Dr. Steven McCabe, Associate Professor, Birmingham City University
It’s erroneously believed the proverb, “may you live in interesting times” originated as an ancient Chinese curse.
However, it’s widely acknowledged this is been becauseAmerican politician Frederic R. Coudert referred to a letter he’d received from Sir Austen Chamberlain, son of British statesman Joseph Chamberlain, in 1939 in which he concluded, “Many years ago, I learned from one of our diplomats in China that one of the principal Chinese curses heaped upon an enemy is ‘May you live in an interesting age’”(Servais, 2020).
As philologist Garson O’Toole contends, Austen’s misattribution is due to him incorrectly recalling a speech made by his father Joseph to Parliament in 1898 when, in claiming “I think that you will all agree that we are living in most interesting times” he referred the many challenges being faced by government and the “new objects for anxiety” needing urgent attention (2017).
If Joseph Chamberlain thought times were difficult 126 yearsago, when Britain’s influence was believed to be in decline on the world stage, certainly in comparison to other European nations as well as America, combined with British military failures in the South African (Boer) War, what would he make of the situation facing the current Prime Minister?
Rishi Sunak, in his second year as PM, finds himself, it may be argued, having to dedicate his time to a number of immediate and ‘interesting’ issues ranging from the state of the economy, a range of other domestic problems – including crises in delivery of public services such as health and social care – that would, in isolation, stretch any individual.
Additionally, there’s developing asymmetric conflict and rising tension such as ongoing war in Ukraine, the dreadful operation in Gaza following Hamas’ attack on Israel last October that’s resulted in an attack by Iran on Israel and general discontent among nations sympathetic to the plight of Palestinians.
Add in the malign intent of China and Sunak could be forgiven for thinking, as Liz Truss reflected in her recently published book Ten Years to Save the West (2024) when Queen Elizabeth died just after she’d conformed her as the new PM two years ago, why is it all happening on my watch?
Pointedly, in publishing her book at precisely the time when Sunak PM is effectively under siege as a consequence of opinion polls consistently indicating the Conservative Party will be routed in the next general election, Truss has sought to undermine the person she beat in the race to replace disgraced former PM Boris Johnson.
Reviews of Ten Years to Save the West have been, it must be said, generally negative. As political commentator and seminal historian Max Hastings believes having “encountered ten prime ministers and read all of their memoirs”, she emerges as the most “diminished” (2024).
Nevertheless, she clearly feels no sympathy for the man who succeeded her without, it must be acknowledged, a single vote being cast in favour of him becoming PM.
Lack of democratic mandate is at the heart of the current problems Rushi Sunak suffers from.
Sunak, promoted by Johnson to become chancellor when Sajid Javid suddenly resigned in February 2020 because of his disagreement in being told to sack his team of aides (BBC, 2020), was widely viewed as a grown-up politician who’d steady the Conservative ‘ship’ following Truss’s premiership.
Notably, Sunak, a data geek was seen as someone capable of analysing spreadsheets and financial decisions that’d alluded/confused his former boss and immediate predecessor.
Having responded to the immense financial consequences of temporarily closing large swathes of the economy due to the pandemic by authorising hundreds of billions of pounds to be spent, and though many tens of billions of pounds was corruptly obtained and will never be recovered, working in conjunction with chancellor Jeremy Hunt, who Truss has appointed to replace Kwasi Kwarteng she sacked in an attempt to save herself, Sunak’s initial appointment was regarded positively.
Crucially, many Conservatives accepted, stability was essential to restore the prospects of the party in the opinion polls.
That has not happened.
According to the vast majority of opinion polls, the Conservatives are at least 20 points behind Labour in the polls(Kirk, 2024).
The reasons are complex, but a combination of the events described above, both domestic and international, increasingly expose how isolated the UK has become following its departure from the European Union (EU), something Sunak enthusiastically supported during the referendum campaign eight years ago.
Despite Conservative leader Johnson prior to the last general election in December 2019 claiming that voting to ‘Get Brexit’ done, would mean that the UK could move on and ensure citizens would become collectively wealthier, this has not happened.
Rampant inflation, which exceeded 11%, has resulted in an inflationary spiral meaning the majority who vote at the next general election will feel somewhat poorer than in December 2019.
Though wages for many have gone up at a faster rate than experienced for a generation, the inflationary cycle has led to knock-on impacts which means that working families as well as the 9.3 million who are economically inactive (Murphy, 2024), feel squeezed, some to the point of destitution.
Murphy’s analysis of figures on the increase in use of food banks and increase in debt for the Resolution Foundation demonstrates a society experiencing tough times.
