Are the Tories stuck in a ‘doom loop’?

This is an audio transcript of the Political Fix podcast episode: ‘Are the Tories stuck in a ‘doom loop’?’

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George Parker
Thirdly, there isn’t much room for anything other than caution at the moment. You can’t chuck money at things. You can’t put up taxes, you can’t increase spending. So what do you do?

Miranda Green
Welcome to Political Fix, your essential insider guide to UK politics from the Financial Times with me, Miranda Green. You heard there the FT’s George Parker talking about the huge challenges facing the government on the economy. More from George shortly. But coming up, as the economic gloom overshadows Conservative ambitions to remain in power after the coming general election, we’ll pick over Jeremy Hunt’s big speech on the economy. And we’ll visit Somerset, where local Tories are on the back foot in the by-election, one of three causing headaches for CCHQ. Lucy is away this week, but I’m joined in the studio by two familiar voices: top FT columnist Stephen Bush. Hello, Stephen.

Stephen Bush
Hello, Miranda.

Miranda Green
And Robert Shrimsley.

Robert Shrimsley
Hi, Miranda.

Miranda Green
Right. Before we get into the red meat of this week’s discussion, let’s whet the appetite a bit. What stood out this week for you, Robert?

Robert Shrimsley
OK. Well, I’m gonna pick on something which technically I think started last week, but kept bubbling all through the week, which is a small row about the decision of Robert Jenrick, the immigration minister, and purportedly one of the friendlier faces of the government. He visited a detention centre for illegal migrants. Saw these big murals of Mickey Mouse on the wall and said it had to be painted over, apparently because it was too welcoming and friendly for the child migrants. Later, after several days of being bashed for this, Robert Jenrick said that in fact it wasn’t to do with it being too welcoming, but it wasn’t age-appropriate for the teenagers they were gonna have in there, which is almost more ridiculous, the idea that we have a cabinet minister walking around the country deciding what age-appropriate murals look like.

But what really struck me about this is that the Conservatives are pursuing a very, very hard line and tough policy on stopping the boats, and they have a reasonable amount of public support, particularly the support of the people they think are likely to vote for them in being tough on immigration, taking a hard line on this. But the more it’s failing to work, the more they fall into having to seem tougher and nastier just to convince people that they’re on it. And I think this is one of those moments that’s just lapsed into cruelty. And, you know, one can argue the whole policy is cruel, but this is a cruelty that people can latch on to. When you’re talking about large numbers of people, they’re just statistics. And you can shut them out of your mind. But this is a tangible thing that seems cruel. And I just found myself thinking this is sort of how we ended up with the Windrush scandal, in a way.

Miranda Green
He may be realised he’d gone too far because the backlash has been quite notable.

Robert Shrimsley
Possibly. I mean, I don’t know how much of a difference it makes in reality, but I just think it’s one of those things that they’re not necessarily out of kilter with the wider public in wanting to be very hard line on stopping the boats. The positions on Rwanda policy itself are more nuanced, but there comes a moment where you just look at you and go, No, you’re just nasty and ineffective. And I just wonder if it was one of those moments. What about you, Miranda?

Miranda Green
I’m going to focus on Keir Starmer having an interview with Classic FM, I believe it was, where he actually had the guts to stick up for high culture and talked about his love of classical music and learning instruments at school. And it was very interesting ’cause it developed into a sort of debate about whether thinking that something brings you joy during your education is enough, or should it also have a kind of argument of utility, so that he’s then had to spin off in saying, you know, and of course, learning music at school is very useful because it’s transferable skills to which a whole host of people from all walks of life said teaching kids to experience joy may be a good thing in and of itself. And I personally think that joy is a very important life skill. So I would include it on the list of skills to learn in education.

Robert Shrimsley
I heard, of course. Isn’t it often said there’s a correlation in musical aptitude and maths ability?

Miranda Green
Yeah, absolutely. In fact . . . 

Robert Shrimsley
(Inaudible) right there. There’s the answer.

Miranda Green
Well, it’s a win on all levels because actually schools where they teach music well do brilliantly in their tests on key subjects, of course, with maths included. So there we are, it’s a win all round. Stephen, what about you?

Stephen Bush
So my moment of the week was the interview that Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, gave with Cathy Newman on Channel 4, in which she promised that there would be no spending cuts under a Labour government.

