Rishi Sunak decided to give us his new year’s resolutions, sneaking in just before Sir Keir Starmer. However, as with all resolutions, we know they can’t last. The prime minister looks like someone who is determined to stick to his list but, although he may have the best of intentions, circumstances are bound to get in the way. Some, like maths for all 16 to 18-year-olds, aren’t even wishes for the year.
He arrived promptly, showing that he was no Boris Johnson — hair brushed and looking remarkably relaxed after a family Christmas. It’s the first time we’ve seen him in ages. He seemed to want to sound like a management consultant, laying out his plans for Britain plc or “the people’s priorities”. His five-point plan was snappy and proactive: halve inflation, grow the economy, cut the national debt and NHS waiting lists and ban small boats in the Channel.
At times he sounded more like a personal trainer at the gym going through a motivational speech in front of a client who needs help to lose a great deal of weight and has turned up every January for a decade. He told us that there could be “no tricks” or “ambiguity”, we needed to “change our mindset” and make better choices. No more sitting on the sofa, stuffing ourselves with chocolate. “Change is hard, it takes time, but it is possible,” he urged the country. “Reject pessimism and fatalism,” he added, don’t give up when things get tough.
Near the end he sounded more like a vicar when he talked about the power of love to transform. He seemed to think it could solve crime and boost educational attainment as he said that he wanted to bring back Sure Start, or what he called “family hubs”.
The scale of this life coach’s ambition for this year is commendable. If he can pull it off, I’ll be thrilled — but he seems to have forgotten just how bad things are: the endless strikes, the dire state of the NHS, crumbling infrastructure. His speech was more about aspirations than a concrete plan of action. As any new year’s resolution pro will tell him, it’s easier to get results if you think small and specific. Good luck to him — if he succeeds with only two of his goals this year, I’ll be impressed.
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In grim times, with the NHS overwhelmed and the cost of living crisis growing, Rishi Sunak promised optimism.
He wanted to turn “apprehension” about the year ahead into “excitement” about what was to come. His ambition was to create a “better future for our children and grandchildren”.
There was more than a hint of Tony Blair about the prime minister’s five pledges and his promise to follow the “people’s priorities”. And, like the former Labour leader, Sunak set out a vision based on “education, education, education”, highlighting reform to schools, colleges and universities as the key to social justice, as well as economic success. “This is personal for me,” he said. “Every opportunity I’ve had in life began with the education I was so fortunate to receive.”
It was not enough to help pupils catch up after Covid, there needed to be a change of mindset in education. This was, he suggested, the closest thing to a “silver bullet” that created the “best economic policy, best social policy and best moral policy”. The analysis chimed with the findings of the Times Education Commission, as did the prime minister’s promise to make sure all children study some form of maths to the age of 18.
However, there was nothing on the wider reform of the curriculum and assessment system that business leaders and head teachers say are urgently needed to prepare young people for the modern workplace and generate the skills the economy will need in future. There was no mention of the importance of creativity, communication and collaboration — the “human skills” that will be just as critical as numeracy when robots take over more routine tasks.
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With the traditionalist Nick Gibb back at the Department for Education as schools minister, Sunak seems to have backed away from more radical change of the sort he promised during his leadership campaign when he backed the introduction of a British baccalaureate, a wider qualification at 18. The potential benefits of technology and artificial intelligence did not feature. And although he insisted that “family matters”, the only solution he offered on childcare and early years education was more family hubs.
One reforming minister remained optimistic about the prime minister’s intentions. “You need to do things incrementally. Politics is the art of the possible,” he said. “Once you open the door to any kind of reform it starts the process. If Labour get in it will be easier for them to do more.”
It was a telling analysis. There was little confidence from this senior Tory that Sunak’s speech on its own would be a political game changer: “Nobody is going to support us unless we can tackle the cost of living crisis and deal with the NHS.”
We thought we knew what was coming in Sunak’s speech, but we were wrong. His briefers had wrong-footed us. When he stepped up to his lectern in his focus wasn’t maths for all or taking personal charge of the NHS crisis but a sweeping suite of promises that he claimed would transform this country, offering hope, optimism and peace of mind to all.
Nobody ever watched a Sunak speech for entertainment. His earnest, leaden delivery is full of strange emphases and awkward enthusiasm; hard to listen to. Its only worth is its content. Today’s swung wildly from specific promises, the outcomes of which he cannot possibly control, to vague aspirations for Good Things for the country — purpose, confidence, dignity — that one can applaud but fail to see how he is going to achieve.
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His five pledges were audacious, arresting, sometimes contradictory, and completely bewildering. They were in marked contrast to Tony Blair’s five manifesto pledges 25 years ago, which were deliberately limited, specific and achievable. He promised to halve inflation this year, which is what the Office for Budget Responsibility is currently forecasting will happen anyway, but that will be determined by factors he can’t control — if gas prices soar again, the Ukrainian conflict escalates or anything interrupts our trade with China he can do nothing about the price rises that will follow.
He promised that the national debt would start falling, but he simultaneously pledged to cut NHS waiting lists, reinvigorate high streets, invest in innovation, cut crime, improve schools and create family centres. Those are expensive pledges; if spending isn’t to rise what does he intend to cut? His promise to detain and deport those who arrive illegally on small boats will be hugely popular if he achieves it, but finding a solution to this has eluded every recent prime minister and home secretary.
His greatest failure was in not addressing the immediate crises of the NHS and the cost of living, and in evading Conservative responsibility for the decisions made over the past dozen years. He talked of the need to do things differently, as if the slashing of police forces and Sure Start centres, the cutting of hospital beds, social care funding and nurse training hadn’t been Tory mistakes. His solution to the NHS funding crisis is more private provision, when what’s needed to keep the hospitals running is enough pay to keep doctors and nurses in the jobs they’re quitting now, and catch-up investment to make up for a dozen years of underfunding. The statistics education that Sunak is so enthusiastic about should tell him that we have far fewer beds and doctors and less equipment than comparable countries, and that nothing can compensate for that.
Sunak has painted outline brushstrokes on the wall but we have no idea whether his government is capable of filling them in.
