Beth Rigby: The Tories are struggling in the polls – can Team Rishi turn things around before the next election?
As Rishi Sunak prepares to launch his re-election pitch from the stage in Manchester this week, it’s worth remembering that this time last year, the now prime minister – and many of his supporters – were put out to pasture and didn’t even bother to turn up for the annual Tory jamboree.
Those who did looked on with widening eyes at the accelerating car crash of the Liz Truss premiership, as her mini-budget began to unravel in real time at party conference (remember the panicked decision to U-turn on cutting the top rate tax no sooner than conference kicked off), with her administration’s complete collapse coming less than three weeks later.
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Truss’ time as PM, one year on
It is a chapter of Conservative history that Rishi Sunak has sought to put right – spending his first year as PM trying to steady the ship and bring an air of competence and professionalism to government. There is no doubt that the tenor and tone of what could well be the final party conference before a general election will be a world away from the last.
But when it comes to the fundamentals, has that much changed? If you measure politics in its most brutal sense as victory at the ballot box, the answer is not much. The Conservatives were experiencing their worst polling since the last 1990s this time last year. Look at our Sky News poll tracker now, and you can see average support for the party is pretty much the same – about 26%. It’s barely shifted at all.
To make matters worse, Mr Sunak – who will look in his leader’s speech to the country to cast himself as the heir of Thatcher – goes to conference as the Conservative prime minister who is presiding over anything but a Thatcherite economy.
The tax burden is on course to rise by more in this Conservative parliament than during any other since the Second World War, according to analysis released by the Institute of Fiscal Studies on the eve of conference. It will rise from 33% of national income to 37% by next year. A record leap that sees families and businesses paying more than £100bn extra in tax by next year compared with the last election, it has left many Tory MPs in despair and angry at the Sunak approach to the economy.
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Taxes are rising to near historic highs
The Sunak message will be that, during the pandemic, he had to do things and spend public money in a way that didn’t come naturally to him. He will argue he is a Thatcherite in both his personal work ethic and philosophy – an instinctive tax cutter and small-state Conservative, but is doing the hard work now – growing the economy, halving inflation – to reap the rewards later.
But his detractors are quietly fulminating. As one put it to me this week: “This heir to Thatcher business, it’s concocted vacuous stuff he’s come up with – ‘she grew up in a small shop, I [Sunak] grew up in a pharmacy’. Why didn’t he do that last year in a leadership campaign?”
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Truss ‘tried to fatten and slaughter the pig’
And if the message is stick to the plan and reap the rewards, there are some who have missed the memo. Divisions will surface on “economy day” as Liz Truss, Dame Priti Patel and Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg appear at the Great British Growth rally on Monday.
“The tax burden is now a 70-year high. That is unsustainable. And the people that pay the taxes are hard pressed Brits around the country,” former home secretary Dame Priti Patel told GB News on Friday as she insisted taxes had to come down. “As Conservatives, we believe in lower taxes. As Conservatives, we believe being on the side of hard-working households and families. As Conservatives, we believe in hope and aspiration.”
Poor polling and anxiety over the tax burden make for a tricky backdrop. Team Rishi insist that they can turn it around in the coming months, and the contour of that plan is taking shape.
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‘Not right to impose costs on people’
On net zero, the PM is trying to drill dividing lines between the Conservatives and Labour over environmental policies. He will use conference to position himself on the side of the motorist as he looks to further mine the advantage he gained in the Uxbridge by-election over taxing polluting diesel cars.
The fanning of the immigration flames – with Home Secretary Suella Braverman threatening to withdraw from the ECHR last week – is helpful to a prime minister who is looking to win back lapsed 2019 Conservative voters and regroup on the right.
His team see a narrow path to victory with all pivots on economic recovery, coupled with the message “we’re back on track, don’t risk Labour” and winning back voters over core issues – environment, immigration – to narrow the polls (someone told me that 14% of lapsed Conservative 2019 voters have moved to Reform, get a chunk back and the gap begins to close).
