Understatement is getting Rishi Sunak nowhere

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Good morning. Yesterday was the anniversary of Liz Truss’s ascension to the premiership. It was also the FT’s summer party, which I enjoyed rather more. But both events reminded me of just how much can change in a year: not least given the number of attendees who had changed jobs (quite a few times for some of our Conservative guests).

Also yesterday: Inside Politics won “Best Newsletter” at Press Gazette’s Future of Media awards. My thanks to the judges, to Georgina and, of course to you, because your emails and questions are key to making the whole thing work. We’re marking it in the way I usually do on Thursday: with some thoughts on Robert Shrimsley’s column.

The Tories’ sun has set

Have the Conservatives now passed the point of total collapse? Are voters just screening them out and waiting for the opportunity to kick them out? Robert Shrimsley thinks they might have:

One of John Major’s cabinet ministers once likened the relationship with voters in the last years to a couple heading for divorce, glaring at each other over the toast and where “even the sound of the milk on the cornflakes is a source of irritation”. 

In those final months, Tory MPs stopped believing they could win the next election, leadership contenders prioritised their own ambitions and media supporters argued over how to shape the party after a defeat.

Above all, voters simply stopped listening to the Tories. No matter that Major was a decent man and Kenneth Clarke an impressive chancellor, the public had seen enough. Efforts to change the narrative were consumed by bad news, gaffes or minor scandals which seemed to epitomise the decay.

This must all sound familiar to Rishi Sunak. Once again we see a government with a studious premier and a capable chancellor trying to appear fresh after too many years in power. And yet, as one ally laments: “The country doesn’t seem interested in what we are saying”. 

It’s certainly possible that most people have decided that the Conservatives have been in power for too long, and that a change of government is now overdue.

Certainly, looking at the government’s flat-footed and tone-deaf response to the problem caused by reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete, or Raac — the extent of which is yet to be determined — this doesn’t look like an administration that is going to turn around its fate. In many ways, the position of the Conservatives now, John Major in 1997 and indeed, Gordon Brown in 2010 does look similar. You have a government that has partly been battered by external events outside its control, but also one that has made its share of mistakes and which bears a direct responsibility for some of the crises facing the party and the country. You have an opposition that no longer frightens the horses.

But there is one important difference. Major had already pulled off one surprise victory for a long-in-the-tooth government. While his record in office is one that Rishi Sunak is some way short of, he was, inevitably, a familiar face of a tired government. Gordon Brown had been a major figure in the life of the country and the party for coming up to a decade and a half by the time of the 2010 election.

Sunak was essentially unheard of outside Westminster three years ago. (Even some in Westminster wrote him off as a cipher of Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings when he was appointed as chancellor.)

And as the UK’s first British Indian and first Commonwealth Briton to become prime minister, Sunak at least has the potential to embody change, as well as the UK’s future, in a way neither Major nor Brown could ever have in 1997 and 2010.

But it’s an opportunity the prime minister has thus far failed to take. Sunak is off to India today for the G20. By any standard this is a historic moment with great resonance: a British Indian prime minister attending the summit of world leaders in India comes at a moment of great change for India, too. (Do read John Reed’s excellent column on that.)

Yet from Downing Street’s own communication, you’d think this was a routine visit of the kind that Major or Brown might have done. Now, no one gets into politics planning to spend time reminding people that they are a history-making individual. But when Sunak thought about being prime minister, he would have hoped that he did so with an economy in great health, a public sector in good order and a party that was fresh rather than one that had already clocked 13 years in office.

This is where I slightly part ways from Robert: yes, the government’s “malaise is about more than Sunak’s tactical shortcomings”. But it is aggravated by failures of strategy.

The anniversary of the start date of Truss’s premiership should be, in part, a reminder of Sunak’s warnings about her approach, and one that Sunak could use to warn against changes of government or experiments in general. Yet Sunak has treated the Truss era as essentially something too piddling to be worth talking about publicly: this leaves him in the nightmare position where Truss’s allies know full well that he opposed them, but he doesn’t get any political credit for having done so, or his role in stabilising the UK’s position afterwards.

The G20 visit should be a moment to show why Sunak is, in fact, a more historically significant figure and not just the fifth prime minister since 2010. It’s not.

I don’t know if voters have tuned out the Conservatives — I do know that they are not going to tune in to the prime minister’s current song and time is running out to offer a better one.

Beyond the Horizon

In a boost for British scientists and for British businesses, the UK will rejoin the EU’s Horizon scheme as an associate member. However, it’s not a reasonable example of something Sunak could or should be making more of. Yes, he was closely involved in the negotiations, and yes, without his decision to defy his party’s ultras and sign up to the Windsor framework it wouldn’t be happening. But to go on about the scheme is to risk inflaming internal Tory divides — and talking a lot about this deal means talking about the detail of it. While better than what the UK had from 2020 to 2023, it is a considerably worse arrangement than what the UK had before Brexit.

But if you want a good outline of how the UK’s relationship with the EU will ultimately evolve, this is a pretty good guide, I think. Back in an EU scheme on worse terms — as a member, the grant-winning abilities of British universities meant that the UK often got more out of Horizon than it paid in, whereas now it will pay almost €2.6bn annually — and be certain that it will not receive more than it pays out. Still, it will not get all that much less than its contribution.

I think that’s probably the most likely landing zone for the UK-EU relationship by, say, 2040. From the perspective of the average British holiday-maker, the average British business, the average British university, and so on, we will be back in the EU. We’ll join the EU passport queue when we go on holidays. Our farmers will follow EU rules and our electronics will follow EU standards (even when some of those standards are perverse). The big change will be that we will pay slightly more across a range of associate memberships than we did as a full member and that British ministers do not attend the Council of Ministers. In summary: a Brexit experienced by the political class and the Treasury but not by many other people.

Now try this

Also last night: a truly brilliant prom by the Britten Sinfonia featuring some marvellous music, old and new, including the great Max Richter. You can listen here on BBC Sounds.

Top stories today

• ‘Burst of joy to UK science’ | The UK has struck a deal to rejoin the EU’s Horizon research programme, according to officials in London and Brussels, in a move welcomed by scientists and business.

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