"There are three things in life, health, money and love", Cristina and Los Stop sang in the sixties, when television was in black and white. Regarding love, the State can do rather little. On health, maintain a good free public health system. And, about money, whatever you like, lower or raise taxes and interest rates, control or let inflation run wild, grow the economy or not, increase or not the minimum wage, grant more or less social benefits...
English people voting today in the Tamworth and Mid Bedfordshire by-elections to fill two vacant seats are wondering just what the Government has done for them, whether their lives have improved or worsened in the 13 years the Conservatives have been in power , if their purchasing power has increased or decreased, if they have to queue more or less to go to the doctor and hospital, if there are more or fewer students in their children's classes, if there are more or fewer students in the village immigrants, whether the quality of public services and infrastructure has deteriorated or not, whether the economy has grown or shrunk... At this point in the film, the vast majority look longingly towards the 2010, when everything was cheaper, there weren't seven million people on the waiting list for operations, and before the madness called Brexit.
Partial elections like today's are representative of the collective mood, and even more so because these are two seats with a strong conservative tradition. For the Tories, losing them would be the worst possible premonition for the elections that will take place a year from now. Rishi Sunak – the fifth prime minister in the cycle of power that began with David Cameron and seems to be coming to an end – knows that it is almost impossible for things to change enough in twelve months' time for people to think that – love aside – everything it goes better in the areas that are the responsibility of the Government. That is why he has decided to take a swing and change his strategy.
Plan A for Sunak – who has only been elected prime minister by the conservative parliamentary group – was to present himself, after the bar and excesses of Johnson, and the libertarian hallucination of Liz Truss, as the voice of lost reason, of common sense. He offered five guarantees to the British people: that he would halve inflation and stop the rise in the cost of living, the economy would grow, public spending would fall, public health waiting lists would be reduced and they would stop arriving immigrants in shepherds through the Manèga canal.
But more than a year has passed since he arrived in Downing Street and, although inflation has moderated, the reality is very stubborn and he is not in the process of delivering on his promises, not by a long shot. So he has completely changed course and presents himself – incredibly, despite the baggage of failures he carries on him – as a rebel, a revolutionary, the real agent of change in opposition to the Labor leader, Keir Starmer, the man able to put an end to "30 years of failed politics" (for which he blames Blair, Brown, Cameron, Johnson, May and Truss, but not Brexit) that have brought the country to the current sorry situation.
The Tories have long since lost their philosophical connection to Margaret Thatcher, and Sunak aims to recapture it now, rightfully so, in a cartoonish version. Because he can't offer health, money and love, or anything to make voters feel happy and content, suddenly the new slogan is “hard decisions for a better future”. He ignores that his people have had 13 years to manage the future, and what they have done is make it worse.
The new Thatcherism of Sunak the Rebel is a potpourri of somewhat anarchic and disjointed plans. Return to austerity and thrifty mentality, with the cancellation of the section in Manchester of the high-speed train. Make it clear that, in his opinion, "a man is a man and a woman is a woman". Fight to the death against smoking. Reform the education system. Open the door to the UK's exit from the European Convention on Human Rights to be able to send political asylum seekers to Rwanda. Combat the woke culture, the denunciation of the empire and colonialism. Dilute environmental policies. Defend the car against the bicycle or scooter. Extract oil from the North Sea again. Reduce social benefits. But to lower taxes – the traditional essence of conservatism, along with frugality – nothing, because there is no money and the markets would not see it very well (tell Truss).
Labour's annual conference has been a success (despite being overshadowed by the situation in Israel), compared to the dissonance that dominated the Tories'. But Sunak is still not giving up despite falling far behind in all the polls. The Tories believe they have a sacrosanct right to govern, and if they die, it will be by killing, exacerbating the culture wars and embracing Trumpism, blaming their misfortunes on the BBC, the civil servants, the judges, the lawyers who defend immigrants, the intellectual and academic world. Those who do not agree with them, as already happened with Brexit, are described as rebels and traitors. The party is an evangelical cult. The world is divided between believers and unbelievers.
But no matter how much Sunak reinvents himself, the political smell is that of a corpse dump, and the big battle ahead is who will take the reins of the right after the election, whether it will be the moderates or the radicals . Of the three things in life, the British lack health and money, and this thing about love goes by neighborhoods.
