Rishi Sunak can govern the country or manage the Conservative party, but not both. He will probably accomplish neither, for the same reason that it is impossible to move in different directions at once while also standing still.
It is impossible, for example, to build houses and not build them, although that is now the government’s plan. Sunak has yielded to Tory rebels who oppose an annual target of creating 300,000 new homes. Last week the levelling up and regeneration bill was pulled from the Commons when enough MPs backed an amendment scrapping the target. The prime minister has agreed that the number will be merely “advisory”, and that local authorities can discount it if constructions threaten to change the character of an area.
