broadcast on Boxing Day.

The prime minister, who can only dream of such uncritical media coverage, can’t describe his government’s performance in the same terms. Yet at the cabinet meeting before Christmas, he appeared to mark his own homework and award himself four marks out of five on achieving the pledges he made at the start of this year.

One out of five (inflation has been halved) is more accurate. Government debt is due to fall in five years but the public finances will yo-yo before then and the UK’s statistics watchdog has rebuked Sunak for claiming debt is already falling. His pledge to grow the economy was thrown into doubt when official figures showed it contracted by 0.1 per cent in the third quarter, raising fears of a technical recession.

Good luck with explaining that in an election year. NHS waiting lists, far from being cut as Sunak promised, have risen from 7.2 million in January to 7.71 million. The number of people crossing the Channel in small boats has dropped by a third, but they have not been “stopped” as the PM pledged.

A more revealing remark at the cabinet session came when Sunak said his government needs “to go further next year in tackling the issues that matter most to the public”. A tacit admission, perhaps, that it had not done enough on the two most important issues in voters’ eyes: the cost of living crisis and the NHS. The economy – with a “gear change” to deliver tax cuts – will loom large in the Tories’ new year fightback. Sunak might announce the abolition of inheritance tax, The Daily Telegraph reports.

Why would he opt for this rather than reduce income tax by 1p in the pound or end the freeze on allowances and thresholds? It’s because Labour would not reverse these two tax cuts but rightly opposes ending inheritance tax, which affects only four per cent of estates. The Tories have found it harder than they bargained for to find their much-vaunted “dividing lines” with Labour but inheritance tax is a safe bet.

Tax cuts will at least put Sunak’s party back on the pitch on the economy. But competing with Labour on health – the strongest suit for Keir Starmer’s party – will be much harder.

A year ago, Sunak allies told Westminster watchers like me the opinion poll gap with Labour wouldn’t close quickly but that we would see a difference by next month. Some hoped the deficit would be halved to 10 points. Yet it remains stubbornly at 19 points. Worryingly for Sunak, his personal ratings have been weighed down by his party’s heavy baggage of the Johnson and Truss regimes.

The same allies hoped competence would win back disenchanted 2019 Tory voters but Sunak hasn’t delivered it. Despite all the talk about making long-term decisions, his government was often about short-term tactics. The “change candidate” who vowed to end a “30-year status quo” then brought back one of its key figures: David Cameron.

The Tories congratulated themselves on laying traps for Labour, whose leaders were intensely grateful they were advertised in advance so they could sidestep them. “They seem to forget we read the newspapers,” one shadow cabinet member chortled.

The biggest trap was one Sunak set for himself: ploughing on with his unworkable Rwanda scheme. He should have dropped it, along with Suella Braverman, when the Supreme Court ruled it unlawful, and pursued agreements to process asylum seekers with other countries. I suspect a deal will be struck, and implemented, with Albania, while the Rwanda plan remains blocked.

True, Sunak had some genuine achievements in 2023. Resolving the problems with the Northern Ireland protocol opened the door to better relations with the EU and closer cooperation with France on stopping the boats. But while working even harder might bring dividends in Sunak’s previous world in the City, it doesn’t get you very far in politics if voters don’t notice the outcome. They are not toasting the Windsor Framework on Northern Ireland in the Dog and Duck this Christmas. But the drinkers will remember Partygate and that Liz Truss crashed the economy.

The past 12 months might not look so bad if they came immediately after a general election; Sunak would have made a start, could learn from his mistakes and have longer to achieve those five pledges. His problem is that it was the penultimate year before an election. So a crucial period was largely wasted.

Sunak’s aides are convinced all is not yet lost; they tell me they now have a coherent plan to win next year’s election and will stick to it. But the nightmare before Christmas for many Tory MPs was that nothing works (again) in 2024 and the polls barely move. They will continue to think that in the new year.

Sunak doesn’t possess the one luxury he would wish for – time. The sand will run through very quickly once the hourglass is turned on 1 January.