London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Wednesday, Sep 17, 2025

With the UK economy in freefall, Rishi Sunak clings to a fracturing Tory coalition

With the UK economy in freefall, Rishi Sunak clings to a fracturing Tory coalition

The UK prime minister has delayed the worst of his spending cuts to try to keep new Tory voters on side.

It had been billed as Austerity 2.0.

But the £55 billion package of tax rises and spending cuts unveiled by U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Chancellor Jeremy Hunt on Thursday tried to delay the pain where possible, for as long as they could.

In a sense the pair had little choice — Brits are already facing the biggest drop in living standards on record next year as inflation, energy bills and borrowing costs soar. Hunt said Thursday evening that by delaying the worst of the cuts beyond the next election — currently expected in 2024 — he aimed to “make sure this recession is shallower, and hurts people less.”

Taxes will still rise quickly, on businesses and individuals.

But by finding extra billions for the National Health Service, schools and key government departments in the short-term, and by hiking pensions, welfare and the minimum wage in line with sky-high inflation, Hunt and Sunak hope to give themselves a fighting chance of keeping a disparate and unhappy collection of Tory voters on side.

“It suggests they are not willing to completely abandon any hope of holding together their electoral coalition,” said Rachel Wolf, director of public opinion consultancy Public First, and co-author of the 2019 Conservative Party manifesto.

Loosely summarized, the election-winning strategy pulled off by Boris Johnson — and masterminded by his former top aide Dominic Cummings — in 2019 was to retain traditional Conservative strongholds in the South while also attracting millions of first-time Tory voters in more deprived areas in the North and Midlands.

Members of Sunak’s failed leadership campaign over the summer noted grimly that he played far better among the former group, drawing crowds in the affluent shires and southern towns.

But with Thursday’s autumn statement, Sunak showed he still aspires to keep the whole of Johnson’s coalition in place. As Wolf put it: “The new Conservative voters are very, very dependent on public services, and it was a big part of what they voted for.”

Sunak had already signaled his intention to return to the winning Johnson formula of 2019 following the radical, short-lived tenure of his predecessor Liz Truss.

“I will deliver on its promise,” Sunak said of the 2019 manifesto, in his first speech outside No. 10 Downing Street. “A stronger NHS. Better schools. Safer streets.”

He also recommitted to “leveling up” — Johnson’s somewhat amorphous domestic offer, aimed at tackling deeply ingrained regional inequality through targeted investment and new infrastructure.

Adam Hawksbee, director of the center-right Onward think tank, insisted the government could still deliver tangible improvements for deprived communities, such as tackling anti-social behavior and cleaning up graffiti, even as other spending cuts bite. “Rishi’s going to have to do that if he wants to keep those new 2019 voters,” he said.

Hawksbee added that by reappointing Michael Gove as leveling up secretary and hiring Onward’s previous director, Will Tanner, Sunak had built a team at No. 10 that is “really serious about delivering this agenda.”


Delaying the pain


It was not a foregone conclusion that Sunak would do so.

As chancellor, he often acted as a brake on Johnson’s more expensive ambitions, and many had expected Thursday’s statement to include immediate spending cuts reminiscent of the “austerity” era under David Cameron and George Osborne.

Instead, the anticipated cuts were delayed until the mid-2020s, when public spending increases will be limited to 1 percent, down from a planned 3.7 percent.

But even where public services are not cut, they will be squeezed.

“The demand for those services is substantial,” said Ben Zaranko of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, a respected economic think tank, “and in some cases has been increased by the pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis. At the same time what the government is asking for, from the NHS and the justice system — none of that is being scaled back.”

This has its own electoral implications. Strained public services combined with higher energy prices, inflation and mortgage rates will hit millions of people hard over the next two years. Tories fear the blame is likely to be laid at the government’s feet.

A somber briefing by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) published alongside Thursday’s statement predicted average living standards for U.K. citizens will fall 7 per cent over the two financial years, wiping out the previous eight years’ growth.

“The problem is going to be that everything feels worse,” Wolf said “There may be more money in the NHS, but people can’t get an ambulance, and they can’t see their GP and people feel like crime is going up.”

Similarly, flagship offerings to the so-called “Red Wall” of Northern voters may have been retained, but look unlikely to deliver in full. Promises of new rail infrastructure between Northern cities have been steadily watered down. A commitment to continue with the current round of “leveling up” funding came without mention of once-expected subsequent rounds of cash.

Whitehall insiders concede that Gove’s 12 “missions” for leveling up now appear unreachable, following an internal review requested by No. 10.


In search of Sunakism


With the grand Johnsonian vision unlikely ever to be delivered given the disastrous economic climate, some Tory MPs question what Sunak really has to offer beyond a basic air of competence and a certain PR sheen.

Certainly the nature of the summer leadership contest, which effectively became a battle between Sunak and Truss over sound money and lower taxes, left little space for Sunak to set out a wider agenda.

Those who know him well insist he has a broad powerful vision for the U.K.’s economic future — but accept it has yet to register with voters at all.

“Innovation policy has been a key part of what he considers to be his ideology,” said Dom Hallas, executive director of startup lobby group Coadec, who worked closely with Sunak when he was chancellor. “He comes back to it time and again.”

Hallas also noted his youthful tech-savvy, adding: “People mock the fact he wears a hoodie, but he is in his early 40s, he was born in the 1980s … I work with people who dress like that. He inhabits that realm. He isn’t in the stuffy world some people in politics are in. It filters through to his vibe.”

Jimmy McLoughlin, a former Downing Street adviser and friend of Sunak, also attested to his “deep understanding of where industry and the economy is heading, and where the opportunities for growth are.”

