Rishi’s rule will end with a whimper, not a bang

That best-selling 1970s toy Action Man proved the power of evolution. First, the painted hair on the initial models was superseded by ‘realistic’ flock hair and then came an ‘eagle eyes enhancement’ that allowed the eyeballs to be moved back and forth via a lever at the back of the head.  

One is put in mind of this by the current photograph of Keir Starmer in combat fatigues standing in front of some especially fierce-looking British soldiers. Fixing the camera with a steely gaze and benefiting from his square jaw and Martin Sheen-style Hollywood hair, the Labour leader comes across as a later series commanding officer Action Man. I dare say his shadowy team of advisers has by now even equipped him with fully gripping hands. It is all a far cry from the ‘Sir Kneel-a-lot’ prototype who took the knee for Black Lives Matter back in 2020.

The visual progression is symbolic of the drastic political progress that Starmer and Labour have made since then. Not only is Labour sustaining an average poll lead of 17 points, but Starmer is now clearly in the lead over Sunak when it comes to which man the public thinks would make the best prime minister. For the Leader of the Opposition to hold such a lead over an incumbent PM is no mean feat.

As the election year of 2024 looms, we should acknowledge that Starmer is now prime minister-in-waiting. Yes, he’s a limited performer who has benefited greatly from a Tory nervous breakdown, but he has also passed a basic 'will he do?' test in the eyes of sufficient voters to put him firmly on course for Downing Street.

And even in the past few weeks, this has changed the political terms of trade. If there was still hope during conference season that Rishi Sunak would exhibit the campaigning fluency needed to put the Tories back in contention then that has dissipated. Almost nobody now expects anything other than a thumping for the Conservatives next autumn.

This in turn means that ministers now struggle to generate much reaction to policy announcements. For instance, Michael Gove’s latest jazzy plans for housing passed without much comment this week mainly because nobody expects them to be implemented. The same could be said for Sunak’s own obsession with long-term A-level reform: he’s not going to be the figure who decides what happens there, is he?

But when Starmer very occasionally slips his handlers to voice an authentic opinion – such as his openness to legal reform on assisted dying – it is treated by the political media as a very big deal indeed. Even without an election date having been confirmed, the pendulum of power is passing from one man to the other.

Corporate lobbyists, ambitious journalists, think-tank chiefs and political fortune hunters alike are stampeding towards Starmer and his key lieutenants such as Rachel Reeves and Wes Streeting. It would take a Tory leader with extraordinary force of personality and campaigning flair to stop this process in its tracks. And while the Conservatives arguably went into this parliament with such a figure at their head, unarguably they do not have one now.

One Tory figure who recently spoke with Sunak about a key policy matter tells me that he got the impression of a man who is more concerned with the viability of his own future brand on the world stage than on the grubby business of trying to win the next election.

The average Tory rating in the Politico website’s poll of polls has even slipped back a further point from 25 to 24 since Sunak’s 'daddy’s home' cabinet reshuffle brought David Cameron back to the political top table. 

This is all terribly dangerous for the Tories. A low-wattage leader has moved past the point of angering and alienating voters on core issues such as immigration and is now mainly just boring them. Nothing he says, or even could say, matters very much any longer.

For the Conservatives, this is the way the world ends. Not with a bang but a whimper.