Now we see him. Rishi Sunak, who has ducked and dived to try to hold off the civil war in his party, emerges as just another in the line of shameless and reckless Tory leaders devoid of any sense of national interest, political honesty or concern for anything beyond his own very short-term future.
Restoring some semblance of solidity was his calling card, but he has just trashed his unique selling point. The man who set out to restore the tattered fragments of his party’s reputation for responsibility – wrecked by his two predecessors – has added himself to this list of the most dishonourable, self-interested prime ministers in living memory. Here’s the irony: in breaking with Boris Johnson’s green policies, he most resembles him as callow and opportunistic, willing to say and do whatever pleases in the moment. And another one: it takes quite something to make Johnson seem the more statesmanlike, allowing him to tell Sunak not to “falter” now.
Change, change, change, Sunak proclaimed 31 times in his speech. Change of direction like a spinning weather vane, but the question is whether he and his strategists have read the weather right – not the burning climate, of course, but public opinion.
Too early to tell, the political scientist Prof John Curtice says. It will be “relatively popular with 2019 Conservative voters Sunak needs to win back”, he tells me. “But will anyone notice the difference to the cost of living by next October?” Some think it will rescue a handful of key votes in a few marginals, saving a few seats, but not enough to save Sunak or his party from electoral doom. If so, will it have been worth the disgrace, adding to the long-term sense of disgust with the Tories expressed so widely on doorsteps and in polls? Sudden retreat from agreed climate targets they adamantly backed risks prolonging the deep stain on their reputation, making them unelectable for years to come. As for trashing what’s left of Britain’s reputation abroad with investors and allies, the Tory party conference next month might as well adopt the Millwall chant: “No one likes us, we don’t care.”
The breathtaking dishonesty of his speech – virtually every word of it – will be noted by many more voters than it pleases. The Express headline, “Honest Rishi”, seemed almost to recognise the problem. “Too often, motivated by short-term thinking, politicians have taken the easy way out. Telling people the bits they want to hear, and not necessarily always the bits they need to hear,” said Sunak, embarking on his handbrake turn. Yes, that’s what people do think. Labour strategists note how his every word has been “focus-grouped to death” – they can hear those words spoken in their own research. And for that very reason, most voters will see him in plain sight doing exactly that short-term thing, fatally weakening climate goals to suit the Sun’s “Give us a brake” anti-net zero campaign, while claiming there’s “no watering down”. The Tories’ new conference slogan, “Long-term decisions for a brighter future” will deceive none but their basest base.
Labour has been expecting this from the Isaac Levido playbook, and was ready instantly with social media ripostes, including a picture of Sunak in a beaming Liz Truss’s pocket and clips of now broken Tory vows on climate goals. Is Labour afraid? Of course – rightly, with 1992 for ever branded on its memory. But not so afraid as to follow the Tories down this dark path: they will put back the crucial ban on selling new fossil fuel cars by 2030, for the sake of industry as well as the planet. But Labour notes how Sunak deliberately makes it sound as though all petrol and diesel cars will be scrapped in 2030 when it’s only new sales that will be affected; sales of secondhand cars will continue for years.
Sunak reminded Labour, if it needed reminding, of the barefaced untruths Tories will shamelessly emit, knowing and not caring that so many people know they lie. Nick Robinson, on Thursday morning’s Radio 4 Today programme, gave Sunak a good roasting on the outrageous claim that he, Sunak, would “stop” what was never anyone’s policy – taxing meat, flying, interfering with people’s diets – and recycling into seven bins. But that’s where the Tories will go, claiming eco-zealot Labour is full of plans only found in the annexes of obscure reports. Ipsos’s Gideon Skinner tells me 60% of voters already think the government is failing on climate change: this hardly helps.
Note the several times Sunak said he would stop “property owners” being forced to pay £8,000 for insulation, to frighten every home owner. He never used the word landlords, the only ones obliged to insulate, whose renters suffer among the worst energy inefficiency and highest bills.
What’s left of the man now, exposing himself as no better than his predecessors? His standing is dire. At the time of writing, YouGov’s tracker finds his likability at its lowest, his “strength” at -56%, to only 19% finding him strong and his “trustworthiness” at -54%, with only 22% trusting him. Will any of that improve now he has wriggled and swivelled on what nearly every voter knows is the mortal peril of the heating climate? Even if substantial numbers can be made to fear paying more themselves towards the cost, most still know the seriousness of the crisis: it’s up there in the top three concerns. Now they see not a leader but another scoundrel who will do and say anything disreputable, at any cost to the climate or to the car and energy industries, to woo some votes over the short term of the next year. It would take a magician to reverse what the country thinks of Conservative rule over the last 13 years: that magic is not yet another dose of deception.
Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist
