Sunak should learn from his predecessors about remaking Tory party

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Good morning. On paper, Rishi Sunak’s strategy makes perfect sense. In practice, I have some questions about the execution. Read about them below. Thanks also for the slew of quick and easy vegetarian pasta dishes, which I am very much looking forward to trying as I attempt to stock up on vital vitamins before heading off to Liverpool for the Labour party conference.

Inside Politics is edited by Georgina Quach. Follow Stephen on X @stephenkb and please send gossip, thoughts and feedback to insidepolitics@ft.com

Narrow tracks

The theory behind Rishi Sunak’s new approach is solid: if he is going to win he needs to make his party look as if it is changed, refreshed and able to do the same to the country. Part of demonstrating that change is setting up loud rows — whether with the Labour party or his own side. These battles, which often draw more attention than the proposals themselves, show that the prime minister is resetting the Conservative party.

And what Sunak wants to do by talking about “30 years” of failure is to try to reframe the next election away from a discussion about the past 13 years of Conservative government to the past 30, when the Conservatives have been in power for a mere 17.

So in one way, it is a good day for Sunak when David Cameron, George Osborne and Boris Johnson all attack his plan to scrap HS2’s northern leg. Plus, the prime minister hopes that his plans to raise the smoking age every year to create a smoke-free generation will cause similar rows among Tory members.

But there is a big problem: all this battle shows is that the Conservative party has changed from a party which supports a high-speed railway that costs far more than planned and runs from London to Manchester, to a party that supports a high-speed railway that costs far more than planned and runs from London to Birmingham. A government that once disliked the sale of cigarettes so much it mandated they be sold in plain packages now dislikes them so much that it thinks no one born after 2009 should ever, ever have the choice of such a purchase. On net zero, the government’s messaging is confused: sometimes the announcement concerns a big change, other times a minor tweak.

When Johnson picked a fight with his own party to demonstrate the Conservatives had changed in 2019, it was accompanied by big shifts in approach in areas voters really do care about. Appointing Priti Patel as home secretary was part of a move away from Theresa May’s reform-minded instincts towards the police and back towards a traditional, red in tooth and claw law and order approach. Sajid Javid’s September spending round was about increasing public spending across the board to show that the party had truly abandoned the austerity of the Cameron-Osborne years.

When Cameron led the Conservative party back into government he had promised to stick to Labour’s target of abolishing child poverty, apologised for his own voting record on gay rights and for the Conservative party’s introduction of section 28, which had stopped councils and schools “promoting the teaching of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship”. Cameron reformed his party’s selection processes to get more women and ethnic minorities elected, alongside a host of other moves towards the left and his embrace of liberalism more broadly.

Now, of course, showing that you’ve changed is different being in government, compared with standing in opposition. Johnson had to spend real money to do it, while Cameron largely just said things and used his own reshaping of the parliamentary party to demonstrate how he was changing the Tory party.

But what these two phases of successful Conservative renewal have in common is serious depth and a focus on major topics that move many voters. Perhaps Sunak and his ministers do genuinely believe that a meat tax is around the corner, which is why his policy programme has so little of it.

As I say, the theory of Sunak’s new approach makes sense. However, if you want to demonstrate your party has changed and that you represent change, you need to do a lot more than just announce relatively small modifications to government policies. That is especially true for policy areas on which voters broadly agree with you but do not care much either way.

A marginal note

Voters go to the polls today in the Rutherglen and Hamilton West by-election, which was triggered after constituents voted to remove the former Scottish National party MP Margaret Ferrier. The ballot shouldn’t tell us all that much, unless the opinion polls in Scotland are very badly off-kilter. This seat is right on the foothills of Labour’s target list in Scotland and the specific local circumstances in which it takes place are not ideal for the SNP.

Now try this

Robert Shrimsley very kindly gave me a lift back from the Conservative party conference, as the trains were disrupted by strikes. We listened to Glenn Gould’s excellent recording of the Goldberg Variations, some Bob Dylan, and Robert introduced me to a delightful new band I hadn’t heard of before: the jazz quintet Ezra Collective. I’ve added those to the Inside Politics Spotify playlist.

In return I explained in excessive length how the new Star Wars series Ahsoka fits into the franchise’s wider canon. Despite this provocation, Robert did not abandon me at a services station.

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