Miranda Green
Wow.

Stephen Bush
Now, I think anyone who has closely observed the inner workings of the Labour party knows that is the case. But given that there is currently an internal debate within the Labour party about how they should go into the next election, how are they gonna avoid being attacked too much on tax rises, just looking at the numbers I thought that was a striking, well, admission, tactical decision, however you want. But in terms of their options going into the election, I did feel it was shutting off quite a lot of flexibility. If you were the Labour party your strategic advantage is also your strategic vulnerability, which is we all associate the Labour party with higher spending. And so I therefore think wherever they end up the voters will kind of mentally go over a little bit further. And I thought it was a striking decision on Rachel Reeves’s part to essentially, I think, put them on the pathway to actually probably having quite a large difference in terms of spending priorities by the time of the next election as opposed to where they seem to be trying to move towards, which is one way they have minimised their space to be attacked.

Miranda Green
OK. Interesting point. And of course, the Reeves team come down like a ton of bricks on anyone else in the shadow cabinet who makes a bold claim.

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Now to the economic headwinds on the UK’s struggle for growth and living standards. And it’s the brace position for all of us, including Treasury ministers. Chancellor Jeremy Hunt gave his traditional Mansion House speech to the financial world in the city of London this week, not in black tie but in a very everyday lounge suit. And the Hunt-Sunak strategy for boosting economic growth was similarly low on pizzazz. Pragmatic but not bold was the FT verdict.

Jeremy Hunt
British growth driven by British financial firepower, providing higher living standards and better-funded public services. With co-operation between government, regulators and business closer than ever. We’ll deliver not just more competitive financial services, but a more innovative economy.

Miranda Green
That was Jeremy Hunt laying out what he called his Mansion House reforms. And we’re joined by the FT’s political editor, George Parker. George, thanks for zooming over from Westminster. You had an in-depth interview with Jeremy Hunt while he was finalising that speech. And what struck you about his mindset? He and Rishi Sunak have got an almost impossible task on the economy, haven’t they? There’s this hugely significant general election in the offing, zero growth, in fact, a contraction in May.

George Parker
Mmm.

Miranda Green
Latest figures. What’s the mood inside the Treasury?

George Parker
Well, it’s pretty tense in the Treasury, I would say. And it was clear from chatting to Jeremy Hunt (inaudible) to the interview with Chris Giles, our economics editor, was that obviously, inflation is the preoccupation of the chancellor and the fact that inflation is proving stickier than people thought, still 8.7 per cent. Core inflation actually rose last month. It’s obviously the thing that preoccupies him and the prime minister as well. And that means basically no more money into the economy. He said I’m not gonna pump billions of pounds into the economy; that would be irresponsible, whether it’s in tax cuts or later in the week, as it turns out, pay rises for public sector workers which have to be funded from within government departments. So really battening down the hatches. And the only thing that they can really do at this stage is basically say we’ve got to take tough decisions now and hope against all hope that things turn around in 2024 and then they can say the tough decision we took is starting to pay off.

Miranda Green
So in your sort of Big Read where you looked at the prospects for Rishi Sunak keeping the Tories in power at the coming general election, you talked about the kind of febrile atmosphere in Westminster as the parliamentary year comes to a close. But in a way, also there are as many Tories who seem just downright glum.

George Parker
Mmm.

Miranda Green
Kind of resigned to this being the end of the era in power.

George Parker
We always get this in the dog days of summer at Westminster, the party season’s in full swing. MPs sort of they’re tired and they’re fed up and they wanna go home. But this year especially, I think there was a key moment a few weeks back where a lot of us were focused on the drama around Boris Johnson and his defenestration. But actually, the thing that really worried the Tory MPs was not the infighting that followed that, but it was the fact that mortgage rates are now on this inexorable path upwards. And the Bank of England was saying this week that a million people by the end of 2026 faced higher mortgage monthly payments of £500. That is ultimately what did for Liz Truss, isn’t it?

Miranda Green
Yeah.

George Parker
Last year, the prospect of the mortgage bomb exploding in middle England in the run-up to a general election. So that’s the thing that’s really, really worrying. And then, you know, going round the parties as I have to do on behalf of the FT, drinking (Miranda laughs) Pol Roger and so forth . . . 

Miranda Green
Really tough job.

