It Could Be Said #54 Let Sunak Be The Sunak He Was Once Forced To Be

A look at the Tory's polling suggests their campaign is already heading in the wrong direction

Data taken from

Dr. Mark Pack

’s polling database. His polling newsletter is a must-read.

A week into the general election, we need to start taking the possibility of a Tory wipeout very seriously.

It is of course early days, but calling the election has not been treated by the party’s former supporters as an invitation to return home. Indeed, analysis of opinion polls suggests that as wavering voters make up their minds, that this is only making the Tory Party’s position worse.

Contrary to the popular narrative that Liz Truss doomed the party to defeat at the next election, if you look at the party’s performance in the opinion polls you see that Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt had actually dug the Tories out of the hole created by Kwasi Kwarteng’s mini-budget and the financial crisis it provoked. There was an immediate jump in the party’s support after Sunak took over, and then a later boost after Hunt’s first proper budget put forward meaningful reforms to boost business investment, make childcare more affordable, and address NHS staff shortages.

That progress was undone by Sunak’s decision to relaunch his premiership around a series of “eye-catching” policies. The party’s popularity drifted downwards as these were rolled out and slumped after a party conference where the Tory Party let its freak flag fly as if it was already in opposition. There’s then another noticeable dip when parliament is arguing over his Rwanda policy and Hunt delivers an underwhelming budget.  

Not since October 2023 has the Tory Party polled more than 29%. Not since March 2024 has it polled more than 27%. And you need to go all the way back to April 2023 for when its worst polling number for the month wasn’t less than 25%, and all the way back to Boris Johnson’s notice period for the last time it had two successive months where it never fell below 25%.   

Look at the above paragraph. Change the “02” to “00” and the references to the Tories to the Liberal Democrats, then at the peak of their popularity under Charlie Kennedy after he opposed the Iraq War. Isn’t that the range you would have expected from them? And indeed, the LibDems often passed the 25% threshold in polling in 2003 and 2004, even occasionally passing 30%.

It is easy to overlook it because they’re the Government, but the Tory Party has been polling like a third party for nearly a year now, and not a particularly successful one. Indeed, not since March 2024 have average 25% or more, in the polls. We know that political parties around the 25% mark are liable to be brutally punished by First Past The Post - securing a load of close seconds or thirds, and very few firsts. That will be magnified for a Tory Party that has seen so many incumbents retire, is strongest in areas of the country with the highest turnout, and is once again facing tactical votinng.

Yet Rishi Sunak is determined to double down on the bad habits that have brought the Tories to this moment. Already this campaign we’ve had him highlight banning smoking for young Britons as a key achievement of his premiership, then fail to get it through wash-up. We’ve had him raid the Levelling Up funds to pay for the reintroduction of National Service, only to announce additional funding for the related Towns Fund a few days later. And Jeremy Hunt’s first big announcement of the campaign was designed to unpick the consequences for pensioners of his past two budgets freezing income tax personal allowances to fund national insurance cuts whilst retaining the triple lock.

Labour has a clear pitch – the past fourteen years have been a period of decline, the past eight years have been nasty and difficult, the past four years have been like a fever dream; whichever one of these annoy you, we will fix it, by being a sensible government - The change is the restoration of stability. As Chancellor, Rishi Sunak repeatedly confounded that narrative by taking steps other Tories wouldn’t to protect people, including raising taxes to fund COVID recovery in schools and hospitals. But for the past year he has seemed determined to prove the Labour narrative right by denying desperately needed funding to key public services, picking culture war fights, and making erratic decisions.

The announcement of the election, and the flurry of policy announcements since then, has seen Rishi Sunak double-down on a strategy that has not only failed for him repeatedly, but also destroyed his predecessor – trying to wrest away the mantle of change from the opposition by making abrupt and arbitrary policy announcements. Since Boris Johnson ceased to be Prime Minister, the public has repeatedly punished the Tories for behaving in wild and unpredictable ways, and rewarded them for rare moments of calm, yet this message still hasn’t got through! Indeed, some Tory outriders are busy making fun of Labour for having no new policies to announce, as if it’s a bad thing that Sir Keir Starmer had been slowly rolling out his policy platform rather than desperately trying to fatten his pigs on market day!

I suppose when you’re committed to playing the wrong notes at the wrong time, it’s hard to recognise that the sound coming from the other side is sweet, beautiful music.