In team sports, the “hospital pass” tends to imply that someone has inadvertently put a teammate in an overwhelmingly difficult position. Those on the receiving end have the odds stacked against them to avoid a potentially game-ending tackle. Of course, elite level players can deal with hospital passes, avert danger, and maybe even put their team on the front foot as a result of their talent. Rishi Sunak believes he inherited a hospital pass when taking over as Conservative leader in October 2022. In a podcast published by The Times , Sunak agreed with Lord Hague that on entering office he inherited “the worst hospital pass for any incoming prime minister in however many decades”. This is notable because although he didn’t quite throw his immediate predecessors under the bus, it was the first time he has publicly given Liz Truss and
Boris Johnson a nudge towards oncoming traffic. What Sunak means, of course, is that he became prime minister of a country in extreme economic difficulties and leading a party that had trailed the opposition by 30 points or more in the polls. The expectation – or hope – of Tory MPs was that he was an elite-level politician that could deal with that. In a focus group, Conservative 2019 voters that had abandoned the party for
Labour told me, days after Sunak’s coronation as leader, that they had some hopes for him. “I think he probably will be quite competent in what he pushes forward,” one said. Another described it as “so obvious” he was the right person for the
Job, citing his record during the pandemic and his “trustworthy” schtick as reasons to believe he could turn it around. For a time, the polling improved, even if they still implied comfortable Labour majorities. There were signals that the public were willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, and an opportunity to turn things around. That is no longer true . Many appear to have decided that Sunak isn’t very good , and to keep the metaphor going, that he has fumbled the pass. In a big way. Savanta’s latest polling shows the Conservative Party 21 points behind Labour, the largest Labour lead in a Savanta poll since January 2023. The Conservative vote share, at 24 per cent, is as low as it’s been since Liz Truss’s ill-fated attempt at being prime minister. The Labour lead isn’t quite at Truss-era levels , but that’s because during those times Conservative 2019 voters were going just to Labour, or they were telling pollsters they were undecided and therefore stripped out of headline voting figures. Now, they’re going almost equally to Labour and Reform
UK, with little indication that they’re going to switch back. Read Next Rishi Sunak's latest act of stupidity exceeds even his own high standards Of those who have switched away from the Tories since the 2019 general election, just 8 per cent say they can still see themselves voting Tory at the next election. Almost half (47 per cent) see themselves voting Conservative at some
election in the future, but not at the next one. About four in 10 (38 per cent) say they can never see themselves voting Conservative again. A few months ago, I might have said that was the legacy of Johnson and Truss. But now Sunak must be included, due to his own political and personal failings in winning these voters round. The public shares my view – they had some sympathy for Sunak’s position, but that has waned significantly. Our recent polling shows that half say previous leaders are mostly to blame for the current state of his party, but 35 per cent believe Sunak is mostly to blame. A little over half – 52 per cent – think he has been let down by others in his party. But the Conservatives are now going backwards under him, and he must shoulder his share of the blame. So, what can he do? With the Conservatives losing voters to the left in Labour , and to the right in Reform UK, chasing after one set is likely to further alienate the other. Those that have switched to Reform tell us that Sunak’s party has not delivered on its promises, namely on small boat crossings and
immigration. He in particular must bear some responsibility for increasing the salience of this issue. A lurch to the right may win some back – although our data implies it wouldn’t – but they would risk pushing more to Labour, whose switchers tell us the Conservative’s perceived incompetence, especially on economics during the Truss era , has made them change allegiance. Maybe someone could thread that needle. But it doesn’t look like Sunak can. Chris Hopkins is political research director at Savanta