George Parker
(Overlapping audio) It’s a tough old gig. But you meet Tory MPs and a lot of them have basically given up and they think that we’re now past the point of no return. I think Robert has been making this point for some time that they are past the point of no return. And the danger, of course, for the Conservatives is that becomes a doom loop where the MPs talk to people like me, I then repeat things. It gets into the public mindset that they’re heading for defeat. Every scandal is linked on to this narrative of decline, and then you end up with this putrification in office that accompanied the decline of John Major’s comeback in the ’90s. Every single instance latched on to this narrative, which is one of decline. Which is why Rishi Sunak needs to get into the summer holidays as quickly as possible and hope this is the narrow path to victory, that things start to turn around, that people are not gonna be feeling better off or particularly happy at the time of the next election. The best he can hope for is that things are pointing in the right direction.

Miranda Green
So Hunt is actually the fifth chancellor since the 2019 general election, the last one. So he’s not really got time to implement this growth plan, has he? I mean, is this still about repairing the Tory reputation for economic competence? Could he not be bolder? It’s a very cautious approach.

George Parker
I don’t think there’s much room for anything other than caution at the moment. You can’t chuck money at things. You can’t put up taxes, you can’t increase spending. So what do you do? I mean, what we saw at the Mansion House speech was a chancellor who’s got no money of his own to spend. So he’s looking for someone else’s money to spend.

Miranda Green
The pensions.

George Parker
Our pensions.

Miranda Green
Yeah.

George Parker
And actually, you know, I think to be fair to him, the reforms were very well received in the City and it was pitched very much as trying to remove unnecessary caution in the system to allow pension savings to be invested in faster growth companies that get higher returns. I think he ran scared a little bit of some of the concerns that it was a bit of a raiding of the nation’s piggy banks going on. So I think he dialled back some of the proposals. So I think there’s a bit of that. There’s no money. I think also there’s a bit of a sense around that even if we’re gonna lose, we might as well do the right thing and be remembered for having done the right thing as well. I think there’s a bit of that in Rishi Sunak’s approach, but also in Jeremy Hunt’s approach. I mean, the proposals he announced at the Mansion House, the pension reforms, they’re not gonna make a blind bit of difference. The economic outlook between now and the next election, not really. But they might be remembered as being something worthwhile that they did in office. And you know, well, kudos to them for that. Often we’re bemoan policies without thinking about the long term.

Miranda Green
So that’s the two responsible head boys . . . 

George Parker
Indeed.

Miranda Green
 . . . taking over.

George Parker
Precisely.

Miranda Green
So on inflation, public sector pay. What happened there? Because they’ve talked incredibly tough about wanting to avoid this wage-price spiral so-called and it’s looked as if members of the cabinet in those spending departments were really lobbying hard to give the public sector workers some sort of decent pay rise.

George Parker
Yeah, I don’t think there was ever any real possibility that the government wasn’t gonna accept in full the pay review bodies had recommended. The politics, it would have been appalling. You know, it would have exacerbated the struggles we already have and probably incited a few more unions to go on strike in the autumn. So I think it was always the intention of Rishi Sunak to honour the pay review bodies in full, but they like those in this position. They couldn’t be funded by additional borrowing because that would fuel inflation. So actually, it rather fitted in rather neatly with the government’s narrative of taking tough decisions and the tough decisions will yield results. So in this case, we’re taking tough decisions to reprioritise a bit of spending, not entirely clear what it is and reprofiled a few things and incidentally, take another £1bn of migrants through higher visa fees and higher health charges. And we take tough decisions and that yields benefits, which is this big, big moment for Sunak. Is this gonna be enough to stop a wave of autumn strikes? That’s some good news that the teachers’ unions have recommended the acceptance of the offer. So I think it was inevitable they would have to do that. But in the meantime, there’s quite a lot of tough negotiations between the Treasury and spending ministers about how exactly it was gonna be funded.

Miranda Green
Well, as you said, George, yourself this week, they need a bit of good news so perhaps putting the strikes to bed might be that. So, Stephen and Robert, as we were sort of preparing for this interview, we realised that Hunt is actually the fifth chancellor we’ve had since the last election. I mean, does this help? This rebuilding of the Tory reputation that Hunt is trying to do with this deliberately dull approach?

Stephen Bush
None of it helps but it all adds to this mood of decay. There’s stuff and you know, George just talking out there and writing the piece and that it adds to that sense of just decay and disarray. The Conservative government is tired and waiting to be put out of its misery has sort of become the thing that people who don’t follow politics just say.