Sunak will be fully aware of the apparently immutable law of politics predicting that voters are, at best, highly reluctant in voting to allow the government they hold responsible for their plight to remain in power.
For this reason, Sunak will hold off calling a general election until as late as possible in the increasingly desperate hope the economy will improve dramatically and, as a result, the opinion polls start to narrow between his party and Labour.
Though reports Sunak’s willingness to consider holding a snap election before Parliament rises for its summer recess continue to circulate (Swinford, Wright and Smyth, 2024; Gutteridge, 2024), the vast majority of commentators believe economic prospects will not improve sufficiently to allow Sunak to be confident in believing he’ll still be PM after the next general election.
Indeed, there are some who think events next week could have a significant bearing on what happens next in terms of when we get to decide on the composition of Parliament.
Next Thursday (May 2nd), the country will hold a number of elections seen not only as a test of the Conservative Party’s popularity but, critically for Sunak, and depending on the outcome, whether the party should continue to support him as leader.
In the latest byelection caused by scandal, the seat of Blackpool South is being contested.
Caused by the resignation in March of suspended Conservative Scott Benton who’d been facing a local vote to remove him as a result of him being exposed by a national newspaper to have engaged in a lobbying scandal (BBC, 2024), it’s widely anticipated the seat will be won by Labour who’d held it since 1997 until 2019 when it was won with a majority of 3,690.
Looking at the twelve byelections held since Sunak became party leader and PM on 25th October will not give Conservative Party strategists with optimism.
Sunak’s not been shown to be a proven vote winner at elections.
In only one byelection, held in Uxbridge and South Ruislip, caused by the resignation of former leader Boris Johnson on 12th June last year, and who’d been found to have lied to Parliament by the Privileges Committee, resulted in a Conservative candidate winning.
As commentators pointed out, this result was not so much due to any sense of popularity of the Conservative Party but wasprimarily a consequence of increasing concern about the costs of implementation of ultra-low emission zone (Ulez) scheme in greater London by Labour Mayor Sadiq Khan (Baston, 2023).
However, losing Blackpool South is already factored in by the Tories.
Rather, what be causing concern to the Sunak and his party strategists will be local elections held to elect over 2,600 councillors in 107 local authorities, the largest test of local democracy since 2021.
The Conservatives are contesting 899 seats with Labour defending 933 and the Liberal Democrats 405.
In 2021 Johnson was in his second year as PM and still enjoying his reputation as having achieved an 80-seat majority in December 2019 and achieving a deal with the EU to leave,with the vague promise that this would result in improved prosperity.
Moreover, Johnson was happily taking credit for having introduced the vaccine that would enable life to return to normal after the restrictions imposed as a consequence of Covid 19.
The opinion polls suggest the Conservative Party will experience large losses in local elections next week.
According to Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher who are based at the University of Plymouth, the Conservative Party could lose 500 seats “if the party repeats its poor 2023 local election performance, when its national vote share fell below 30 per cent” (Parker and Vincent, 2024).
Given Sunak’s Party is currently running at less than 25% in the opinion polls, this could mean even greater losses.
In addition to Blackpool South and the local elections, ten regions are voting for mayors, three the first time, who, if successful, will cumulatively control a public spending budget well in excess of £25 billion.
Two of these mayoral contests are seen as critical to Sunak being able to maintain sufficient confidence among his MPs and party members that he should lead the Conservative Party into the next general election, the West Midlands and Tees Valley.
The West Midlands, currently held by Conservative Andy Street and Tees Valley, held by Ben Houchen, are seen as being bellwethers of what how the party is likely to fare when the country goes to the polls in a general election.
As Chris Smyth, the Times Whitehall Editor puts it, “Street and Houchen are seen by Conservatives as bright spots in a difficult few years but both are fighting against anti-Tory sentiment that could sweep them from power” (2024).
Significantly, a recent poll in the West Midlands last week indicated Street trailing the Labour candidate Richard Parker by 14% and a poll in March showed Houchen to be over 20% behind Labour .
A ‘Tory grandee’ quoted in the Financial Times reflects that believes, “If we lose 500 seats but hold on to West Midlands and Tees Valley, that would be a surprise on the upside. Lose 500 seats and the mayoralties and that would be a different question” (Parker and Vincent, ibid).
The message that Sunak will be well aware of is that that if losses the Conservatives suffer next week are far worse than the 500 council seats and West Midlands and Tees Valley, he may be subject to a leadership challenge – requiring 53 MPs to submit letters of no confidence.
