Can ex-finance minister Rishi Sunak still catch up in the Downing Street race?

Latest polls show Foreign Secretary Liz Truss well ahead, with 58% of Conservative Party members backed, against 26% in favor of Rishi Sunak and 12% still undecided, according to a study by ConservativeHome published Thursday, August 4.

Selected by Conservative MPs after a series of five votes, the two contenders will be decided by some 180,000 members of the Conservative Party after a postal vote, the result of which is expected on 5 September.

To recover, Rishi Sunak is banking on his image as a competent manager and his management of the health crisis, during which more than 300 million pounds (355 million euros) were spent to support the country's economy.

A position which nevertheless lends itself to criticism from its rival, which denounces a historic budget deficit and excessively high taxes.

The head of British diplomacy has indeed seduced the members of the Conservative Party with a classic recipe but always effective with the Tories: promises of tax cuts, to stimulate economic growth and reduce the crisis of purchasing power.

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But the Conservative vote in the UK is no longer confined to the elderly, affluent electorate from the south of the country who have traditionally been the core target of the Tories.

The 2019 general election was thus marked by the collapse of what the British call the "red wall", the fall of Labor bastions in the north of Wales and England, passed to the Conservative Party.

A new electorate who could be seduced by the more populist tone of Liz Truss's speech.

France 24 takes stock of the race to Downing Street with Sir John Curtice, professor of politics at the University of Strathclyde.

France 24: Why does Liz Truss have such a strong lead over Rishi Sunak among members of the Conservative Party?

Sir John Curtice:

Liz Truss has been able to play on the unease within the Conservative Party over high taxes and public spending in the wake of Covid – and she has effectively used the issue of purchasing power to push for tax cuts.

She has also managed to present herself as an ordinary person, while Rishi Sunak is seen as a spoiled child from Winchester [one of the most prestigious private schools in the United Kingdom, editor's note] and is now, with his wife, at the head of a real fortune.

This posture is far from self-evident.

Liz Truss's father was a maths teacher and the area of ​​Leeds where she comes from is relatively affluent.

The third factor is that Rishi Sunak suffered from the consequences of Partygate as well as from the tax residency mistakes of his wife, Akshata Murty, who did not pay tax on income earned abroad while living United Kingdom.

If the vote had taken place six months earlier, Rishi Sunak would have easily won.

But today, it is suffering from a real decline in popularity.

Rishi Sunak has chosen to stand with the Tories as the candidate with the best chance of winning with the general public in the next general election.

Why doesn't this tactic seem to work?

Does he really have a better chance of winning than Liz Truss?

Neither of the two candidates has a real advantage to win the next elections.

I can pull you out of the general public polls that favor Truss, others that are a little more in favor of Sunak, and quite a few other opinion polls where they are tied.

What really matters today is that members of the Conservative Party believe that Liz Truss has a better chance of winning.

Rishi Sunak enjoys the image of a competent manager, quite "Prime Minister".

We saw that during the last televised debate: he made a strong impression with his mastery of the files.

The problem is that he sounded a bit aggressive at times during his BBC debate last week […].

A somewhat haughty way of debating can harm him against Liz Truss, who plays the card of the ordinary person who understands people's concerns well.

What are their chances of leading the Conservative Party to another victory in the next general election?

The Conservative Party is worried about getting into business while public spending and tax levels are so high.

It is not stressed enough that the Tories may have to deal with the biggest drop in living standards in the UK since the Second World War.

This is something very difficult for any government to overcome.

But the Tories still have a chance of winning because voters are also unconvinced that Labor has any solutions.

Whether Liz Truss or Rishi Sunak wins, the next Conservative leader will find himself in a situation quite similar to that of Gordon Brown, the former Labor leader.

The latter became Prime Minister during the second half of a legislature, just before a major economic crisis hit the country.

[Gordon Brown became Prime Minister in 2007, just before the 2008 crisis;

he then lost the 2010 general election, Ed.]

Moreover, Labor leader Sir Keir Starmer fails to really articulate an alternative vision for the conduct of the country.

If he does not succeed in these times of economic crisis, one wonders if he will succeed one day...

Find the original version of this interview published on our website in English.

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