Miranda Green
Robert, you wrote your column this week actually about the Tory attempts to rethink what an economic model might be, even post an election defeat. I mean, is there any chance that while the government is still in power now they can start building some of this economic vision that you were writing about this week?

Robert Shrimsley
I’m afraid that I think again, the answer is no. You know, in government, when you’ve got absolutely no money it’s not the moment to be trying to rethink your entire philosophy. But the fact is they had 40 years when we all understood what Tory economic policy was and it was Thatcherite, it was free market, it was smaller state, lower taxes, spending restraint, get out of the way of business, free trade. That’s what it was about. And then you had the financial crisis and Brexit, and then finally the pandemic and it wrecked the finances. But even before the pandemic wrecked the finances, there was this sense of, our strategy has hollowed out the state, nothing is working. And many of the things that we’re complaining about now can be traced back to the period of austerity when, you know, fundamental services, infrastructure, the state was hollowed out. So you’ve got quite a lot of serious Conservatives saying things like capitalism has failed, it didn’t deliver for the public, and our form of capitalism has failed. And they’re trying to work out what their alternative form is and they can’t. And what you’re seeing at the moment is an argument about this with Jeremy Hunt, almost the last remaining Osbornite . . .

Miranda Green
Yeah, yeah.

Robert Shrimsley
. . . in government, which is perhaps why when he delivers his speeches, he sounds like an I-speak-your-weight-machine. You know, because it’s almost fearful of saying these things and you have a battle going on for the debt. What Conservative economic model is going to be — and of course, this isn’t unique to Britain, this is a problem across the centre-right in the western world. So they’re trying to figure out what their model is. They’re doing it in power when they have no money, which is a disastrous situation. And because, as George said a little while ago, because they all think they’re going to lose the next election, they’re positioning for the fight they’re going to have in opposition. So it’s a grim state for Jeremy Hunt or anybody else to be a chancellor. And as you say, I mean, the best you can hope for is do what seems right now and don’t worry about the election, which you’re probably not in a position to affect anyway.

Miranda Green
George, you also pick up that sense that a lot of this conversation even about the economy is to do with the future direction of a Conservative party out of power.

George Parker
Yes. I mean, I think Robert’s absolutely right there about this, I mean there will be a massive battle and it would probably be won by the right, the sort of right wing of the party who probably will play the easy tunes that the Tory party wants to hear if they lose the next election. So, we’re talking there about the Liz Truss kind of model probably, aren’t we. So unfunded tax cuts, you know, planning reforms that they were never able to deliver in office; the kind of fancy rightwing politics which inevitably leads you to a second election defeat if indeed there’s a first one next year.

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Miranda Green
Thank you, George.

George Parker
Thanks, Miranda.

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Miranda Green
Now, there’s almost nothing that political junkies relish more than a by-election contest. And next Thursday, we will have three to enjoy right across the country, one in Yorkshire, one in the west country, and one in Boris Johnson’s old seat on the outskirts of London. The FT’s political correspondent, Anna Gross, has been in Somerton and Frome, where the Conservative representative was forced out and the Lib Dems fancy their chances of boosting their 14 MPs to 15. Here’s what some of the voters had to say to Anna.

Voter 1
I still believe the main aims of the Conservative party agree with my aims, and that is basically that you do an honest day’s work and get an honest day’s pay and you have the right to spend that money however you want to.

Anna Gross
Do you think that the cost of living crisis and the economic situation is affecting people in this area?

Voter 2
Can you make a cup up on the left track everything. Just costs them too very much otherwise. I’m gonna turn things off in the evening and God knows why, you know. I used to vote Conservative by a lot, but I don’t anymore. I didn’t (inaudible) even seem to get nowhere with them, if you know what I mean. I will have to wait and see. So that it can only be the Green party or maybe Labour, I don’t know.

Voter 3
I think they need a good kick out the backside, basically.

Anna Gross
You want to signal to the Tories that you’re unhappy with what they’ve been doing.

Voter 3
Yeah. I just think they’re not spending the money in the right places.

Anna Gross
You were in favour of Brexit?

Voter 3
I was. You know, I mean, the main thing was to get away with bureaucracy. But it didn’t happen, didn’t it?