Currently what we’re seeing is a concerted effort by Sunak and his team to focus attention on his leadership and international credentials as well as demonstrating that he’s capable of delivering promises made in January 2023.
This includes the utterly toxic issue of migrants arriving in this country without permission by ‘stopping the boats’ through having passed the Rwanda Bill this week.
This, Tory high command believe, will convince voters why they should stick with the party that’s been in power since 2010.
In announcing in Poland on Wednesday £75 billion of new defence funding to increase spending as a proportion of national wealth to 2.5% by 2030, and effectively putting this country on a ‘war footing’ (Gutteridge, 2024a), Sunak would certainly seem to be underlining his status as a major player in the increasingly fragile world order that’s, largely, ensured peace for this country since 1945.
Speaking during a visit to Poland, the Prime Minister unveiled £75 billion in new funding that will take the defence budget to 2.5 per cent of national wealth – or £87 billion a year – by the start of 2030.
Notably, the one success that Sunak will undoubtedly wish to point to, getting Parliamentary approval for the Rwanda bill on Monday is unlikely to produce the sort of turnaround he would have hoped for.
According to a Savanta survey for The Telegraph, 66% of UK adults believe Sunak’s attempts to “halt the influx of Channel migrants has not been speedy enough” (Martin, 2024). Worse for him, among Conservatives, this figure is 75% compared with 65% for Labour voters.
Though the opinion polls look bleak, there’s still seems to be much to play for in that Labour’s lead is believed to be largely based on dissatisfaction with the government rather than enthusiasm for ithe party Starmer.
Ashley Kirk in the Guadian piece ‘Labour are ahead in the polls, but have they won hearts and minds? These charts suggest not’ indicates Starmer is seen more negatively than previous leader Ed Miliband who, in the 2015 general election, lost to the Conservatives under David Cameron despite the opinion polls suggesting he’d emerge victorious(ibid).
Gideon Skinner, head of political research at Ipsos who is quoted by Kirk, though acknowledging the current unpopularity of the party in government, believes that if Sunak can rebuild its reputation, most particularly in economic competence, “Labour could find their position not as strong as it looks”.
John Curtice, politics professor at the University of Strathclyde and go-to psephologist in elections, though concurring with the view that Starmer does not enjoy the sort of enthusiasm Tony Blair’s administration had in the run-up to the May 1997 general election, is at least seen as competent as a potential PM:
“This will be an election about competence, rather than policy positions. About who you think can run the shop, not what goods are in the shop.”
Appearing on the ITV Politics show Peston on Wednesday evening, Curtice was adamant there is no path he can see to a Conservative victory including as a minority government with support from other parties.
So, it may be asked, could next week be the beginning of the end for Sunak?
As always in the continuing psychodrama British politics has morphed into in recent years, nothing can be taken for granted and predictions should be heavily qualified with allowance for the unexpected.
Nonetheless, should next week go as ‘well’ as Sunak and his team hope, which means limiting losses, he’ll still be widely regarded as a PM presiding over a party experiencing ongoing disagreement on its future ideology.
Worse, the Conservative Party appear unable to turn around the economy, fix social problems and deal with endemic crisis in public services sufficiently to convince voters they should continue to keep faith with it at the next general election.
Thus, though next week may not be the beginning of the endfor Sunak, it may, to borrow from a from a famous quote included in a speech made by wartime leader and former PM Sir Winston Churchill on November 10th, 1942, represent the end of the beginning of a process that’ll ultimately result in Rishi Sunak’s time as the first Indian PM coming to its conclusion.
At Prime Minister’s Questions, Deputy Labour leader Angela Raynor, standing in for Starmer as convention dictates this occurs when the PM is absent – as Sunak was because, according to Politico website, he “grabbing the headlines with big defense pledges on the world stage”, made clear her views about the current PM (McDonald, 2024):
“Does he realize, when he stabbed Boris [Johnson] in the back to get his mate in No. 10 that he was ditching their biggest election winner for a pint-sized loser?”
Though Rayner’s sharp-witted question caused inevitable annoyance among some Conservatives, most were amused including Commons Leader Penny Mordaunt who, sitting behind Oliver Dowden deputising for Sunak, “struggled to stifle a smirk” (ibid).
Most within Parliament it seems, as well as the majority of the country, believe that in order to see greater stability and surefootedness within government, the end of Sunak and his currently chaotic government cannot come a moment too soon.
Indeed, it might be speculated, may we live in decidedly less interesting times.
Steven’s latest chapter, ‘Boris Johnson, the green shopping trolley’, was recently published in Toxic News? Covering Climate Change, edited by Mair, Ryley and Beck and published by Bite-Sized Books, London
References
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