Rishi Sunak and the Tories: running out of options?

If there was one saving grace for the Tories from last week’s twin by-election defeats, said Henry Hill on CapX, it was that the results removed any "lingering delusions" about how much trouble the party is in. 

After the last round of by-election disasters in July, Conservatives were able to draw comfort from their surprise victory in Uxbridge. This time, there was no such consolation. It was an unmitigated rout. It’s now clear that if there is any path to victory for the Tories in the next general election, "it does not, can not, lie in 12 more months of steady as she goes". They will have to plot a different course. "The problem is, what alternative is there? The party seems genuinely out of ideas."

'A long way from game over'

The Tories are running out of options to stave off "armageddon", said Ben Riley-Smith in The Daily Telegraph. Parties often announce eye-catching policy changes after bad by-election defeats, but Rishi Sunak has already played that card, with his recent scaling back of net-zero pledges and scrapping of HS2’s second leg. A Downing Street shake-up is another popular move in such situations, but Sunak’s No. 10 already runs perfectly efficiently. As for switching leaders, even the PM’s harshest critics recognise that is unrealistic at this point.

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It’s a tough situation, said Anne McElvoy in The i Paper, but Sunak isn’t giving up. He believes, with good reason, that the Tories could yet turn things around. Over the coming months, targeted cuts to income tax, stamp duty and inheritance tax, and such growth measures as incentivising pension funds to invest more in UK companies, could pay off. It’s "a long way from game over" for the Tories.

'Leave office with dignity'

The obstacles facing Sunak are too fundamental to be overcome with clever political strategies, said Stephen Bush in the FT. Some of them are just the result of unlucky timing – “the inflationary pressures created by the end of lockdown and the war in Ukraine would have posed major challenges to any government”. Others are the result of decisions taken or not taken by successive Tory governments: the failure to build enough prisons, for instance, and poor management of the NHS.

Voter dissatisfaction over such issues is not easily or quickly dispelled. The Tories’ best hope is to forget about opinion polls and focus groups, and to just concentrate on governing responsibly and doing their best to get the economy moving, said Iain Martin on Reaction. It probably won’t be enough to save them at the next election, given how fed up with them voters are today. But it might at least allow the party to leave office “with dignity, having done the right thing for the country”.