Tough challenges await Rishi Sunak: Tory strategists

Sunak has successfully eaten into the opposition poll lead – Keir Starmer’s Labour Party was about 27 points ahead when Sunak took power in October, and now leads by about 15 points. But a real-life electoral test looms next week, with thousands of local council seats up for grabs in votes across England. And there are big challenges coming down the track. Tory ministers, strategists and advisors fear that Sunak risks losing momentum, hitting a ceiling in the polls as policy problems and political dramas pile up. These include concerns that Sunak may find it harder than expected to meet five key pledges he made to voters at the start of 2023, the people said, speaking on condition of anonymity when discussing their private views.

Polls show that Sunak has won back a group of voters that typically favour the Conservatives but lost faith in the party during the turmoil of the Truss and Boris Johnson, according to people briefed on internal party strategy and polling. The prime minister’s team put that down to Sunak’s early success at projecting an air of relative competence.
Regaining the trust of even those voters was by no means guaranteed, but a significant part of the huge Labour lead in the initial post-Truss period was always going to be soft, one strategist said. Polls are always likely to narrow as an election approaches, Tory and Labour advisers agree.

Now Sunak needs to win over voters who don’t have historic affinity for the Tories. Conservative aides admit that if the party doesn’t claw enough of them back, Sunak will still be on course for a resounding electoral defeat. To take the next step, the prime minister may well need to come up with a more meaningful offer to the public, senior Conservatives said. Party headquarters has warned Downing Street that Labour’s lead could become harder to break down.

The key question was always how Sunak’s team can reduce the deficit to between five and 10 points before the election campaign begins, a cabinet minister said. Tory strategists see that as the kind of Labour poll lead that allows them to argue that the country is heading for a hung Parliament, with no one party securing a governing majority.

Some Sunak allies are increasingly nervous that the tests he set himself – to halve inflation, get debt falling, the economy growing, health service waiting lists down and migrant crossings stopped – are proving trickier than many thought. When they were announced in January, many dismissed them as deliberately easy to achieve. That no longer looks the case, one Sunak-backer joked.