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‘Being gay isn’t enough to claim asylum’
“I wouldn’t bet against us to turn it around in the coming months,” said one No 10 insider. “Rishi genuinely believes he can make it better for the country and get into the best possible position for an election next year. Seeing how politics has changed over the past one, two years, I wouldn’t bet against us being able to turn it around. We have got to be the party of change.”
But the huge problem for Mr Sunak is that voters seem to have tuned out. He has been in No 10 for a year, and still the polls are unchanged. This conference, likely the last before an election, is his final chance to capture attention and start to regain voters’ ears.
But he has a problem too with a party that is in despair. While No 10 were pleased that the net zero announcements didn’t spark at backlash from pro-green One Nation Conservatives, the right of the party is restive over economy and waiting for the prime minister to placate them on spending and tax cuts. One figure suggested to me this weekend that Mr Sunak might use the cancellation of the Birmingham to Manchester leg of HS2 as a way of finding room for manoeuvre when it comes to promises on tax.
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Labour: ‘We want HS2 to go ahead’
Closing the gap with Labour is the goal for now as speculation grows around whether it will be a May or October election. (If it’s May you can run it with the local elections and not risk a small boats summer crisis or a vote in the autumn after a local election wipeout – but the PM might just want to hold out.)
But away from the No 10 bunker, and even his most ardent backers think the best Mr Sunak can achieve is holding Labour back from an outright majority.
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As for some of his more seasoned MPs, they are resigned to what they see is their fate: “Instinctively, I don’t feel that we can win. This feels like a damage limitation project.”
Manchester will be the acid test as to whether Mr Sunak can shift the momentum.
Six semi-professional footballers who sold cocaine with an estimated street value of up to £260m have been jailed for a total of more than 103 years.
Police have said the “highly organised” gang, who sold the Class A drug on an “industrial scale”, was brought down like a “house of cards” following the arrest of one its members.
Luke Skeete had been pulled over by police while driving a white panel van in October 2022 – and a search of the vehicle uncovered 8kg of cocaine in the back.
Luke Skeete was jailed for more than 13 years. Pic: Met Police
The 36-year-old was arrested and a further 123kg of cocaine and 224kg of ketamine was recovered from storage units in west London that he had control of.
Skeete’s phone was also seized and sent for specialist interrogation – with officers discovering a secure messaging platform that was used by others.
The Metropolitan Police said the group chats “demonstrated and evidenced a sophisticated, professional business model” that the group had to supply cocaine throughout the UK.
The force added that each associate had used a different label on the messaging platform to conceal their identity and evade detectives.
“Painstaking work” meant the gang members were eventually identified by officers.
The other five members were:
• Former Enfield Town defender Adam Pepara, 35
• Former Chesham United forward Shaquille Hippolyte-Patrick, 29
• Former Harrow Borough FC player Andrew Harewood, 34
• Former Margate FC striker Melchi Emanuel-Williamson, 29
• Former FK Senica player Jamarl Joseph, 28
Ketamine that was seized in the investigation. Pic: Met Police
Detectives examined CCTV footage that showed the gang members coming and going from one of the west London storage units with drugs concealed in holdalls and boxes.
Meanwhile, a video recovered from a car involved in a deal showed Skeete parking up in his white van and passing over a holdall of drugs.
Officers found the six men had conspired to supply in excess of 2.7 tonnes of “high-grade cocaine” with an estimated street value of between £208m and £260m between April and October 2022.
Specialist crime officers carried out arrest warrants at addresses linked to the group in London and Birmingham on 29 September 2023.
All of the men were arrested, charged and remanded in custody.
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Cocaine that was seized in the investigation. Pic: Met Police
The group were sentenced to a total of 103 years and five months in prison at Isleworth Crown Court on Friday 17 May.
They had all earlier pleaded guilty to conspiracy to supply controlled Class A drugs (cocaine) and conspiracy to supply controlled Class B drugs (ketamine).
