The Tories need a shake-up – and Sunak knows it

When prime ministers sense the end is near, they tend to follow a similar pattern. They change senior civil servants and appointees, as Boris Johnson and Gordon Brown did. They avoid consulting their cabinet and instead hide behind special advisers. They declare they don’t like polls, before saying that the only poll that matters is the election. But before all of this, they usually attempt a ‘reset’. It’s rarely a sign of rejuvenation, but rather the start of the embalming process.

Rishi Sunak is aware of this, which is why there’s no use of the word in No. 10 as politics prepares to resume. He has so far resisted calls from backbenchers to change course, ditch his five priorities and articulate a grand new vision. ‘We can’t be knee-jerk,’ says a Downing Street aide of the need to stay calm in the face of dismal polling. But while there won’t be an official event or reset, a second stage of Sunak’s premiership may be about to begin.