I'm baffled Rishi's going to the polls. He'll have only gruel to serve

Question

Rishi Sunak has taken the biggest gamble of his political career — a gamble the Prime Minister is very likely to lose.

In truth, the odds are strongly stacked against the Tories winning the General Election whenever it is held.

But there was a better (if slim) chance of a surprise victory in November, by which time there will be more good news to crow about, than the day he's plumped for, July 4, when in terms of achievements the Tories will still have only the thinnest gruel to serve.

I am baffled by Sunak's decision to go in July when he doesn't have to — so much so that I refused to believe it until I heard him with my own ears last night.

Yes, inflation has just dropped to a welcome 2.3 per cent — near as matters to the official 2 per cent target. But people are still suffering from the squeeze on their living standards when inflation was over 10 per cent — and the steep rises in food and fuel prices which that entailed are still baked into prices at the supermarket checkout and petrol forecourt.









I refused to believe Sunak's decision to go until I heard him with my own ears last night





The public mood is not to give the Tories the time of day, so convincing them that things really are getting better will be an uphill task







Given the pain voters have been through in recent years, nobody's mind is going to be changed by one or two months' low inflation figures. They will take more convincing than that.

Interest rate cuts would have helped, especially because they would lead to lower mortgage rates, but by going to the country in July that won't happen before the election. The Bank of England will not cut rates during an election campaign, lest it be accused of trying to influence the outcome.

If Sunak had waited until November he would have had more convincing proof that inflation had indeed been conquered and perhaps one or two interest rate cuts under his belt. Now he will have neither.

The public mood is not to give the Tories the time of day. So convincing them that things really are getting better will be an uphill task (file that under British understatement).

But wages are now rising faster than prices and are set to do so for the rest of the summer and into the autumn.

Real wages rising. Mortgage and interest rates falling. Inflation tamed. A trifecta well-established enough by the autumn possibly to persuade people that their living standards were at last being repaired.

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But not one that can be credibly sold by July 4.

Then there are the recent cuts in National Insurance. The Tories will make much of this, repeating endlessly that they're worth £900 a year to the worker on average pay. Which is true enough — and a decent enough sum.

But when taxes are cut it takes time for people to appreciate they're better off.

That wise old Tory owl, Harold Macmillan, who won a landslide victory in 1959, used to argue that you couldn't just cut taxes and head for the polls. He said you had to let money ‘fructify' in people's pockets, echoing the words of William Gladstone, Britain's most famous 19th century chancellor, 100 years before.

His point was that it took time for people to realise they could count on having more money in their pay packets and that their votes were not just being bought by a pre-election gimmick.

The Tories will argue that last year's recession was mild and that the economy is growing again, at least as robustly as most major European economies. Again, that is true.

But sceptical voters will want proof this is no flash in the pan — and the lesson from across the Atlantic is not encouraging for the Tories.

President Biden seeks re-election this November with a far more impressive economic record than Sunak's. For some time now, growth has been strong, inflation falling, jobs plentiful, wages bounding ahead and living standards recovering.

Not that he's getting much thanks for this from the voters.

The pain of the cost of living squeeze in his first year still rankles and prices remain high, even though inflation has tailed off, so they are not inclined to give him much credit for a buoyant economy. Indeed, Donald Trump is way ahead of him in the polls on managing the economy.




Labour has a near-impregnable lead in the polls yet there is something flaky about the party







Sunak has fewer economic successes to point to and they are much less well-established.

A recovering economy is unlikely to be the vote winner many Tories think.

It certainly didn't help John Major. People forget that, by the time Major sought re-election in 1997, the economy was motoring quite nicely after a self-inflicted very rough patch following his victory in 1992, when our financial affairs were thrown into chaos by his obsession with keeping sterling in the European Exchange Rate Mechanism.

Growth was decent, inflation under control, unemployment falling and living standards rising healthily. But voters had not forgiven him for the earlier mess and had stopped listening to him or his party.

It was, in Major's own words, a ‘voteless recovery' and he went down to a landslide defeat at the hands of Tony Blair. Realistic Tories will recognise the high chance of history repeating itself in 2024.

Sunak may hope a flight or two carrying illegal migrants to Rwanda gets off the ground before polling day. I doubt there's time for that but, even if there is, it will take more than a symbolic gesture to convince voters the Government has a grip on the small boats crossing the Channel.

Labour will say he's simply calling the election before the usual summer flood of migrants lands on our shores. I suspect ‘cut and run' will be a regular theme of Labour's campaign.

The wobbly state of the Labour Party is another reason why Sunak should have waited until November. Labour has a near-impregnable lead in the polls yet there is something fragile and flaky about Keir Starmer's party.

It really isn't ready for prime-time and it's prone to make self-inflicted mistakes, from Angela Rayner's property problems to David Lammy's immature, ‘student politician' response to the prospect of Israel's prime minister being hauled before the International Criminal Court.




Sunak struck a somewhat forlorn figure, almost as if he'd given up hope

Another of Macmillan's wise reflections was that politics was determined by ‘events, dear boy, events'. Who knows what ‘events' could have upturned Labour's stall between now and November?

When Sunak announced the election date he gave no reason why he'd chosen July 4 — or why he was going earlier than he had to.

Instead, in a curiously lacklustre performance, he trotted out the usual well-worn Tory themes which, so far, emura pfanne Erfahrungsberichte have resulted in a 20-point Labour lead in the polls.

We'll hear them plenty more times in the weeks ahead. It's hard to see how repetition will improve Tory prospects.

He has taken most of his Cabinet and MPs by surprise — and not in a good way. Still, there's nothing they can do about it.

It rained on Sunak when he called the election outside 10 Downing Street last night. His jacket was drenched by the time he headed back indoors.