Sunak and Hunt may be a tired act but the Tories are quietly confident
After the drama of Boris Johnson and Liz Truss, Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt may seem boring but there’s a quiet sense that the Conservative party is in it for the long-term, writes Sascha O’Sullivan
When Rishi Sunak stands up to address Conservative Party Conference today, train staff around the country will be on strike, forcing members to pile into their cars or face a bumpy coach journey home.
It was an unusually prophetic sequence of events for a conference which was overshadowed by the unbuilt line of HS2, originally designed to end only 20 minutes walk from where Sunak was standing in central Manchester.
While optically magnificent to cancel a high speed train from the very city the line was meant to wind up, the final decision will be less controversial than the refusal to engage with the question to begin with.
Andy Street, the Conservative mayor of the West Midlands, may have threatened to resign if HS2 isn’t completed, but Andy Burnham, the Labour mayor of Manchester, was more furious about the lack of communication from Downing Street.
This was supposed to be a party gearing up for an election. But neither Sunak nor his Chancellor Jeremy Hunt delivered any red meat to the party faithful. Instead, they dedicated time to problems which don’t exist, like debanking, a scourge which the Financial Conduct Authority has said extends only to Nigel Farage.
Hunt told an audience yesterday that they would “prioritise things which save us money in five years time” even if it meant scrapping or ignoring policies which would save cash in two decades. So much for the slogan rolled out only three weeks ago: “long term decisions for a brighter future.”
Hunt and Sunak have become consumed by what is known in Westminster speak as “treasury brain”. They want to fatten the pig up, even if it means they aren’t able to offer the promises of tax cuts which were met with whoops of glee when Liz Truss and her band of pro-growth acolytes demanded them. No jam today, no jam tomorrow. Instead, we’ll likely see what Hunt termed as “cashable savings”.
Even if the Chancellor wasn’t allowed a Monzo account, he’s replicating the fintech firm’s model of stockpiling pots of cash he can’t touch until a certain point. That point, Hunt made clear, will not be the Autumn statement, and it might not even be the budget next March. Hunt claimed he couldn’t even “think about the what ifs” of tax cuts before Britain’s economy was in better shape and headed for growth of three to four per cent, rather than the accepted benchmark of success of two per cent.
What will be particularly welcome to readers of this newspaper is Hunt’s pledge to prioritise tax cuts for businesses before those for individuals and families, like income tax. If he can make that his modus operandi, he might even stay in office long enough to see some of those “long term decisions” come to fruition.
The overwhelming reception of Hunt was that he, and indeed Sunak, were a bit of a snoozefest. At the end of Hunt’s big ticket speech in the main hall, one attendee turned to his friend and said “is that it?”. But there was a quiet sense that the Conservative Party was in it for the long-haul.
Conference in Birmingham last year was a coca-cola high for a sect of the Tory party that had never really had a chance to take control of the reins, but the come down was swift and brutal. The fall of Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng may have given the members the drama they craved, but it opened up an existential schism in the Tories, one that seems to be being carefully papered over by the lightweight offerings from Hunt and Sunak.
Sure, there is frustration, a desire to squeeze one or two more tax cuts out of the government. But it is a frustration that seems to be borne out of a long-term belief in the party, even if they aren’t in office. This time last year, the Conservatives, with an 80 seat majority, were asking themselves: will we have a future?
Now you have the likes of Suella Braverman, Kemi Badenoch and Gillian Keegan making jokes about being the next prime minister because at least Sunak has made the Conservative leadership a chalice that won’t kill you on impact.
In fact, maybe Sunak and Hunt are right about longer term decisions, even if neither of them will be around to see it.
Sascha O’Sullivan is comment and features editor of Morning Wire