Good morning. After Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa and New Year, the last great festival of the season: Rishi Sunak’s five pledges anniversary day. The prime minister is marking the occasion with a trip to the east Midlands, while Keir Starmer is making a speech in which he will promise to lift the mood of “a downtrodden country”. Personally, I’ll be saying a prayer to the god of setting your own homework, and another to the god of unfulfilled ambition.
When Sunak came up with this device exactly a year ago, it was generally viewed as a smart rhetorical move: in several cases, he appeared to have dressed the central expectations of most experts in language that could make it look as if he was responsible for their achievement. He said there were “no tricks”, and that “we’re either delivering for you or we’re not.” But there were, in fact, tricks: the criteria were slippery, and the timelines were ambiguous. Everything seemed set up for the prime minister to set the terms of the debate and declare victory in time for the next election campaign.
But that isn’t how it’s gone. Today’s newsletter assesses progress on the five pledges with the help of five top Guardian brains. Here are the headlines.
Five big stories
Iran | Two explosions have killed almost 100 people and injured scores more at a memorial ceremony in Iran marking the fourth anniversary of the US killing of Qassem Suleimani, the head of Iran’s Quds Force. Iran did not immediately attribute blame and no side claimed responsibility for the deadliest single terrorist incident since the Iranian Revolution in 1979. Read Julian Borger’s analysis.
NHS | Junior doctors’ leaders have said they are prepared to stage yet more strikes after the longest stoppage in NHS history. On Wednesday night, it emerged that as many as 20 hospitals had asked junior doctors to return to work but had the requests rejected amid claims they had not shown steps they had taken to mitigate the problems first.
Jeffrey Epstein | Court documents identifying associates of notorious sex offender Jeffrey Epstein were made public on Wednesday. Some of the high-profile names in the unsealed court documents include Prince Andrew, the former US president Bill Clinton, Michael Jackson and David Copperfield. Read an explainer.
Politics | Conservative MPs are pleading with Reform UK not to stand against them in the general election, the leader of the rightwing populist party has claimed. Richard Tice also insisted that Nigel Farage would play a formal role in Reform’s election campaign.
UK news | A 15-year-old boy has been arrested on suspicion of murder after a teenager was killed while waiting to watch New Year’s Eve fireworks. Harry Pitman, 16, died after what police described as “an altercation” as crowds gathered in Primrose Hill, Camden, north London, to watch the display.
In depth: Hit or miss? Sunak’s progress on the big issues
One quick note before we begin: the fact that Sunak said that his government should be judged on his five pledges doesn’t mean we should accept his framing. Here, for example, are five other measures: has he made any progress on reducing regional inequality? Are greenhouse gas emissions reducing in line with the UK’s net zero targets? Is the UK building more affordable housing? Are energy prices under control? Has the government started to reform the creaking social care system?
This is a selective list – but the point is, so are the pledges. Nonetheless, they are the criteria by which the prime minister has sought to be judged, and he succeeded in placing them at the centre of the political debate. Here’s how he’s doing.
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Pledge: Halve inflation from 10.7% by the end of 2023
When Sunak made his speech, inflation was already forecast to meet this target. At various points in the year, though, it looked touch and go: by October, inflation remained at 6.7%, largely because of soaring fuel costs. But it has since dropped to 3.9%. So the target has been met, barring an unlikely spike when the last 2023 figures are released in two weeks.
What did Sunak have to do with it? Not much, says Nils Pratley, the Guardian’s financial editor. “The job of fighting inflation belongs primarily to the Bank of England. International energy prices – no longer rising – also played a big role.” It’s also important to remember that a declining inflation rate means that prices are going up more slowly, not coming down. With wage growth slowing, that has not yet translated to a big dividend for voters.
This year, “expect the rate to fall even closer to the Bank’s target of 2%”, Nils adds. “Despite the central bank’s cautious warnings about the potential stickiness of inflation, financial markets currently expect Threadneedle Street to have room to cut interest rates from 5.25% to 4% during the course of 2024. That is useful for a governing party in an election year. It does not mean, however, that voters will forget the two-year squeeze on living standards.”
Verdict: success (though not necessarily Sunak’s)
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Pledge: Grow the economy
This is a modest target: 0.1% gross domestic product (GDP) growth each year would be enough to meet it, and that is not an outcome most economists would view as a success story. In the event, while final figures are not available until February, Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan both say that they expect 0.5% growth over the whole year. But GDP fell by 0.1% in the third quarter and may have done so again between October and December, which would mean the UK is in recession.
