“People don’t want politicians who promise the earth and then fail to deliver”—a quote from Rishi Sunak at the beginning of his speech in January stating the five promises he had for the country.
This is directly from the horse’s mouth. It’s ironic now, right?
Back in January of this year, Sunak made a speech. In this speech, he outlined five promises he had for the country, which he was adamant about achieving.
Coming up to 10 months later, have any of these been achieved?
He wanted the electorate to judge him on these promises, referring to them as people’s priorities.
At the time, he was criticised for not being bold enough, but coming up to almost a year later, the narrative couldn’t be further from that.
Halves inflation
This was the first big promise he made.
He promised to half the inflation in the country, ease the devastation, which is the cost-of-living crisis, and give people financial security.
Wildly enough, this one may be on the path to reaching its goal by the end of the year if it can meet the predicted 5% from the Bank of England by the end of the year. However, with this target being met, does that mean Sunaks has solved the issue? I would say listen to the people unable to feed their kids and pay their rent: the people who never had to worry are now worrying, and the people struggling are now in complete crisis, and you will find your answer there. He may potentially be on the path to meeting his goal, but core inflation is now the highest it has been in 31 years, so has this actually fixed anything?
Growth in the economy
This is the second in the list of promises Sunak laid out. It entailed growth in the economy and better-paid jobs; while, again, this hasn’t completely failed yet, it could only potentially be met if growth is bigger between October – December than the previous period of July to September. However, although the economy was thought to have recovered from the pandemic faster than originally predicted, the GDP shrank by 0.5% in July.
I wouldn’t get your hopes up, as it looks like a continuing downward trend, as the economy is only predicted to rise by 0.5% between 2023 and 2024. This is down to the Bank of England putting up interest rates in order to try and stop the prices from rising so quickly. So once again, another one looks like a failure so far.
National debt falling
The third promise was that of the national debt falling. They always mean as a proportion of GDP. The idea is that debt will fall if it grows slower than the economy. It is currently failing, but it may be possible only if the economy begins to grow faster. But the UK government’s debt is still at a historic high. So, once again, this is looking unlikely. The IMF is also stating that the national debt will continue to climb over the next five years. Further putting at risk this bold statement suggested by Sunak.
This all comes after Liz Truss and Kwasi’s Kwarteng’s notoriously disastrous mini-budget caused the national debt to soar, causing a domino effect to take place, causing Hunt to raise taxes, reassuring the financial markets.
The NHS waiting list fell
Waiting lists have now reached a high of 7.7 million, up from 7.6 million last month. It is now the highest on record since August 2007, and these figures continue to rise. There was also an increase in waiting times, with 8,998 people in England waiting more than 18 months for routine hospital treatment. This had already increased from 7289 at the end of July. 396,000 people have waited for more than a year to begin treatment since the end of August.
At what point do these waits and lack of treatment start doing more harm and becoming dangerous? And yet the government blames the doctors, who are working tirelessly to make ends meet. Change starts from the top, and this is what we need to start seeing happen.
New laws to stop small boats
The illegal migration bill was passed on July 17. This gave the home secretary a legal duty to detain and remove anyone entering the UK illegally. This was after 45,755 migrants crossed over to France via small boats in 2022. This turned out to be the vaguest of all the promises. By just using language like ‘new laws’ and ‘stop the boats’, he didn’t really make it clear his exact plan for the act, just showing his clear prejudice towards immigrants. He also seems as though he can’t make up his mind, refusing to state when this will be achieved, which is not surprising after the failure of the Rwanda scheme. Now, if this controversial act gets past, then people could claim that this promise was, in fact, met.
However, if this policy is passed, the current focus on the Rwanda policy may be illegal. Sunak needs to make his mind up, and it makes you question how thought through all these plans are if they contradict each other and bring into question the government’s decisions on safety.
One of the comments made by Sunak at the time was, ‘We will either have achieved them or not; no tricks, no ambiguity; we’re either delivering for you or we’re not. We will rebuild trust in politics through action, or not at all.’ Therefore, he has told us in his own words that he has not achieved his goal, he has not delivered for the country, and in turn, he has not rebuilt any trust in politics. So why are people still voting for him?
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