Voter 4
We’re social democrats, the middle of the road. And what this country lacks is a coherent centre because it’s so divided. It’s divided between the Lib Dems, most of the Labour party and round here, the Green vote. And it’s a pity that people like us can’t vote for proper social democratic party because otherwise, the vote is split.

Miranda Green
I caught up with Anna, hotfoot from Somerset and also just back from covering the Nato summit. I asked her whether it seemed likely the Conservatives, would in fact, lose the seat.

Anna Gross
Well, hi, Miranda. Thanks a lot for having me. Yes, the Lib Dems are in pole position in the seats. The bookies have it at one to 25 — I don’t know if I’m saying odds (Miranda laughs) correctly there — which is basically a 97 per cent chance of winning. And the Tories, as you know, are bracing for defeats in two other by-elections in Uxbridge and Selby. But a defeat to the Lib Dems in what used to be that party’s stronghold would be a pretty bad setback and a pretty bad omen for the Conservative party. And I think there would be quite serious recriminations.

Miranda Green
And in that part of the world, the south-west of England, that was a very strong pro-Brexit leave area. Has that not complicated matters for the Lib Dems? Because you’d have thought that was problematic territory for them rather than a sort of easy-to-retake heartlands.

Anna Gross
Well, it was very problematic in 2019. So the south-west was very heavily Brexit voting, as you say, and the Lib Dem kind of its aggressive anti-Brexit campaign really massively shot them in the foot in 2019.

Miranda Green
Right.

Anna Gross
But they’ve tempered that messaging now. You don’t see any reference to Europe or their global outlook in any of their campaign literature and you don’t really hear them talking about it on the doorstep. I was actually with Ed Davey and the Lib Dem candidate kind of doorstepping around the area, and yeah, they didn’t mention that once. It was quite vanilla messaging.

Miranda Green
With the voters in Somerton and Frome, do you get the feeling this is more like a push away from the governing party, the Tories, than an active pull towards the Lib Dems? We heard people in your vox pops saying they were thinking about Labour, thinking about Greens. The Lib Dems need that tactical voting message to get across to take it, don’t they?

Anna Gross
Yeah, certainly when I spoke to Ed Davey and also to the Conservative candidate, they suggested that this was being fought on local issues and that they were the local champions but I don’t know if it’s because I’m speaking from a national newspaper but not a single person I spoke to — I spoke to more than 20 people — not a single person was really talking about local issues, about planning or anything like that. They were talking about national things that they cared about. They were talking about huge frustration with the current government. They were talking about kind of a lethargy, about the infighting, about the scandals that kept happening. I don’t think what’s gonna swing this election is local issues. I think it’s basically a referendum on the current government.

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Miranda Green
The FT’s Anna Gross there.

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Miranda Green
Robert, these are three major tests of the Sunak government’s ability to turn their fortunes around, aren’t they? I mean, local factors may be decisive, but they’ll be seen as national bellwethers when we see the results next week.

Robert Shrimsley
Yeah, I mean, I think the problem with by-elections is as you know as well as anyone, Miranda, is that they are a snapshot and you have to have a pretty good reason to vote for the government of the day in a by-election. It’s such an easy free hit that with any degree of discontent and heaven knows there’s plenty of that at the moment, you’d be foolish not to take it unless you are literally gonna change the make-up of the government. So, one has to be a bit careful but what I think is crucial about these by-elections is they’re gonna pile on the point that Rishi, his own party, that Rishi Sunak hasn’t got a strategy for victory, that after a few months where people thought, oh, maybe there’s something here, but ever since the local elections, they’ve become increasingly downbeat in the Conservative party. And I think the doom loop that we’ve talked about is the key issue as Conservatives start to feel it’s over, we’re now fighting for what we’re going to be like after the election, who’s going to be our leader? And so consequently, while I think it actually makes much difference to anything else, it makes a difference to Rishi Sunak’s capacity for keeping discipline in his own party.

Miranda Green
Yeah, good point. Stephen, you’ve been up in Selby and Ainsty. There’s also a by-election there next week. If Labour can swing it in that seat, what does that tell us about the other attack on the Tories from the Labour party in the north to complement that smaller swing against the Tory party to the Lib Dems in the south-west and South East?