In 2024, says economics correspondent Richard Partington, “Sunak is facing the prospect of a fairly bleak year for economic growth. The Bank of England has warned that Britain has a 50-50 chance of a recession this year, while the government’s own independent forecaster, the Office for Budget Responsibility, isn’t much more optimistic: it’s forecasting growth of just 0.7% for 2024 as a whole, less than half the average rate recorded in the years running up to the 2008 financial crisis.”
Verdict: technical success against a low bar
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Pledge: Get national debt falling
So far, and despite Rishi Sunak’s repeated claims to the contrary, this hasn’t happened. Debt stood at 88% of GDP in November, compared with 85% at the end of 2022. So how did Sunak justify his claims? Downing Street says they are based on a promise that net debt will be falling as a proportion of GDP by the final year of the five-year forecast, in 2027-28.
Senior economics commentator Aditya Chakrabortty is unimpressed, and has a helpful image to explain. “Analysis of public sector net debt can be a tad heavy for the first week of January, so let me clothe this question in something rather more seasonal,” he writes. “If someone told you they were truly, definitely going to lose a tonne of weight in a year and they’d do it all in the party month of December, you might well do a massive chinny reckon (or whatever it is the young people do to signify doubt these days). But that is pretty much how Rishi Sunak plans to meet this pledge.
“On the state’s own forecasts, debt will keep on going up until April 2028. But relax! Sunak and Jeremy Hunt will truly, definitely start getting it down then, by making spending cuts so sharp that hardly anyone believes they will happen. As a strategy, it makes your mate’s diet plan look positively plausible.”
Verdict: Failing
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Pledge: Bring NHS waiting lists down
Not happening: the waiting list has gone from 7.2m when Sunak made his speech to 7.7m in October, the most recent figures available.
“Sunak has sought to blame ongoing industrial action for his failure to cut waiting lists,” writes health editor Andrew Gregory. “Some of the public may sympathise with that argument. However, analysis by the Health Foundation, an independent thinktank, shows that strikes by doctors had so far lengthened the waiting list by about 210,000.” Even without that 210,000, the number would still be going up.
The same analysis predicted that the number of patients on waiting lists could hit 8 million by this summer, and “the prospect of the waiting list dipping below 7.2 million before the next election looks increasingly unlikely”, Andrew says. “Expect Sunak to squirm and pivot with bold new claims of progress.
“His go-to at the moment? A focus on 18-month waits. They are down by about 90% since their peak in September 2021, which is not to be sniffed at. The prime minister knows he can’t hide from the big numbers, though. And the fact they have gone up, not down, since he promised to reduce them is all that matters.”
Verdict: Failing
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Pledge: ‘Stop the boats’
Initially, this was followed by a technical qualifier: after promising to “stop the boats”, Sunak said that he would “pass new laws to stop small boats”, a much lighter commitment. Since then, Sunak has leaned in to the simpler – and harder – version.
There is confusion over the deadline. This week, the home secretary, James Cleverly, told LBC that his “unambiguous” target was “to reduce it to zero” by the end of 2024. But then the prime minister’s spokesperson said that Sunak “would not set a deadline”.
So how’s it going? Well, the number of people crossing has fallen by 36% against the previous year, from 45,774 to 29,437, largely because of an agreement struck in December 2022 to fast-track the return of asylum seekers from Albania. But the Border Force officials’ union expects them to rise again in 2024.
“Despite Cleverly’s protestations to the contrary, the lousy weather has played a significant role in the reduction in crossings,” says Diane Taylor, who covers asylum issues for the Guardian. “On Tuesday NGOs working in the migrant camps in northern France reported them to be full of people waiting to cross the Channel.”
Fundamentally, Diane says, “the ‘Stop The Boats’ gimmick won’t work because government is targeting a symptom rather than tackling the cause of the problem. Safe and legal routes agreed internationally, not just by UK, will go a long way to stopping the boats – you never see Ukrainians in small boats.” But there is no sign of the government heading in that direction, even as its Rwanda removals policy continues to founder.
