Summary
Here is a round-up of the day’s main headlines:
NHS waiting times are too long, Rishi Sunak has admitted in a new year’s speech that saw him urge hospitals not to cancel elective surgeries despite the severe pressure on A&E departments. The prime minister did not say whether people should expect immediate improvement in the health service, after reports of unnecessary deaths due to long ambulance response times and difficulties transferring patients into hospital.
Plans for all pupils in England to study maths up to the age of 18 to tackle innumeracy and better equip them for the modern workplace were also confirmed by the prime minister. Looking forward to the year ahead, Sunak said he knew people were approaching 2023 with “apprehension”, and voiced hopes of restoring optimism. Though he repeated a promise to tackle strike action, Sunak did not give any details about legislation. He promised to say more in “the coming days about our approach”.
The Labour party says the five Rishi Sunak promises will mostly be easy for him to achieve. In a press notice it says the pledges are “all things that were happening anyway; are so easy it would be difficult not to achieve them; or are aimed at fixing problems of the Tories’ own making”.
Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, says the Rishi Sunak speech shows he is “asleep at the wheel” when it comes to dealing with the NHS crisis. In a statement he says: “People will be dismayed that Rishi Sunak still doesn’t have a proper plan to deal with the crisis raging in the NHS. He is asleep at the wheel while patients are treated in hospital corridors and the health service is stretched to breaking point.”
Pat Cullen, general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, says Rishi Sunak’s speech suggests he is “detached from the reality” of what is happening in the NHS. She made the comment in an open letter to Steve Barclay, the health secretary, released to the media.
The former Conservative treasurer Peter Cruddas, a key ally of Boris Johnson, is set to launch a Momentum-style grassroots campaign to overhaul party democracy. The movement – Conservative Democratic Organisation – will have Lord Cruddas as president and aims to give members full say over candidate selections “with minimum interference by CCHQ [Conservative campaign headquarters]”, including the power to deselect MPs. The move has been endorsed by the former home secretary Priti Patel, who is also close to the former prime minister.
Jeremy Hunt has confirmed that he will announce plans to reduce energy support for businesses in the Commons next week, telling industry leaders it was “unsustainably expensive”. The chancellor has told business groups that a package providing support at a “lower level” than current measures would be available to them beyond March, promising to avoid a “cliff edge” in curtailing the subsidy.
The leader of Reform UK, Richard Tice, has offered a “cast-iron guarantee” the party will put up a candidate against every Conservative in the next general election, ruling out a 2019-style deal even if the Tories back some of his policies. After a speech to relaunch the party, which was level with the Liberal Democrats in some recent polls, Tice said Reform UK already had 600 candidates in place and would stand in every seat outside Northern Ireland.
That’s it from me, Tom Ambrose, for today. Thanks for following along. The UK politics live blog will be back tomorrow morning. Goodnight.
In his first big speech since taking over at No 10, Rishi Sunak promised “no tricks, no ambiguity” as he announced his five promises to reset the government after a difficult year.
The prime minister said he would be focusing on halving inflation, growing the economy, reducing debt, cutting NHS waiting lists, and stopping small-boat crossings to the UK.
“Those are the people’s priorities,” he told his audience. “We will either have achieved them or not. No tricks, no ambiguity. We’re either delivering for you or we’re not.”
Sunak does not have time on his side, with the next general election expected in autumn 2024 and the public struggling with the cost of living, the state of the NHS and strikes.
So his speech was designed primarily to reassure people that, after a catastrophic year for the Tories, he would be a steady hand on the tiller navigating the country through perilous waters.
It was also intended to take on his internal party critics who believe he has ripped up the mandate Boris Johnson won in 2019, that he is a bit too technocratic to win over the red wall, and that he lacks a big vision for the country.
At first glance, staking his premiership on a five-point plan to fix Britain while the country is in the grip of a series of crises, which show little sign of abating, looks like a bold move.
But while Sunak promised to do away with tricks and ambiguity, his success, or failure, appears to depend on exactly that.
