Sunak’s attempted reset is all pain, no gain

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Good morning. How is Rishi Sunak’s reset going? That’s the theme of Robert Shrimsley’s column this week, and a question worth asking as we gear up for Conservative party conference next week.

Tone trouble

Here’s a headline designed to give me an ulcer from YouGov (emphasis mine):

Sunak net favourability falls again to new low following net zero announcements

This is exhibit 101 on how not to report polling. The word “following” implies a relationship between the two that is far from clear and we cannot prove. What we can say for certain is that Sunak’s ratings with YouGov fell from August to September, and the main cause of that was that Liberal Democrat voters’ opinion of him took a sharp turn for the worse.

Yes, it could also be about Sunak’s announcement of an overhaul of the policies designed to help Britain cut its carbon emissions to net zero by 2050. Equally it could be because, although economic news overall has brightened, every single month a new group of mortgage holders has to refinance. It could be that since the last YouGov polling, the government was hit by the Raac crisis. I don’t think anyone could say the government’s public messaging on the presence of sometimes-fragile concrete in schools and hospitals was optimised to warm voters to Sunak or his administration in general. It could even be driven by the recently revealed arrest of a parliamentary researcher accused of spying for China — of which the prime minister became aware in March, according to government insiders.

This is also true of the commentary on the latest Redfield & Wilton polling, which shows Labour’s lead in the polls falling slightly and Sunak’s net approval ratings recovering from a fall to -21 per cent in its previous poll (the record low with that pollster was -22 per cent). We could be seeing a reaction to the drop in inflation rate and the Bank of England’s decision to hold interest rates or to the cooling Raac scandal or the China spying row not being in the headlines anymore.

This is a long-winded way of saying “governments do an awful lot of things and voters notice very few of them. It’s rarely straightforward to explain what, exactly, is driving a turn in the polls in any direction.” In addition to the big stuff, including the economy and the state of the public services, what matters is the overall impression conveyed by a political party.

Rishi Sunak hopes that the impression voters get from his reboot indicates a government taking tough, but sensible decisions. One risk, as Robert Shrimsley notes in his column, is that what Sunak “regards as controlled decluttering looks chaotic to others”, or that it deepens the general sense that the UK is suffering from a deep malaise:

Sunak’s signal may not be what he desires. HS2 and net zero may be the most high-profile problems. But this is also the country that cannot get close to its targets for new homes, is way behind in building much-needed new nuclear reactors and is undermining its ambitions as a science powerhouse by failing to deliver the extra laboratory capacity needed in the Oxford-Cambridge arc. Add the long-running rail and health strikes and the image is of a country reeling from years of under-investment in which nothing functions as it should.

The major reason why I don’t think Sunak’s reset is the right approach is that I think it just gives off the wrong tone. The big mooted policies — watering down net zero policies, further curtailing the spread of HS2, banning smoking for younger generations — all divide the Conservative party.

The visual of a high-speed railway that takes longer to reach Birmingham from the capital than a regular London-to-Birmingham train just makes the government look silly. Meanwhile, criticism of the move by a series of senior Conservatives and former Tory prime ministers makes the party look divided. The same is also true of banning smoking for younger generations — the policy is wildly popular among most voters, but if Sunak tries it, he will face a big rebellion from his own side, many noises off from senior Tories, and again, the impression of division.

Now, as I’ve written before, “being divided” is often an important stage parties have to go through in order to show voters they have changed. But given that it is not wholly clear how Sunak wants to change the Tory party, this just looks like all pain, no gain to me.

Now try this

I’ve had a very Sibelius-heavy week: the last thing I did before heading off to the Liberal Democrat conference was see the Philharmonia play Sibelius’s sixth symphony (as part of a brilliant concert overall). Then Radio 3 broadcasted my essay on the third movement of Sibelius’s fifth symphony and how it made me fall in love with classical music and get over my teenage disappointments.

Last night I saw the London Philharmonic and Johan Dalene’s take on Sibelius’s violin concerto, as part of a concert that I did not really care for. With the exception of an excellent rendition of Felix Mendelssohn’s The Hebrides: Overture, I didn’t think any of the pieces were very well-served.

That said, the LPO continues to have the absolute best programmes in the business: I really love the informative (and free!) programme notes, and they always include a list of recordings of the piece to enjoy at home, all of which I’ve added to the Inside Politics playlist. My favourite recording of Sibelius’s violin concerto is this Deutsche Grammophon one by the American violinist Hilary Hahn.

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