Verdict: Some progress, but failing overall
What else we’ve been reading
I’m yet to watch the new series of The Traitors (hosted by Claudia Winkleman, above) – couldn’t miss the darts - but Rachel Aroesti’s five star review whets the appetite for “a far less cynical iteration of the nauseating reality content we are routinely fed today”. Archie
Baby boomers and millennials have long been pitted against each other, with one generation portrayed as “rich and oblivious” and the other perennially “poor and precarious”, Elle Hunt writes. But as time wears on and more under-40s begin inheriting wealth from boomers, the divide appears to be dwindling. Will this change the politics of a generally progressive generation? Nimo
I loved these tributes to the late Tom Wilkinson from an incredible list of contributors including Judi Dench, Bill Nighy, and Rachel Weisz. “There is no understudy, no Wilkinson-type,” writes In The Bedroom director Todd Field. “There was only one.” Archie
It’s been an eventful few years for Rudy Giuliani. Once considered America’s mayor, the former prosecutor now finds himself up to his eyeballs in legal fees and fighting to stay out of prison. Lloyd Green lays out how Giuliani’s actions and connections with Donald Trump destroyed his reputation. Nimo
I personally love to send and receive voice notes, the longer and ramblier the better. But it appears that many of us (me included) have become overzealous, sending long-winded, meandering and pointless audio messages. For the Atlantic, Jacob Sweet unpacks how voice notes can encourage selfishness while simultaneously fostering a sense of closeness and intimacy. Nimo
Sport
Darts | England’s Luke Humphries fought back to end the fairytale run of 16-year-old Luke Littler and become PDC world champion for the first time at a raucous Alexandra Palace. Jonathan Liew described it as “one of the great Ally Pally finals, one of the greatest and most dramatic tussles this famous stage has ever seen”. Simon Burnton wrote of Littler: “There is no point playing it cool. Over the last fortnight we have witnessed something completely unprecedented, something joyful and ridiculous, unforeseen and unimaginable.”
Cricket | South Africa closed an extraordinary see-saw first day of the second and final Test against India at Newlands on 62 for three in their second innings, trailing the tourists by 36 runs after 23 wickets and several records fell on Wednesday. India were going well at 153 for four in reply to South Africa’s 55 before they lost six wickets without scoring, the first time this has happened in a Test.
Tennis | Novak Djokovic slumped to his first defeat of the season and first in Australia for six years with a stunning 6-4, 6-4 loss to Alex de Minaur who gave Australia a 1-0 lead over Serbia in their United Cup quarter-final on Wednesday.
The front pages
Our Guardian lead is “Pressure on PM grows as striking doctors warn of further disruption” while the Daily Mail has “New year mortgage price war boost for Tory hopes”. “Johnson condemns Met’s Gaza war probe” – that’s the Daily Telegraph after the Yard put up posters in airports telling travellers who have witnessed or experienced war crimes that they can contact UK police, as part of the international criminal court’s investigation. “Halt attacks in Red Sea or else, UK tells rebels” says the Times. “Dartbreaker” says the Daily Mirror after Luke Littler, 16, lost in the world darts final. The Daily Express carries “Caring Esther’s plea to support lifeline for lonely”. “Trump 2.0 is a threat to UK, warn Britain’s top diplomats” reports the i, while the Financial Times’ top story is “Nearly 100 dead in explosions as Iran honours commander killed by US”. “Henk’s Heroes” – the Metro covers a flood rescue during Storm Henk.
Today in Focus
Why are there so few Black sperm donors in the US?
A lack of donors is creating problems for prospective parents. What is behind the shortage? Lisa Armstrong reports
Cartoon of the day | Ella Baron
The Upside
A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad
Getting fit can feel like a daunting task. Where do you even begin? Well, Zoe Williams, with expert advice from physiotherapist Lucinda Meade, has very helpfully laid out a non-intimidating and relatively painless year-long programme that will have you feeling better over the next 12 months. The first step is fairly simple: go on a brisk walk for about 20 minutes every day, ideally while the sun is still out. The next month is all about breath work, Zoe writes, which may sound like it will have little impact on your fitness levels but can have benefits on stress levels and quality of sleep. The next few steps require a bit more effort: circuits and pilates. Throughout the summer months, Zoe recommends a month of weight training, running, swimming then yoga – all relatively low cost exercises that can be done slowly, at your own pace.
By September, you will have developed some good habits, so it’s time for a challenge: why not give bouldering or parkour a go. Zoe then suggests, fell running in October, a bit of a challenge if you live in a city. As the months get colder, you will want to retreat indoors, so it’s back to some classes. Short bursts of natural movement for November and then end the year with some aerial yoga: a playful exercise, that consists of acrobatic resistance and strength workouts. The point is not to do everything, all the time, rather to introduce new and interesting ways to get moving.
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