Sir John Curtice said Rishi Sunak does not have enough time to revive his flagging fortunes and said the prime minister was wrong to focus too much on immigration and tax cuts.
It is “too late” for Rishi Sunak to pivot his campaign, the UK’s top polling guru has claimed.
Professor Sir John Curtice said the Prime Minister has focused on the wrong things, while taking the blame for mistakes made by his predecessors. He told an audience in London that the Conservatives could end up with between 50 and 150 MPs after July 4.
Asked if there was anything Sunak could do at this late stage to revive things, Sir John said: “To be honest, Sunak is too late. You’re not going to turn around a campaign like that at this stage.”
But he said former prime ministers Boris Johnson and Liz Truss bore much of the blame for the crushing defeat the Conservatives are likely to suffer. And he predicted Sunak was likely to be punished for focusing too much on tax cuts and immigration in the run-up to the election.
It would have been better to have put more emphasis on improving the NHS and the economy, Sir John said. The polling expert told an event organized by IPPR and iNHouse Communications: “The fundamental mistakes were made by Boris and Liz Truss.
“The fundamental mistakes they made last fall were believing that tax cuts and attention to immigration could change things. Part of this could have been telling them, ‘No, no, no, this is not going to work. You need to focus on the health service and should focus on trying to improve the economy.’
“And those are the two things the party really doesn’t want to focus on.” Sunak has been plagued by horrendous gaffes since calling a snap election last month, and this week he became mired in the gambling scandal.
At the same event, former No 10 aide Katie Perrior warned that the Conservatives will outperform the leaders in the coming years. Perrior, who was communications director during Theresa May’s administration, believes Sunak is unlikely to stay.
And whoever takes office after a confusing leadership contest will likely have to contend with both the Labor Party and Nigel Farage in the House of Commons. Perrior said: “I think it’s going to be a while and we’re going to have to take down a couple of leaders before the Conservative Party is left to fend for itself without money.” He said candidates have told him that support has withered in this campaign while donations have dried up.
The former communications chief said: “You can talk to Conservative candidates who will tell you that no one is going to go out, no one is going to give money, no one is going to hand out leaflets, no one is willing to knock on doors. In a way, all of that has disappeared. So there is a real problem, not only with an aging support base that is not willing to go out and vote, but also with a lack of donors.
“This is a really serious situation where you don’t have money, you don’t have a voter base to come support you.”
