Is Rishi right and the public has really tuned him out?

When Rishi Sunak finally got the top job in British politics, he laid out five pledges he aimed to deliver and be judged on before the election. With under a week left before polling day and Sunak likely to be leaving No. 10, it is worth cutting through the noise of his faltering campaign to evaluate his achievements and understand his perspective on why things have gone so wrong.

Sunak’s foremost pledge was to restore the economy. He targeted halving inflation - which was over 10% when he took office - and growing the British economy. On these fronts, he has been successful: last week the Bank of England hit its 2% inflation target for the first time in 3 years, and the UK’s GDP was reported to have grown 0.6% in the first quarter of 2024.?

The third pledge, to reduce government debt, is more difficult to assess. Although debt has risen by 2.5% since Sunak took office, it is forecasted to fall by the fifth year of the next Parliament.? Whether one can definitively label this pledge to have been met is somewhat up in the air.?

The Prime Minister’s fourth pledge, to reduce NHS waiting lists, has been a contentious topic. The current waiting list stands at 7.57 million cases, according to the British Medical Association, over 350,000 cases higher than when Sunak took office. He has attributed these growing lists to the striking junior doctors, which it could be argued is not an unfair thing to do. So while Sunak has failed to deliver on this pledge, we should consider the wider context before rushing to judgement.

Lastly, and perhaps most controversially, is the pledge to stop illegal Channel crossings. With 2024 currently on track to see the largest number of illegal crossings since records began, Sunak has clearly failed to deliver. However, with the deterrent of the controversial Rwanda scheme in place and flights allegedly due to start taking off in July, many will be wondering why he did not wait until after the scheme could begin to have an effect before calling the election. If he had perhaps waited, then maybe Sunak would be able to boast he had indeed stopped the boats.

In retrospect, Sunak’s record is mixed. His government has demonstrated clear economic competence in their ability to mitigate the disastrous inheritance bequeathed by Liz Truss. However, economic achievements often fail to resonate in the short term, particularly with a public that is living through a cost of living crisis.?

Instead of acknowledging that there are changes to be made that would qualitatively improve livelihoods beyond an Excel spreadsheet, Suank seems to believe that the Conservatives will fail due to simple public indifference.?

In a recent interview with The Sun, Sunak tried to bolster his campaign’s legitimacy by reflecting on his prescient alarm over Truss, saying, “I spent a summer a couple of summers ago saying that what Liz Truss was proposing was wrong, and I was behind [in the leadership race]. And everyone said to me, ‘Why are you bothering? Why are you still talking about this? No one wants to hear what you have to say’. I kept talking about it every day because I believed in what I was saying. I was right then when I warned about Liz Truss, and that’s why all of you can trust me now when I also warn about the damage that Keir Starmer would do to our economy.”?

The problem is, once you’ve captured their attention, you have to show, not tell.?