Skeete had been jailed for 15 years at the same court in July 2023 after pleading guilty to two counts of possession with intent to supply class A drugs (cocaine), possession with intent to supply class B drugs (ketamine), supplying cocaine, and driving while disqualified.
PC Perry, from the Met Police’s Specialist Crime North, said: “The operation we’ve dismantled here is not some minor undertaking, involving a group of chancers – this is a highly-organised criminal group who were supplying drugs on an industrial scale throughout the UK.”
Detective Constable Janes, from Specialist Crime North, said: “With Skeete’s arrest we brought this house of cards down.
“After he was detained we secured valuable evidence on his mobile phone, helping us launch another investigation that led to us identifying his conspirators.”
Eamonn Holmes addressed his split from Ruth Langsford as he opened his Tuesday morning show on GB News.
The pair announced on Saturday that they were divorcing after 14 years of marriage.
Holmes spoke about the news briefly to thank people for their support.
He said: “Just before we move on I would just like to thank people for your support for Ruth and I over the last few days as to the news of our separation.
“Your support for both of us is very much appreciated.”
Earlier in the show, he had referenced having an “emotional” weekend watching the FA Cup final between Manchester United and Man City.
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Holmes and Langsford presented ITV daytime chat show This Morning together for 15 years before quitting the show in 2021.
The 64-year-olds tied the knot in 2010, having started dating in 1997.
After leaving This Morning, Holmes joined GB News where he presents the channel’s breakfast show and Langsford is a regular on ITV’s Loose Women.
Together they also presented Channel 5 programmes including How The Other Half Lives and Do The Right Thing With Eamonn And Ruth, and made numerous appearances on Channel 4’s Celebrity Gogglebox.
Holmes is also a former Sky News presenter.
NHS waiting lists in Scotland have increased, with the number of inpatients waiting more than a year for treatment up by a quarter.
Statistics released by Public Health Scotland on the number of people waiting for outpatient, inpatient or day case treatment – or one of the eight key diagnostic tests – show the figure increased to 840,300 in the quarter up to the end of March.
This is an increase from 824,725 at the end of 2023 – a rise of 1.8%.
Of those, 534,178 were waiting for outpatient treatment – up by 10% from the same point last year and more than double the size of the list before the pandemic.
For inpatient treatment, 156,108 were waiting – a slight decrease from the previous quarter, but up 5.8% from last year and more than double the average waiting times in 2019.
In July 2022, former health secretary Humza Yousaf laid out plans to “eradicate” these delays – with a goal that no one would have to wait more than a year for treatment by September 2024.
But Public Health Scotland says these targets “have yet to be achieved” – as 37,761 patients have now been waiting more than 12 months, a year-on-year rise of 24.2%.
More than 7,000 are still waiting after two years, and 1,369 have been on the list for more than three years.
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Scottish Tory health spokesman Dr Sandesh Gulhane said the backlog was “out of control”.
The Scottish government said it was “determined to ensure people receive the treatment they need as soon as possible”.
A spokesperson said an investment of £30m is being “targeted” at a series of national and local plans to “reduce the national backlogs that built up throughout the pandemic”.
The spokesperson added: “We are working with NHS boards to reduce long waits, including the delivery of the commitments in our £1bn NHS recovery plan to support an increase in inpatient, day case, and outpatient activity, and the creation of our national treatment centres (NTCs) programme – which is the single biggest increase in planned care capacity ever created in NHS Scotland.”
Two national treatment centres opened last year in Fife and the Highlands, with two further centres “opening soon” in Forth Valley and at the Golden Jubilee in West Dunbartonshire.
The Scottish government added: “We know there are still unacceptable waits in some specialities, but we are making progress.
“Despite the exceptionally challenging winter period, the level of activity for inpatient and day case patients was at its highest since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in the latest quarter; the ninth increase in a row.
“The number of new outpatient attendances (completed waits) was also at its highest since the beginning of the pandemic, with 324,553 patients seen.”
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