But he too acknowledged that while Sunak is “one of the most recognised politicians of the last 20 years, largely because of the very pragmatic response to the pandemic … less is known about what drives him.”

Other Tory figures remain unconvinced. “There’s nothing more to him than meets the eye,” a former party aide said. “He’ll have a short-lived bounce for not being Liz Truss, followed by a year and a half of being hated for the mess we’re in.”

And a former minister under Johnson added: “He is for basic economic competence and good governance, so your path to electoral success is ‘we didn’t screw it up that much’. It’s not that compelling. And it means the coalition is intensely fragile.”

Having tried almost everything apart from boring competence over recent years, the Tory Party may not have much of a choice.

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Hong Kong Industry Group Calls for HK$20 Billion Support Fund to Ease Property Market Stress
Joe Biden’s Post-Presidency Speaking Fees Face Weak Demand amid Corporate Reluctance
Charlie Kirk's murder will break the left's hateful cancel tactics
Kash Patel erupts at ‘buffoon’ Sen. Adam Schiff over Russiagate: ‘You are the biggest fraud’
Homeland Security says Emmy speech ‘fanning the flames of hatred’ after Einbinder’s ‘F— ICE’ remark
Charlie Kirk’s Alleged Assassin Tyler Robinson Faces Death Penalty as Charges Formally Announced
Actor, director, environmentalist Robert Redford dies at 89
The conservative right spreads westward: a huge achievement for 'Alternative for Germany' in local elections
JD Vance Says There Is “No Unity” with Those Who Celebrate Charlie Kirk’s Killing, and he is right!
Trump sues the 'New York Times' for an astronomical sum of 15 billion dollars
Florida Hospital Welcomes Its Largest-Ever Baby: Annan, Nearly Fourteen Pounds at Birth
U.S. and Britain Poised to Finalize Over $10 Billion in High-Tech, Nuclear and Defense Deals During Trump State Visit
China Finds Nvidia Violated Antitrust Laws in Mellanox Deal, Deepens Trade Tensions with US
US Air Force Begins Modifications on Qatar-Donated Jet Amid Plans to Use It as Air Force One
Pope Leo Warns of Societal Crisis Over Mega-CEO Pay, Citing Tesla’s Proposed Trillion-Dollar Package
Poland Green-Lights NATO Deployment in Response to Major Russian Drone Incursion
Elon Musk Retakes Lead as World’s Richest After Brief Ellison Surge
U.S. and China Agree on Framework to Shift TikTok to American Ownership
London Daily Podcast: London Massive Pro Democracy Rally, Musk Support, UK Economic Data and Premier League Results Mark Eventful Weekend
This Week in AI: Meta’s Superintelligence Push, xAI’s Ten Billion-Dollar Raise, Genesis AI’s Robotics Ambitions, Microsoft Restructuring, Amazon’s Million-Robot Milestone, and Google’s AlphaGenome Update
Le Pen Tightens the Pressure on Macron as France Edges Toward Political Breakdown
Musk calls for new UK government at huge pro-democracy rally in London, but Britons have been brainwashed to obey instead of fighting for their human rights
Elon Musk responds to post calling for the murder of Erika Kirk, widow of Charlie Kirk: 'Either we fight back or they will kill us'
Czech Republic signs €1.34 billion contract for Leopard 2A8 main battle tanks with delivery from 2028
USA: Office Depot Employees Refused to Print Poster in Memory of Charlie Kirk – and Were Fired
Proposed U.S. Bill Would Allow Civil Suits Against Judges Who Release Repeat Violent Offenders
Penske Media Sues Google Over “AI Overviews,” Claiming It Uses Journalism Without Consent and Destroys Traffic
Indian Student Engineers Propose “Project REBIRTH” to Protect Aircraft from Crashes Using AI, Airbags and Smart Materials
French Debt Downgrade Piles Pressure on Macron’s New Prime Minister
US and UK Near Tech, Nuclear and Whisky Deals Ahead of Trump Trip
One in Three Europeans Now Uses TikTok, According to the Chinese Tech Giant
Could AI Nursing Robots Help Healthcare Staffing Shortages?
NATO Deploys ‘Eastern Sentry’ After Russian Drones Violate Polish Airspace
Anesthesiologist Left Operation Mid-Surgery to Have Sex with Nurse
Tens of Thousands of Young Chinese Get Up Every Morning and Go to Work Where They Do Nothing
The New Life of Novak Djokovic
The German Owner of Politico Mathias Döpfner Eyes Further U.S. Media Expansion After Axel Springer Restructuring
Suspect Arrested: Utah Man in Custody for Charlie Kirk’s Fatal Shooting
In a politically motivated trial: Bolsonaro Sentenced to 27 Years for Plotting Coup After 2022 Defeat
German police raid AfD lawmaker’s offices in inquiry over Chinese payments
Turkish authorities seize leading broadcaster amid fraud and tax investigation
Volkswagen launches aggressive strategy to fend off Chinese challenge in Europe’s EV market
ChatGPT CEO signals policy to alert authorities over suicidal youth after teen’s death
The British legal mafia hit back: Banksy mural of judge beating protester is scrubbed from London court
Surpassing Musk: Larry Ellison becomes the richest man in the world
Embarrassment for Starmer: He fired the ambassador photographed on Epstein’s 'pedophile island'
Manhunt after 'skilled sniper' shot Charlie Kirk. Footage: Suspect running on rooftop during panic
Effective Protest Results: Nepal’s Prime Minister Resigns as Youth-Led Unrest Shakes the Nation
Qatari prime minister says Netanyahu ‘killed any hope’ for Israeli hostages
King Charles and Prince Harry Share First In-Person Moment in 19 Months
×