As unpopular as last week’s Autumn Statement might have been with Tory backbenchers, Sunak and Hunt’s manifesto of misery might just be their best shot at keeping their seats. That, at least, is reportedly the thinking of those around the Prime Minister. To avoid a 1997-style wipe-out, the aim is to imitate the strategy of John Major’s remarkable victory from five years earlier.
In 1992, the Tories squeaked home against a Labour Party still not trusted on the economy. That was even after thirteen years in government and a recession partly of their own making. Major and Norman Lamont, his then-Chancellor, accused Labour of planning a tax bombshell after it failed to match their spending plans and proposed a ‘budget’ of their own.
Sunak hopes he can do the same today. Trussonomics has proven that the era of easy borrowing – for cutting taxes or higher spending – is over. As well as appeasing the markets, last week’s statement was designed to show that, in future, more money for public services will require taxes to rise accordingly. Labour must specify where their hikes in public spending will come from.
As Hunt punted most of the major spending cuts past the next election (due to be held by the end of January 2025), he has thrown down the gauntlet for Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves. To avoid making Truss’s mistake with the money men, they will have to go into the next election either pledging to match the Tories’ spending plans, or telling already-squeezed voters that taxes will rise further.
At this point, Sunak and Hunt will get out their own picture of a Labour tax-bomb and grimly intone to swing voters that they better stick with the devil they know if they don’t want to see their incomes shrink further. That is especially if they have plucked some tax cuts out of better-than-expected growth figures or borrowing forecasts earlier in 2024.
Far-fetched? With the Tories around 20 points behind in the polls, any strategy that even hints at winning the next election seems somewhat outlandish. Nonetheless, Sunak is hoping he can at least neutralise Starmer on the economy – which tax-raising, vulnerable-protecting, sensible chap do you prefer? – and turn the contrast with the Labour leader into one of records and personalities.
In a head-to-head, it is one that Sunak, at the moment, appears equipped to win. Starmer and Reeves may currently be more trusted on the economy, but Sunak is the preferred Prime Minister. The Shadow Chancellor made a couple of good jokes at the Government’s expense in her reply to Hunt. But she was much more comfortable talking about the recent past than she was about future policy.
Sunak and Hunt shouldn’t be breaking out the (alcohol-free) bubbly quite yet though. If the last few weeks have been a long time in politics, the distance in time between now and the next election makes continental drift seem speedy. The Prime Minister and Chancellor have stabilised a rapidly deteriorating situation in their brief time in Downing Street. But they still have plenty of time to self-destruct.
Moreover, if Sunak is aiming to ape 1992, then Starmer will hope to party like its 1997. He is not an epoch-defining like Blair. The best he can hope to exude is bland competence, a welcome if dull contrast to the ongoing Tory farce. Instead, as James Forsyth has highlighted, he hopes a new dawn will breaking through his willingness to match the Tories’ spending plans, and then pick them off at their weakest points.
Currently, Labour hope to match the Government’s economic approach, whilst adding some Miliband-inspired greenwashing and a reheated New Labour obsession with wrecking the British constitution. The only major difference in policy they currently have is their desire to abolish the non-dom status and to use the resulting proceeds to fund the NHS. Unexciting, but an easy win against Sunak.
After fourteen long years of Tory rule, Labour will not have to do much to contrast themselves with a government that seems tired and underwhelming. By matching Sunak’s spending plans, they would close down most economic attack lines – and for all the Prime Minister’s charisma, the tide against him might be simply too strong.