Every candidate for high office, from the freshest of faces to the grizzliest of incumbents, seeks to pitch themselves as the candidate of change. This hinges on a cursory understanding of human psychology. Life for a lot of people is tough and when it’s not, it’s tedious. Who the heck would vote for a repeat of yesterday?
It shouldn’t work. But Boris Johnson made an art form of it. By 2019, the Conservatives had been in office for nearly a decade. Yet the prime minister managed to convince enough people he was head of a new government, one that was repudiating austerity and poised to secure a fresh deal with the European Union. The electorate rewarded him with an 80-seat majority.
Five years on, Johnson’s successor but one is trying the same ruse. Rishi Sunak used his speech at Conservative Party Conference to declare “it is time for a change”. And before you get any ideas, he thinks he’s the one to deliver it. Hence announcements on educational reforms, smoking bans and levelling up.
At 43 years of age and having only been in the Commons since 2015, Sunak’s face is certainly on the fresher side. But his ambition – to be an agent of change – is unlikely to be realised. The Tories are seeking a fifth successive term. Living standards are in a rut. Liz Truss happened.
Policies that were once branded levelling up are now ‘change’. HS2 no longer being about improving rail capacity and boosting economic growth in the north of England, but instead an example of the “old consensus”, was my personal favourite.
In fairness to the prime minister, I’m not sure he has many other options at this point. In his first few months in office, Sunak pitched himself as a serious, technocratic leader cleaning up the Truss detritus and delivering things such as the Windsor Framework. And what did this get him? Absolutely nothing. Labour is now consistently 15-20 points ahead in the polls.
Today’s speech is, of course, a challenge to Keir Starmer. The Labour leader also wants to be the candidate of change or, more precisely, change without risk. Were Sunak to successfully steal those clothes, it would blunt one of Starmer’s key selling points. But I think this actually plays into Labour’s hands.
Allow me to break all my own rules and make a US politics reference. In 2008, Joe Biden addressed the Democratic National Convention as his party’s nominee for vice president. The Republican candidate, John McCain, was desperately trying to distance himself from a deeply unpopular President George W. Bush. Consequently, McCain was suggesting he could be the candidate of change. Biden was having none of it.
Never the most inspiring of speakers, Biden managed to nail McCain with a simple but devastating rhetorical hook. He would list something McCain believed that matched what Bush thought and would despair: “That’s not change, that’s more of the same.”
The line worked so well because, despite his somewhat ‘marverick-y’ reputation, McCain and Bush shared many policy preferences. A reminder that elections aren’t won by the candidate who can say ‘change’ the most, but by the person who is viewed as the most credible holder of that mantra.
In the comment pages, Michael Wolff warns Trump 2.0 will either shatter the American system — or be destroyed. Katie Strick says all Londoners are awaiting their ‘sliding doors’ moment. While Dan Kilpatrick thinks it’s time football ditched VAR.
And finally, I’m jealous of baby boomers who, in their youth, could enjoy 26°C in October without an accompanying sense of foreboding they were cooking the planet. Anyway, get the sun cream out of storage for the weekend.
