Sunak’s sober centrism has run its course
If the polls – and a number of increasingly hysterical Tory MPs and Lords – are to be believed, the Conservative Party faces a “massacre” in the coming general election, expected in November.
Personally, I’m not yet entirely convinced by this prognosis, though the emergence of Reform, claiming to be the true voice of traditional conservatism and seemingly determined to inflict as much damage on the presiding Tory Party as possible, certainly makes it more likely.
Unless it be the SNP – don’t laugh – Labour faces no such vote-sapping political force to its Left, so is pitching at an open goal in constituencies where the Right is split.
This is what makes a wipeout for the incumbent government seem inevitable to many commentators. Adding the Tory and Reform votes together would admittedly still leave Labour with a commanding lead on current polling, but it would be a closer run thing.
Still, assuming the Government doesn’t implode in the meantime, there are still nine months of campaigning to go.
Labour’s either entirely vacuous or almost certainly undeliverable policy agenda hasn’t yet been subjected to the full force of political scrutiny. It is also possible that the economy will in the meantime come to Downing Street’s rescue. Unwise to bank on it, though.
What’s certainly true is that the economic outlook is for now improving.
Inflation is falling much more swiftly than generally anticipated, which will in turn soon allow the Bank of England to start lifting its foot off the monetary brakes, if not at this week’s interest rate meeting – after past mistakes, the Bank is still instructed by an abundance of caution – then at some stage in the next three or four months.
Mortgage rates – which are priced off market interest rates rather than the Bank’s official rate of interest – have already eased, prompting early signs of a turnaround in the housing market. House prices are rising again, and so are transactions.
At the same time, real earnings are again on the increase, with wages rising faster than prices. Further tax cuts in the Budget on March 6 in combination with an inflation-busting increase in the minimum wage will reinforce the sense of resumed disposable income growth after the erosion of recent years.
What happens after the election, when the reality of a nation sinking under mountainous debt has to be faced up to, is another matter, but a bit like the United States, we seem for the moment to be entering something of a sweet spot.
This may help the optics somewhat, but as in the US, in itself it is scarcely likely to turn the electoral tide in favour of the incumbent.
The economy was on even more of an improving trend in the run up to the 1997 general election, yet it didn’t save John Major from electoral oblivion.
As is often said, Major left his successor with a relatively healthy economy. Unfortunately for him, the economic stability he established wasn’t enough to counter the history of missteps and general bankruptcy of ideas that coloured much of Major’s period in office.
A sound economy is not enough.This time around, the chaos of recent years is going to be even harder for voters to forget.
In any case, the feelgood factor may need longer to establish itself if it is to do Rishi Sunak’s government much good, and time is not a luxury he has left.
Besides, it is more usually other matters, and not the economy, that end up killing incumbent governments, in particular an overwhelming sense of decay. Indeed, historical experience is paradoxically that it is just when the worst of the economic storm has passed and things are beginning to improve that you see the greatest demand for change.
For instance, it is wrong to think that the French Revolution had its origins deep in socio-economic causes, a once common assumption. In fact the economy was performing relatively well when the ancien régime was finally toppled.
Political and cultural factors were far more important. Culture wars may likewise today be as much a deciding factor in unseating incumbent governments as economic failures. Centrist politicians strongly identified with open borders and globalist ideals find themselves under threat in virtually all advanced economies.
Nevermind uncontrolled immigration and a steadily rising tax burden, as an example of the sort of thing which infuriates voters and inclines them to vote against incumbents, take the following, admittedly trivial, but maddening, example.
My local authority, the London borough of Brent, has recently determined to renew its assault on the motor car by effectively closing a number of residential roads to traffic with blocking “planters” and enforcement cameras.
Given that traffic isn’t a particular problem on the identified roads – to the extent that it is, the measures will simply make it a problem somewhere else – I asked the local authority why the considerable costs of its so-called “Healthy Neighbourhood” scheme couldn’t be reallocated to more important concerns, such as the growing scourge of litter, petty crime and drug dealing.
The answer given was that this was not money that could be reallocated since it was granted specifically for “healthy neighbourhood” purposes. These apparently didn’t include dealing with litter and drugs. If not used for traffic blocking planters and so on, the money would simply not be spent at all. Use it or lose it, kind of thing. It therefore made sense to spend it.
It is this kind of bureaucratically determined nonsense that makes residents despair of the use their taxes are being put to, and is a large part of the disillusionment with mainstream politics that you see throughout the developed world.
It’s not directly Rishi Sunak’s fault, but be sure he’ll get the blame when he comes to face the voters – not that it will make any difference in Brent.
The curiosity is, I suppose, that the major beneficiary, in the UK at least, of wanting to give the incumbents a good spanking is another centrist party which promises much the same.
In any case, it is not really the economy that is about to derail Downing Street’s hopes of another term, but the discombobulation and politically paralysing effects first of Brexit, and then the fiscal ruination of the pandemic.
These two events have acted like an energy-annihilating black hole, causing virtually everything else to be neglected and leaving the Tories fighting each other like cats in a bag about to be thrown into the river.
In such a world there is no space left for Sunak’s relatively sensible, but largely impotent, centrist approach to the political challenges of the age.
Good luck to Keir Starmer in seeking to ape them.
