Rishi Sunak is in Manchester for what could be the final party conference ahead of next year’s election – and, if that vote goes as many expect, his last as Tory leader. In order to avoid that fate, the Prime Minister hopes to use the annual meet to enter a more pro-active stage of his premiership, in which he will start to change things (such as on net zero) and speak ‘hard truths’ even if it leads to a backlash in parts of his party. Sunak has been offered a small ray of light overnight with a new Opinium poll suggesting Labour’s poll lead has fallen to 10 points. Were the Tories to get to below a ten-point lead, this is the point ministers believe the next election starts to look competitive.
Appearing on the Laura Kuenssberg show, Sunak tried to set out his stall in what frequently became a tetchy exchange between himself and the BBC presenter – the PM spoke over her at one point as he argued inflation was a tax and therefore bringing it down amounts to a tax cut.
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