Only the most optimistic Conservative could believe the party will win the next election. It has been a year since the Tories slipped underwater in the polls and showed any signs of resurfacing. Truss drove the party to electoral wipe-out, and Sunak’s honeymoon period has taken them to the heady heights of a 22-point deficit, worse than their defeat in 1997.
Of course, there is only one poll that really matters — that on election day. Conservative MPs may look back on 2017, when they held a similar lead over Labour, and think that a few weeks can turn an assured victory into something far closer. They also know that boundary changes, voter ID laws and the balance between rural and urban votes (Labour win populous seats by big margins, Tories sparser ones by smaller numbers) all give them an edge. And yet, most must be polishing their CVs for after polling day.
The Tories’ problems are not transitory. They have been in power for over 12 years and seem out of ideas. Since they took power, wages have stagnated and the economy stalled. The party itself has become beleaguered by scandal and the chaos of this year’s carousel of Prime Ministers and Chancellors. The future looks little better: Hunt’s bread-and-water budget may have steadied the markets and offered some protection to the poorest and pensioners, but there was only pain for average households. Between now and the next election, the country is likely to get poorer. A recession is highly probable, and even popular governments rarely recover from recessions.
With the headwinds against the Tories, there is no sign that Sunak is an expert election-winner. He could not even convince his own party the first time around. The main hope seems to be a Keir Starmer implosion. It’s not impossible, but not something to bet the farm on.
There comes a certain liberation from giving up hope. Letting go of something you are chasing alters your perspective, opening your eyes to wider opportunities. This could happen to the Tories — taking them from trying to eke out electoral advantages to deploying political capital to create difficulties for future Labour governments and opportunities for the country.
For all their problems in the polls, the Conservative Party remains in a strong position in Parliament. It has a sizeable majority and with sufficient internal discipline can get a lot done in the remaining parliamentary time. Rather than thinking about winning the next election, they could run down the clock with measures that will stymie the government that follows them, spreading the ground with political bear traps.
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