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The local elections could have been even worse for Rishi Sunak, but they weren’t.
Ben Houchen’s bid to hold onto the Tees Valley mayor’s seat was a great result for the Conservatives, but it comes after the opposition party was badly shaken by Labor, which now holds every council seat in the region. He claimed that he could obtain it.
The Prime Minister’s hopes that stalwart minister Mark Harper would have been able to say something positive during Sunday’s broadcast round, however on Saturday night Andy Street, the most powerful Tory outside Westminster, was crushed when it was defeated in the West. Midland mayoral election.
This was a real shock, especially after Labour’s gloomy press conference on Friday, with Sir Keir Starmer seizing one of the Conservative Party’s crown jewels at what seemed like a waypoint to a general election victory. It meant that.
Mr Street responded to siren calls within the party for Mr Sunak to move further to the right, and calls from Suela Braverman and others for more radical policies to stem the bleeding. He used this to warn Mr. Sunak.
But many Tory MPs know that elections are almost always won by centrists, and, like the failed leadership machinations, Mr Braverman’s calls are likely to go largely unheeded.
Downing Street’s ‘stick to the plan’ mantra is starting to resemble the infamous meme of a dog in a burning house claiming it’s ‘alright’, with a former home secretary saying Mr Sunak needs to do just that. There’s probably some point in suggesting that. Do something, anything, to change the tide.
But the reality is that after radical policies such as tax cuts, multiple resets, watering down environmental policy and HS2, and an attempt to ban smoking among children failed to change the polls, Mr Sunak was left with no choice but to stick to his policies. There may be no other choice but to do so. his plan.