Stephen Bush
Well, it’s always more significant, regardless of the view of the government, if you are losing to the main opposition and the Liberal Democrats. I mean, take some turn through right? The Conservative party could be 20 points ahead nationally. The economy could be booming but in the circumstances in which the departing MP has resigned with allegations hanging around his head in a constituency the Lib Dems have won in the past, I think we would still pretty heavily be going, the Lib Dems will probably take it (Miranda laughs). Whereas, somewhere like, OK, so it’s a slightly weird constituency, Selby and Ainsty, and even though it’s got two big settlements in the name, it is very much one of those constituencies where you can kind of see that the boundary commission has gone, OK, well we need to have X number of constituencies in Yorkshire and I guess you’re it. So, it is slightly odd-shaped constituency and therefore I think some Conservatives seem to have a perception of how safe it is and I don’t think is really accurate.

Miranda Green
What, they think it’s safer than it is?

Stephen Bush
Yeah, then I think it would be a bigger de—

Miranda Green
Because it has some outskirts of Harrogate ___.

Stephen Bush
Yeah, it will be a bigger deal to the Conservatives. Let’s say several MPs said well if it goes then I could go and obviously I politely nod and go, oh yes, yes, no. Actually, when you look at it, it’s actually fairly volatile. But yeah, it will just feel different. Losing to the main opposition feels different when you have victories by the opposition deep into your own territory that sort of adds to this doom loop. And I think the big problem is not just as, yeah, exactly as Robert says right? The Conservative MPs thought there was a way out, but also the second it becomes not just a discussion about the future, but some MPs will start thinking, well, if I’ve got a Lib Dem problem then I need to start showing a bit of leg to my local liberal, I need to start getting good write ups in The Guardian. We already see, you know, Conservative MPs in marginals in the West Mids in the north basically going, time to talk about how much I hate immigrants and social liberals. And all of that just adds to the sense that the Conservative party is this unmanageable rabble. And so I think, yeah, it will be a big deal when, as I fully expect from my impression of yeah, just knocking on doors that they do lose it.

Miranda Green
And what do you think it tells us about that wider territory in the north of England and in the Midlands known as the red wall, which the Tory party somewhat miraculously made progress in 2017 and took in 2019 and needs to go back to Labour for Labour to win.

Stephen Bush
Well, I’m getting very boring and know the answer, which is a lot of the red wall seats actually when you look at them demographically, they are exactly the kind of constituencies that in a 1987 or 1959 (inaudible) situation the Conservative party ought to win. And therefore when the tide comes in even a little bit, you would expect them to lose at all of those constituencies that I think are very much up for grabs, with the important difference that in 1992, for all the Conservative party’s feared defeat, there was not an emotional significance to holding those seats. Whereas this time the fate of those marginal constituencies — you know, they stretch marginals and the Conservatives have to win to have a decent majority — has become a proxy for the stuff Robert talked about in his column this week, which is what is our economic model, who are we for? So it’s all so much more fraught because it feeds into that wider sense of crisis.

Miranda Green
Robert?

Robert Shrimsley
Yeah, I mean, look, I think that’s exactly correct. And I just think it goes to (inaudible). Who are the Tories for? Who are they are appealing to? They thought under Theresa May and Boris Johnson they got a new electoral coalition. And the question that will arise from a defeat, and particularly, loss of those red wall seats is, was this a hiccup? We won them and now we’re not gonna get them, and now they’re going back to where they were. Or did we actually have a correct winning new electoral strategy, which we lost cause we were just terrible in government and a series of crises came and hit us? That’s gonna be a fundamental question for the Conservatives as they regroup.

Miranda Green
Yeah, I completely agree with all of that. So, I mean, I think we’ve agreed in both sections of the podcast this week, there’s quite a kind of fin-de-siècle feeling really about the government. And actually we might even get another couple of by-elections before long in Mid Bedfordshire and Tamworth. So you might get this doom loop becoming more intense even, you know, in the next couple of months. And actually one thing I wanted to ask you both about just before we finish. Sunak himself obviously had the Nato summit this week. He’s been meeting Biden. You know, prime ministers usually fall back on foreign affairs and their international role as a kind of comfort blanket towards the end of a period in power, because it’s less complicated and unpleasant than the failing domestic policies. Sunak’s only been prime minister since October, and he’s clearly enjoying those bits more.

Robert Shrimsley
Yeah, I suppose he had a bit of a war to think about.

