The Conservative party manifesto is an exercise in wishful thinking

Good morning. Rishi Sunak unveiled his manifesto at Silverstone yesterday. Another way to write that sentence is “Rishi Sunak unveiled his manifesto in South Northamptonshire, a constituency that has elected a Conservative at every election since 1910”.

As a gauge of how the political parties think the election is playing out, one reliable indicator is “where are the parties sending their most prominent politicians?” The Labour party is ranging deep into Conservative territory, while the Tory party is, similarly, defending seats that are, on paper at least, very safe.

The good news for the Tory party is that there is nothing in its manifesto that might further aggravate the party’s problems. The bad news is that there is not much that might ameliorate them either.

Inaction man

In the latest episode of our sister podcast, Political Fix, I compared the Conservative party’s manifesto to getting someone flowers from a petrol station. If your relationship is in good health and you feel your partner is attentive, a bunch of rather tired flowers they clearly got as an afterthought is a lovely, touching sign of affection and respect.

If you are already feeling unappreciated, then flowers from a petrol station can feel like, at best, another sign of why you want out of the relationship — and at worst, a further insult.

The Conservative party’s biggest single problem is that it has lost its reputation for competence and effectiveness. Winning elections has never been a problem for the Tories when they are seen as tough or even mean. But being seen as mean and ineffective is a disaster for any party.

Sometimes in political science we talk of a difference between “valence voters”, who vote based on their perception of a party’s competence and effectiveness, and “values voters”, who vote based on how they feel about a party’s values, aims and ideologies.

It’s my belief that, in the end, everyone is a valence voter: a party can be as aligned as it likes with voters on values, but if those voters think that it can’t keep its promises — whether because the party is dishonest, divided, incompetent (or all three) — it doesn’t matter at all.

We see this playing out right now with immigration. Authoritarian voters and liberal voters have different objections to the Tory record on immigration, but they are united in thinking that the Conservatives can’t really deliver.

Sunak’s strategy is constrained by his inability to stand up to any of his party’s warring factions. That’s why he has ended up with a form of words on the European convention on human rights. No, they aren’t planning to leave it, but they also won’t prioritise following it over implementing their policy. That could lose him voters in all directions. Sunak is constrained here because if he were any more liberal, part of his party would kick off, and if he were any more authoritarian, another bit would. The result makes him look like someone who can’t get things done.

Add that to his patchy delivery record — we are talking about someone who couldn’t even get his self-identified flagship achievement, the phased smoking ban, into law despite it enjoying a large, cross-party majority — and he can’t plausibly paint himself as the candidate of “bold ideas”.

That experts are doubtful his sums add up deepens the problem, as Sam Fleming and Delphine Strauss report. When your party has a problem with competence and trust, raising the scale of your pledges doesn’t fix it.

Nor does it help that so much of the manifesto is detached from what the government already does. Two hours of mandatory physical education (PE), for example, is an eccentric policy choice, given that two hours a week of PE is already part of the national curriculum.

I don’t think any of this registers at an individual level, but as with the holes in the national service policy, it all adds to a general sense that this manifesto can’t be enacted and never will be, even if the Conservative party is re-elected.

As such, while there is nothing in the Tory manifesto that is going to cause a further exodus of Conservative voters, that so much of it looks unbelievable means that it is not going to change this election — so there is little value in thinking too much about the individual policies contained within it.

Now try this

I am re-reading Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, something I do essentially every year, and something that goes particularly well at a time when my head is elsewhere. It really is a terrific novel: I find something new in it every time I go back to it.

Top stories today

• ‘He didn’t listen to us’ | Conservatives on the right flank of the party express disappointment at yesterday’s “wishy washy” manifesto.

• Flatlining | The UK economy did not grow in April, according to ONS figures released today.

• Charting the course | FT reporters chronicle the last 14 years of Tory rule in charts, looking at poverty, climate and what worries the nation (among other things).

Below is the Financial Times’ live-updating UK poll-of-polls, which combines voting intention surveys published by major British pollsters. Visit the FT poll-tracker page to discover our methodology and explore polling data by demographic including age, gender, region and more.

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