This article originally appeared in our Elevenses newsletter.
Voters headed to the polls this week in a series of local elections seen as the final test of public opinion before Rishi Sunak goes to the country later this year. Forecasts suggest the Tories could lose up to half of the council seats they are defending, with Chancellor Jeremy Hunt saying the party expects to suffer “significant losses”. Not that such an outcome will concern them, he maintains. David Cameron lost big pre-2015 and so did Tony Blair in his pomp. And anyway, being severely disliked has become second nature to them now – it’s water off a duck’s back.
But it’s hard to shake off the feeling that something is different this time. The elections take place as polling by YouGov for The Times puts the Tories on 18 per cent of the vote, below the historic lows seen under Liz Truss’s stewardship when it sank to 19 per cent. It comes on the back of what was considered to be a successful week for the Prime Minister, in which the Safety of Rwanda Act passed into law, a 2p national insurance cut came into force and he was able to set out ambitions to raise defence spending by 2030. Sources inside the PM’s office say he is cutting an increasingly exasperated figure. One Conservative insider said: “The moment anything happens or they think some poll is coming out, they go into a meltdown and start saying, ‘What policy can we push out?’”. When it doesn’t cut through, it is usually met with: “You said this would work, why isn’t it working?”
The disarray inside Number 10 has got people suggesting that a nasty set of local election results could be the final nail in the coffin for Sunak, with rightwing Tory rebels saying they would have no other choice but to launch a leadership battle with a general election around the corner. “There will just be sullen grumpiness all around,” one former cabinet minister told the FT, with other rebels suggesting people “just don’t like” Sunak. Many Conservative MPs refer to talk of a possible coup as “mad”, but even they don’t deny that the PM could face fresh Conservative infighting if the party sustains heavy losses. Soon, chasing Labour’s lead could turn to fending Reform UK off from becoming His Majesty’s Most Loyal Opposition.
Yet it’s important to consider what bad actually looks like for the Conservatives. The major mayoral races have become more about personality than party politics, with Andy Street and Ben Houchen mistakenly eyed as barometers for success in races that are more indicative of individual support. Similarly, Sadiq Khan will probably underperform as a Labour candidate because his personal brand has become eroded. Better, as Sir John Curtice told an Institute for Government event on Wednesday, to focus on elections for the councillor of whom nobody has ever heard, in Tunbridge Wells or wherever, because these persons will have much less in the way of personal appeal.
Lose Tunbridge, and you know you’re done for.
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