The Tories are going public with their ‘Dunkirk strategy’

The Tories managed to avoid any major own goals or gaffes during the launch of their manifesto. Given some of the problems over the last few weeks on the Tory campaign that is a cause of relief for Rishi Sunak’s team. As for the contents of the manifesto – which pledged £17 billion of tax cuts – Labour have chosen to attack it as fiscally irresponsible while Tory candidates on the right complain it has not gone far enough in giving their base a reason to go out and vote.

Sunak’s team take issue with both critiques. But they seem to have found a new reason they think could get voters out and ticking the Conservative box on 4 July: fear of a Labour super majority. It was telling that Sunak used his appearance at the launch in Silverstone to warn that on current expectations Labour could be in government for a ‘very long time’ so it was important not to hand Keir Starmer a ‘blank cheque’ – especially as Starmer won’t get into the weeds on what his government will do in power.