Rishi Sunak looked as if he might blush when a reporter asked him if his climate speech on Wednesday was the political equivalent of Bazball – the swashbuckling style of cricket which has transformed England’s results over the past year.
But some think the prime minister’s announcement that he would roll back a number of major climate targets was more like a Hail Mary pass in American football: a desperate final long throw attempted by a losing side.
Ed Miliband, the shadow energy secretary, said: “Today is an act of weakness from a desperate, directionless prime minister, dancing to the tune of a small minority of his party.”
Sunak made clear in his speech his announcements were not a one-off, but the beginning of a series of policy measures which he hopes will turn around his faltering premiership.
The prime minister has chalked up a number of policy wins in the past year, including a new deal with the EU over Northern Ireland, and is now seeing inflation begin to fall sharply. None of this however has changed public opinion: Labour has remained between 15 and 20 points ahead in the polls since the start of the year.
In the past two weeks Sunak has shaken up his Number 10 team, bringing back seasoned advisers as he tried to link the policy operation in Downing Street more closely with the political one at Conservative party headquarters. Now he feels confident enough to start selling his new message.
“The real choice confronting us is do we really want to change our country and build a better future for our children, or do we want to carry on as we are,” he said.
“I have made my decision: we are going to change. And over the coming months, I will set out a series of long-term decisions to deliver that change.”
Sunak used the speech to distance himself from his predecessors more clearly than ever. “You don’t reach net zero simply by wishing it,” he said. “Yet that’s precisely what previous governments have done – both Labour and Conservative.”
The word “change” was used 31 times, more than almost any other in the speech.
Yet the new strategy carries risks. First, Sunak is known by most voters as a pragmatic problem-solver, and the Tories have been in power for 13 years. Positioning himself as a radical “change” candidate at the next election may prove difficult.
Second, there is no guarantee that the policies he is announcing will be popular.
A poll carried out by Public First and published just hours before the speech started showed overwhelming support for the 2050 net zero target, as well as broad support for the deadlines on petrol cars and gas boilers.
James Frayne, a founding partner of Public First, said: “Those Conservatives that think watering down net zero will help them in the polls haven’t been paying attention to their voters.
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“Our research shows watering down net zero commitments risks doing more harm than good electorally because it provides yet another example of the government junking promises and missing long-range targets – things that are actually biting them in the polls. This will please a few activists and MPs but make many voters’ eyes roll.”
Downing Street advisers say the speech was the result of months of thinking by the prime minister, who they portray as a details-oriented leader willing to challenge orthodoxies that have been taken for granted in Whitehall for years.
Sunak himself said: “There remains a nagging sense that the path we’re on – no matter which party is in government – isn’t quite what we hoped for, and that no one seems to have the courage to say so.”
That image jarred slightly however with the rushed nature of the speech, which was brought forward by 48 hours after details of it were leaked widely in advance.
Some Conservatives worry that in the hunt for a last-ditch election winner, Sunak will end up making himself less popular among voters.
Ryan Shorthouse, the founder of the centrist Conservative thinktank Bright Blue, said: “I think the overall policy package and signalling is a mistake – electorally, economically and environmentally.”
But many around the prime minister believe he has little option but to make a clearer divide between himself and the Labour party. “We’re not going to win the next election based on what we’ve already set out,” said one. “We’re going to have to do something different.”
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