Even when seen through Daily Mail headlines, things do not look good right now for Rishi Sunak’s five priorities. At the new year, the prime minister announced five measures by which he expects to be judged. Two were social: reducing NHS waiting lists and stopping the Channel small boats. Three were economic: halving inflation (at that time running at 10.7%), growing the economy and reducing national debt. With an election looming, such goals matter more than usual.
Last week was duly designated “NHS week” in the government’s summer publicity push. It was not a success. Embarrassingly, the NHS waiting list for England has just risen to 7.6 million people, the highest since the figure began to be consistently monitored in 2007. In a hospital photocall last week, Mr Sunak himself admitted that progress had “stalled”.