Miranda Green
He has, he has, in his defence.

Robert Shrimsley
It is striking, though, because before he became prime minister and even since, one of the things you hear about him, and that seem to me to be true, is that he just wasn’t very interested in foreign affairs. He’s not comfortable. Whereas you could see where Boris Johnson could stride around Kyiv or, you know, strut around on particular international stages in his own pet subjects and to some extent, look the part. I don’t want to overstate this. Rishi Sunak doesn’t look, he looks like a fish out of water. He still looks to me like someone who’d rather be back in his study in Downing Street, you know, poring over the immigration figures or summoning in the head of the NHS to explain what’s going on with the waiting list. I’m not sure he looks the part yet in those roles.

Miranda Green
I think it’s just because you saw Biden in the Rose Garden in Downing Street and anything about the special relationship seems to kind of give you the edge. I know that.

Robert Shrimsley
That is true.

Miranda Green
Stephen, what do you think?

Stephen Bush
It’s tough, because actually I think I’d sharply disagree with Robert, maybe for the first time on this podcast. Very exciting.

Miranda Green
A moment. We have a moment.

Stephen Bush
So one, yeah. Yes, of course, there’s a very difficult foreign policy situation right in our immediate neighbourhood, what, so, which would dominate the attention of any prime minister, even if things were good. But part of it is ultimately the UK, unlike basically every other democracy in the world, is not divided on Russia-Ukraine. It is an area in which you can stand up and broadly gets a respectful welcome in the Commons. But also I think, as well as I think he does look like he’s enjoying it — he clearly is, a bit — the Biden people really like him both because they think he’s, you know, polite and courteous and all the things, you know, we hear about him here. But because they feel he embodies a sense of the American future that they quite want to put Biden next to. You know, he’s Indian. He has a kind of Silicon Valley-esque background. And I think that feels to me well, because, yes, he hasn’t been in office that long, but they have been in office for quite a long time. So it does have that classic feeling of a late-stage government where the one place that the prime minister can still feel like they’re the prime minister is the world stage. And for a variety of reasons, actually probably this won’t come to a shock to our listeners, but I think one of the things that I think lots of people in Westminster haven’t fully absorbed is that image that the United Kingdom has acquired since 2016. And it’s, you know, a country that does mad stuff now and you can’t trust and it’s becoming kind of basically the low-growth capital of a low-growth continent. It’s slightly fixed on the world stage by having someone who has links to the world’s largest democracy, that speaks to the UK’s stability and success on immigration and integration, who is thoroughly modern and clearly lots of other world leaders are excited by having a little bit of that glow. So yeah, I think actually, look, the global stuff is kind of working for him, but obviously it doesn’t help you that much when everything locally is on fire.

Miranda Green
And to wind up, a very quick nod to our cultural fixes this week. Stephen?

Stephen Bush
The new Mission: Impossible film is great fun. Looks great. Great soundtrack. Go see it.

Miranda Green
OK. Thank you very much. Robert?

Robert Shrimsley
I’ve been a bit dilettante, but I’m looking forward to seeing Oppenheimer in the next few days.

Miranda Green
Big debate, I think, between Oppenheimer and Barbie.

Robert Shrimsley
Not in my house.

Miranda Green
(Laughter) Well, I’m going to donate my culture fix this week to the leader of the opposition because he gave that interview I mentioned earlier about his love of classical music. So take a listen to this and we can test whether Keir Starmer was right about this particular Beethoven piano concerto being the balm for all political ills.

[BEETHOVEN’S ‘EMPEROR CONCERTO’ PLAYING]

That was Beethoven’s Emperor concerto played by soloist Paul Lewis with the BBC Symphony Orchestra. And that is it for this episode of the FT’s Political Fix. If you like the podcast, please do subscribe. You can find us through all the usual channels to receive episodes as soon as they’re released. And we also appreciate positive reviews and ratings. It really helps to spread the word. You can also find the FT articles linked to today’s podcast topics in our show notes, and for a limited time those articles are free to read for all Political Fix listeners. Lucy Fisher will be back in the chair next week to analyse the by-election results. Political Fix was presented by me, Miranda Green, and produced by Anna Dedhar and Audrey Tinline. Manuela Saragosa is the executive producer and the original music and sound engineering was by Breen Turner. Until we meet again, that’s all for this week.

[MUSIC PLAYING]