Rishi Sunak is braced for a bruising week as Tory rebels flaunted plans for a 100-day “policy blitz” to secure quick wins if the local election results prove disastrous for the party.
The prime minister said on Sunday that he was not “distracted” by his personal ratings lingering at record lows. He refused to rule out calling a July general election amid mounting rumours that unruly MPs will attempt to oust him if the West Midlands mayor, Andy Street, and the Tees Valley mayor, Ben Houchen, are defeated on Thursday.
The defection of the former Conservative health minister Dr Dan Poulter to Labour on Saturday and the potential loss of half the party’s councillors later this week could ignite rebellious Tories to defy Sunak’s authority and go over the line with letters of no confidence.
On Saturday night Poulter dramatically quit the Conservative party because the party is “failing” the NHS and the party has become a “nationalist party of the right”.
The part-time mental health doctor in an NHS hospital told the Observer he could no longer “look my NHS colleagues in the eye” as a Conservative, noting “the only cure [for the struggling NHS] is a Labour government”.
Conservative rebels say it’s time to put an end to “broken pledges, distant plans for change and bans they never asked for” and instead use 100 days to prove the government is “taking action and cares about what matters to the British people”.
Their five-point plan to end the reign of “tinkering, dithering and managerialism” includes:
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An attempt to end the junior doctors pay dispute with a 10-12% offer.
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Further cuts to legal migration numbers, with a curb on the number of foreign students staying in the UK.
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Vow to increase defence spending to 3% of GDP by 2027.
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Introduce measures to jail prolific offenders and build rapid detention cells to increase prison capacity.
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Cut the benefits bill, with a target to reduce payments for depression and anxiety.
A Tory source said: “These are policies that can be introduced in a few months and then go to the country for people to make a decision. We’ve got to be clear and bold in our plan, and with the right messenger, to have any chance of winning otherwise it could be two or three terms of Labour.”
An Ipsos poll on Thursday revealed Sunak’s personal satisfaction rating had fallen to -59, matching a record low for a prime minister set by Sir John Major in 1994. Only 16% of people said they were satisfied with the prime minister’s performance and 75% said they were dissatisfied.
Penny Mordaunt, who has been perceived as preparing for a leadership contest, also trailed behind Starmer on personal ratings by 17 points – the Labour leader’s own ratings have fallen from 29% to 25% since February. Mordaunt’s allies have denied she is vying for Sunak’s position and said she is getting on with the job.
Sunak appeared irritable in an interview broadcast on Sky News’ Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips, insisting he would not “say anything more than I’ve already said” about the time of an election and his “working assumption” remained it will be in the second half of the year.
