I’ll be like Margaret Thatcher, British PM Sunak says

He drew a line between himself and the previous 13 years of increasingly ragged Conservative government, and also tacitly acknowledged the electorate’s desire for something new and less tired. “Be in no doubt: it is time for a change. And we are it,” he said.

Polling deficit

The Tory leader is trying to rekindle voter confidence in his party, which is on average about 16 points behind Opposition Leader Keir Starmer’s Labour Party in the opinion polls.

He is looking to stabilise the ructions of post-Brexit politics by making longer-term, considered policy decisions. He has said his focus is almost entirely on voter priorities such as improving the health system, curbing immigration and taming inflation.

But many of his ministers have used their conference speeches this week to resurrect the rabble-rousing rhetoric of former leaders Boris Johnson and Liz Truss, with trenchant attacks on multiculturalism, the cosmopolitan elite and transgender rights.

Ms Truss has also led a band of ex-ministers calling for urgent tax cuts, despite the stickiness of inflation, the soaring cost of government borrowing, and the stretched state of public services.

Mr Sunak quietly but doggedly defied these critics. He used his speech to defend Britain’s success as a multi-ethnic society, and to reassert his commitment to tackling inflation and restoring budget discipline before he dishes out tax cuts.

‘The courage to change direction’

He sought to portray himself as a long-term reformer through his initiative to replace Britain’s “A-Level” school-leaving qualifications with a broader curriculum that more resembles Australia’s HSC-style regimes.

He also said he would make tough decisions where necessary – leading him to gamble with a slew of marginal seats in northern England by axing the Birmingham-to-Manchester section of the controversial high-speed rail project HS2, following a massive budget blowout.

“I say to those who backed the project in the first place, the facts have changed. And the right thing to do when the facts change is to have the courage to change direction,” he said.

But he also created a handy pork barrel for the election, saying the £36 billion ($69 billion) he had saved by scrapping the line would be spent on a wider set of transport projects in the region.

His third big announcement actually flew in the face of his party’s demands this week for less nanny-state wokery: he has borrowed former New Zealand Labour prime minister Jacinda Ardern’s policy of phasing in a total smoking ban.

“I propose that in the future we raise the smoking age by one year, every year. That means a 14-year-old today will never legally be sold a cigarette, and that they – and their generation – can grow up smoke-free,” he said.

He portrayed this as a preventive health measure that would help ease the pressure on the National Health Service, where waiting lists are at a record high while consultants and junior doctors stage rolling industrial action pursuing higher pay.

Mr Sunak said his broader NHS reforms would pay off only in the longer term. “There’s no politics in this investment, it’s not about credit,” he said.

Brexit’s opportunity

He did genuflect to the culture-war preoccupations of the party grassroots, talking tough on immigration, law and order and sexual identity issues.

“We shouldn’t get bullied into believing that people can be any sex they want to be. They can’t. A man is a man, and a woman is a woman. That’s just common sense,” he said.

After Home Secretary Suella Braverman decried multiculturalism as a failed policy, though, Mr Sunak lauded Britain as “the most successful multi-ethnic democracy on Earth” – but said it was the Tory approach that made it so.

“What does the Conservative Party offer a family of immigrants? The chance to become energy secretary, business secretary, home secretary, foreign secretary, even the chance to become prime minister,” he said, referring to his non-white cabinet colleagues.

“I am proud to be the first British Asian prime minister, but you know what? I’m even prouder that it’s just not a big deal.”

He attacked Labour as indecisive, timid and obsessed with the European Union. An early but quiet Brexit supporter, Mr Sunak painted Britain’s departure from the EU as an opportunity.

“Brexit was more than a vote to leave the EU: it was a vote to change, to become something more. It was a statement of our belief that Britain could begin a new story – one that reached all parts of our country and everyone in it,” he said.