Connect with us

Published

on

The political thinking behind Sunak’s five pledges


Sam Coates

Sam Coates

Deputy political editor

@SamCoatesSky

Rishi Sunak announced his five pledges in January 2023 in order to show a decisive change of approach from the chaos of the Boris Johnson and Liz Truss premierships.

The pledges, overseen by campaign chief Isaac Levido, were designed to show the Conservatives could take action.

Tory strategists worried that changing prime minister twice in a year harms public trust and would mean people no longer believe Tory promises.

They drew up a list of pledges they hoped could be delivered before the election, allowing them then to have more credibility when making further promises in the manifesto.

It was never likely to prove that easy. At the time they were announced – 4 January 2023 – they were seen as a challenge but not excessively ambitious. The last nine months have changed that.

Now Sunak’s struggles on every front are a defining part of his premiership, and today Sky News’s pledge tracker shines a light on just how hard getting this done remains.

Some of the problems, however, rest with the way the pledges were drawn up. Three of the pledges – on inflation, GDP growth and ensuring falling national debt – were on the economy.

In fact, the high inflation environment means that these three have pulled policy in different directions. For instance, more public spending could help boost GDP, but that would jeopardise the effort to bring down the debt.

Bringing down inflation has meant the Bank of England raising interest rates – yet this automatically hurts growth.

Another of the pledges, to ensure the NHS waiting lists are falling, did not anticipate the impact of the public sector strikes hitting the health service – the clearest sign that the government misread the situation nine months ago.

All of this despite the best efforts of Downing Street to give themselves every bit of wiggle room to ensure maximum flexibility. Look at the tricks they deployed: there was no deadline given for the pledges other than inflation, which would halve “this year”. Most are not expected to be met in 2023.

Sunak has refused to put a figure on what exactly halving inflation looks like, meaning he has a slightly wider margin for error just above 5% than many realised.

The pledge on getting national debt falling is not what it sounds – the amount of government borrowing will not go down in absolute terms, only as a proportion of GDP – something the Spectator regularly takes aim at.

And the government has promised to “stop small boats” but made clear that does not mean there will be zero small boats crossing the channel, without defining how low a number they are targeting.

Even with these fudges, however, the pledges are proving hard, which is why today’s tracker is vital.

“They’re not the limit of my ambitions for our country. They’re the foundation,” Sunak said on the day he launched them.

Could the fact he is struggling to be delivered delay the moment the public pay attention to his promises for the future?

Continue Reading

Politics

Why Boris’s best mate is off to Reform

Published

on

By

Why Boris's best mate is off to Reform

👉Listen to Politics at Sam and Anne’s on your podcast app👈       

Former Conservative chairman and friend of Boris Johnson – Sir Jake Berry – is defecting to Reform UK, causing more problems for Tory leader Kemi Badenoch.

On today’s episode, Sky News’ Sam Coates and Politico’s Anne McElvoy discuss if his defection will divide parts of Reform policy.

Elsewhere, the Anglo-French summit gets under way, with Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer hoping to announce a migration deal with French President Emmanuel Macron to deter small boat crossings.

Plus, chatter around Whitehall that No10 are considering a pre-summer reshuffle, but will it have any value?

Continue Reading

Politics

Australia to test CBDCs, stablecoins in next stage of crypto play

Published

on

By

Australia to test CBDCs, stablecoins in next stage of crypto play

Australia to test CBDCs, stablecoins in next stage of crypto play

The trial is part of Project Acacia, an initiative from the RBA exploring how digital money and tokenization could support financial markets in Australia.

Continue Reading

Politics

Starmer and Macron agree need for ‘new deterrent’ to stop small boat crossings

Published

on

By

Starmer and Macron agree need for 'new deterrent' to stop small boat crossings

Sir Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron have agreed the need for a “new deterrent” to deter small boats crossings in the Channel, Downing Street has said.

The prime minister met Mr Macron this afternoon as part of the French president’s state visit to the UK, which began on Tuesday.

High up the agenda for the two leaders is the need to tackle small boat crossings in the Channel, which Mr Macron said yesterday was a “burden” for both the UK and France.

Politics latest: Plans for Donald Trump UK visit in ‘coming weeks’

The small boats crisis is a pressing issue for the prime minister, given that more than 20,000 migrants crossed the English Channel to the UK in the first six months of this year – a rise of almost 50% on the number crossing in 2024.

Sir Keir is hoping he can reach a deal for a one-in one-out return treaty with France, ahead of the UK-France summit on Thursday, which will involve ministerial teams from both nations.

The deal would see those crossing the Channel illegally sent back to France in exchange for Britain taking in any asylum seeker with a family connection in the UK.

More on Emmanuel Macron

However, it is understood the deal is still in the balance, with some EU countries unhappy about France and the UK agreeing on a bilateral deal.

French newspaper Le Monde reports that up to 50 small boat migrants could be sent back to France each week, starting from August, as part of an agreement between Sir Keir and Mr Macron.

A statement from Downing Street said: “The prime minister met the French President Emmanuel Macron in Downing Street this afternoon.

“They reflected on the state visit of the president so far, agreeing that it had been an important representation of the deep ties between our two countries.

“Moving on to discuss joint working, they shared their desire to deepen our partnership further – from joint leadership in support of Ukraine to strengthening our defence collaboration and increasing bilateral trade and investment.”

It added: “The leaders agreed tackling the threat of irregular migration and small boat crossings is a shared priority that requires shared solutions.

“The prime minister spoke of his government’s toughening of the system in the past year to ensure rules are respected and enforced, including a massive surge in illegal working arrests to end the false promise of jobs that are used to sell spaces on boats.

Read more:
Can PM turn diplomatic work with Macron into action on migration?
UN criticises Starmer’s welfare reforms

“The two leaders agreed on the need to go further and make progress on new and innovative solutions, including a new deterrent to break the business model of these gangs.”

Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, seized on the statement to criticise Labour for scrapping the Conservatives’ Rwanda plan, which the Tories claim would have sent asylum seekers “entering the UK illegally” to Rwanda.

He said in an online post: “We had a deterrent ready to go, where every single illegal immigrant arriving over the Channel would be sent to Rwanda.

“But Starmer cancelled this before it had a chance to start.

“Now, a year later, he’s realised he made a massive mistake. That’s why numbers have surged and this year so far has been the worst in history for illegal channel crossings.

“Starmer is weak and incompetent and he’s lost control of our borders.”

Continue Reading

Trending