Reading the room
Last week, Rishi Sunak was criticised for being out of touch. What do the public think?
It is a serious, sometimes stinging, criticism of a politician to say they are out of touch. Rishi Sunak received this put down twice last week, once from a fellow-Conservative in a letter to The Telegraph, once from the Labour leader across the dispatch box.
Former Minister Simon Clarke said of the Prime Minister “…he does not get what Britain needs. And he is not listening to what the British people want.”
At PMQs, Sir Keir Starmer talked about Sunak’s wealth and background (a vulnerability identified by focus groups), repeating an accusation that the Prime Minister “doesn’t understand” Britain.
But does it add up? It is of course hard to prove one way or the other given we all have different conceptions of Britain and there is never unanimity in public opinion (and, if we’re honest, how on earth do you really truly understand Britain!).
Is this week’s criticism of Sunak justified?
He was certainly popular during the pandemic. In September 2020, ratings of how he was doing his job were the best Ipsos had seen for any Chancellor since Denis Healey in 1978. Then, his strongest scores came in terms of his understanding of the problems facing Britain (55%) and being good in a crisis (54%).
Fast forward a few years and you could make a case that, as Prime Minister, his focus on immigration and a more pragmatic approach to Net Zero have been popular (possibly even populist). He justified the new approach to climate policy as being more proportionate and on the side of people. Also last autumn, and in direct contrast, a more confident Sir Keir Starmer directed part of his conference speech in Liverpool last year to opponents of housebuilding; “we hear you, but I’m afraid we’re ignoring you”.
Being hard on immigration and softer on Net Zero talks to sentiments among a large segment of the population, certainly one that is larger than the proportion who tell Ipsos they intend to vote Conservative. They are potentially wedge issues to shore up a base and bring some voters back to the fold.
However, whether out of touch or not, it is the perception that matters in politics, and, in the public’s eyes, the Prime Minister is most definitely out of touch. According to Ipsos, 73% think he is out of touch with ordinary people. Less than half this proportion, 31%, think he understands the problems facing Britain.
Starmer fares much better, but his ratings are hardly stellar; in September last year, 47% considered him to be out of touch with ordinary people, a sentiment which had increased over time. His position on this leader attribute isn’t dissimilar to both Miliband and Corbyn before their electoral defeats, although the Labour party has very different poll standings today.
More encouragingly perhaps, 44% think Starmer understands Britain’s problems, higher than the equivalent 31% for Sunak, better than 30% for Gordon Brown and 33% for David Cameron in May 2010.
Stuck for something (sensible) to say
‘Getting’ Britain and people is one thing, articulating it is another. Sometimes this means pursuing policies which aren’t popular and ‘levelling’ with the public. Just as it is said that customers don’t always know what they want until they see it, voters don’t too.
It is the job of our leaders to shape our conception of Britain and its possibilities; to build a narrative about what’s wrong, what’s right, and what we need to do next. They need to find the right story, then tell it effectively and repeatedly.
As Professor Matthew Goodwin put it recently, when there is a realignment, “you have to keep supplying [it] with clear, coherent, credible, and compelling messages. You have to genuinely renew. You have to make it crystal clear to voters you are a very different beast to what came before.”
The Tories’ current room for manoeuvre in such storytelling is constrained by their record and their predicament. After 14 years in power, they cannot echo the zeitgeist that “nothing in Britain bloody works anymore”. Their fragile hold on power and a fractious parliamentary party means they are walking a tightrope, struggling to speak with clarity in one voice.
It took a TV drama
The zeitgeist can creep up on you or completely pass you by, especially if you struggle to get outside of the Westminster bubble or remain stuck in an echo chamber.
Theresa May admitted that she only grasped the severity of the difficulties experienced by the Windrush generation when Sir Lenny Henry talked to her about it at a service in April 2018 commemorating the 25th anniversary of the death of Stephen Lawrence.
Being out of touch can lead you to do to say something daft. Nicholas Ridley’s incredible response to official who pointed out to him that an elderly couple might find it difficult to pay their poll tax — he said “Well, they could always sell a picture”. This is an extreme example and chronicled in a chapter titled ‘Cultural disconnect’ within Anthony King and Ivor Crewe’s The Blunders of our Governments.
Last year, Huw Pill, an economist at the Bank of England, suggested that “people just need to accept they are ‘worse off’ because of inflation” before repenting; “If I had the chance again to use different words, I would use somewhat different words”.
Earlier this year, Sir Howard Davies, chair of NatWest, said to the BBC in an interview about getting on the property ladder, “I don’t think it is that difficult at the moment…You have to save, and that is the way it always used to be.” He issued an explanation but, as communication professionals would put it, explaining is losing.
The salience of the scandal about sub-postmasters came to the fore recently due in large part to TV coverage which seemed to capture public attention. While the focus on this issue was a surprise to some, it brought out long-known, underlying concerns about the neglect and commercialisation of public services, the lack of accountability and control, plus a sense that elements of ‘the system’ are loaded against ordinary people.
Rishi Sunak is seen as out of touch by voters. But he is far from alone.
If politicians don’t get better at reading the room and talking to its occupants, the room will empty, and fast.
