Sunak says ‘it’s just not true’ to say 14 years of Tory government to blame for all problems facing Britain
Sunak accuses Labour of only running a negative campaign.
He claims they are trying to make people feel so bad about what has happened in the past 14 years that they don’t question what Labour would do differently.
He says he is not arguing that the past does not matter. He goes on:
But what I cannot accept is Labour’s idea that all the worries you have are because of 14 years of Conservative government, that all you need to do is change the people in office and these problems will magically disappear. It’s just not true.
In the last 14 years, we’ve made progress in the most difficult conditions any governments have faced since the second world war.
Key events
Sam Freedman, the Prospect columnist, has posted a short thread on X highlighting one of the obvious contradictions in Rishi Sunak’s speech.
One of the many many problems with this Sunak pitch is that he’s trying to combine a classic negative Levido framing (you will not be safe under Labour), with what appears to be his own, um, optimistic framing (it’s about the future not the past). It’s incoherent.
— Sam Freedman (@Samfr) May 13, 2024
One of the many many problems with this Sunak pitch is that he’s trying to combine a classic negative Levido framing (you will not be safe under Labour), with what appears to be his own, um, optimistic framing (it’s about the future not the past). It’s incoherent.
You can’t both run a campaign about how you represent a positive future in the face of the naysayers and doomsters.
And a deeply negative campaign about how unsafe and scary the world is.
Well you can but it will make no sense.
Another, more basic, problem is that he campaigns with the emotional range of a bored HR director doing a training session for new starters.
In a response to Rishi Sunak’s speech, the Lib Dem leader Ed Davey says Sunak should just call an election. “Instead of talking at people, Rishi Sunak should be listening to the public by calling a general election now,” Davey says.
Q: Are you really proud of the Conservative party’s record? Not so long ago, you seemed worried the party would launch a coup against your leadership?
Sunak says he is not saying the past 14 years have been perfect. But he says he is proud of what the party has achieved, for example on education. He says the education reforms were in part introduced as a result of work done by Policy Exchange, the thintank hosting his speech.
And that’s the end of the Q&A.
I’ll post an analysis and summary soon.
Q: Is the UK now pushing for a truce in Ukraine, as the Sunday Times article implied?
Sunak says he did not see that article.
But he says the government is prepared to make sacrifices for national security.
Keir Starmer cannot say he is leading on national security, he says.
Sunak claims Labour would not be able to maintain military support for Ukraine for as long as necessary
Q: Are you really saying Labour will be more dangerous for the country?
Sunak says he is arguing that. He says Keir Starmer has not committed to raising defence spending to 2.5% of GDP. And he says Starmer wanted to make Jeremy Corbyn PM, not just once but twice.
Q: At the weekend it was reported that David Cameron told Donald Trump that the US should not abandon military support for Ukraine now, so that next year, if Trump is president, he can negotiate a truce. Are you no longer committed to Ukraine winning?
Sunak says the government will support Ukraine for as long as it’s necessary to repel Russian aggression.
And he claims Starmer cannot make that pledge because he has not committed to an increase in defence spending.
Sunak says Britain will be less safe under Labour
Q: [From the BBC’s political editor, Chris Mason] Are you arguing that the country will be less safe under Labour and that it is “better the devil you know”.
Sunak replies:
In a word, yes.
And he sets out the argument of his speech again.
Sunak says Elphicke defection shows Starmer is ‘completely and utterly unprincipled’ and doesn’t stand for anything
Q: Do you accept that people can look at what has happened in the last 14 years and conclude it has been chaotic? Why isn’t the past a guide to the future?
Sunak says he is not arguing the past 14 years have been perfect. But he says in recent years global shocks, like Covid, were to blame for the government’s problems.
He claims he has been pragmatic.
Q: Do you think the Tories are better off without Natalie Elphicke?
Sunak says this defection shows that Keir Starmer is “completely and utterly unprincipled”. He goes on:
It just tells you that you can’t trust what the guy [Starmer] says. And if you’re trying to be everything to everyone, fundamentally, you don’t stand for anything.
Sunak also says that the plan announced by Starmer on Friday to deal with small boats was exactly the same as they one he announced a year ago, and is implementing – only without the Rwanda deterrent element.
Q: Can you rule out an election in July?
Sunak says he has said it will be in the second half of the year.
It is Labour that is focused on the election date, he says. He says there are more interested in process than substance.
Sunak rejects claim Tories have not spent enough on defence
Sunak is now taking questions.
The first is from Harry Cole, political editor of the Sun.
Q: You are going to increase defence spending to 2.5% of GDP, but that won’t happen until 2030. Isn’t that too late?
Sunak says he does not accept that the Tories have underfunded defence.
When they took office, Labour had left the country with no money, he claims.
But the Tories maintained defence spending at 2% of GDP, the Nato standard, he claims.
He says Keir Starmer has not accepted that defence spending should rise.
(Labour’s position is that it would raise defence spending to 2.5% of GDP “when resources allow”.
And he says Starmer supported Jeremy Corbyn for PM.
Sunak ends with a passage that is strongly upbeat, even boosterish.
I refuse to accept the doomsterism and a cynical narrative of decline that my opponents hope will depress people into voting for them.
Sunak defends his plan to stop the next generation from smoking.
And he suggests that in the future technology will enable doctors to make “incredible” breakthroughs in treating cancer.
Sunak says he would ignore ECHR injunctions ‘every single time’ in order to get deportation flights off to Rwanda
Sunak insists that he has a plan for economic revival.
And he defends the Rwanda deportation scheme, saying that this will deal with small boats.
He says, in implementing the plan, there will be “flash points ahead”.
But if the European court of human rights tries to block flights to Rwanda, and he is forced to choose between obey the court and Britain’s securiy, “I will choose our country’s security every single time”.
Sunak has said many times before that he would be willing to ignore an EHCH injunction in order to get a deportation flight off to Rwanda, but the “every single time” flourish sounds like new, added emphasis.
Sunak says ‘it’s just not true’ to say 14 years of Tory government to blame for all problems facing Britain
Sunak accuses Labour of only running a negative campaign.
He claims they are trying to make people feel so bad about what has happened in the past 14 years that they don’t question what Labour would do differently.
He says he is not arguing that the past does not matter. He goes on:
But what I cannot accept is Labour’s idea that all the worries you have are because of 14 years of Conservative government, that all you need to do is change the people in office and these problems will magically disappear. It’s just not true.
In the last 14 years, we’ve made progress in the most difficult conditions any governments have faced since the second world war.
Sunak says Starmer’s shift from embracing Jeremy Corbyn to Natalie Elphicke show he has ‘no principles’
Sunak is now talking about Labour.
They have “almost nothing to say” about problems like immigration, energy security, or the economy, he says, despite having 14 years in opposition to think of policy. He goes on:
And [Labour has] no principles either.
Keir Starmer has gone from embracing Jeremy Corbyn to Natalie Elphicke in the cynical pursuit of power at any price.
Sunak is now being more positive, talking about the opportunities offered by technological advances.
There are opportunities open to the UK, he says. It has always been a trading nation, and “Brexit has given the opportunity for us to trade even more”, he claims.
(Most economists accept the Office for Budget Responsibility’s analsysis that over time Brexit will lead to the economy being 4% smaller than it otherwise would have been because it has created barriers to trade with the EU.)
