Tory advisers desert Rishi Sunak for Keir Starmer

There was warmth and good cheer at the technology hub in Dudley on Thursday morning as Sir Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner launched Labour’s local election campaign.

Ms Rayner joked to the smiling room of Labour activists that she would get the drinks in with Sir Keir. The Labour leader warned others of selecting “Ange’s” favourite Venom cocktail. “You’ll live to regret it”, he told the crowd.

In Downing Street, the storm clouds have barely shifted for months. The question on Tory MPs’ minds is whether that ominous feeling in the air will turn into thunder and lightning.

With at most 10 months before the next election, Labour’s poll lead is expanding rather than shrinking. The signs of the political tide turning are simple to spot, including one largely overlooked – the number of Tory world figures who have quietly begun advising Labour in various ways.

Boris Johnson’s former wife Marina Wheeler KC, a leading barrister, is giving advice to Sir Keir’s party on protecting women against workplace harassment.

Mark Carney, once handpicked by George Osborne as the Bank of England’s governor, has built on his praise of Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, last autumn by guiding her on private sector investment.

Former Tory ministers are also in the mix. Nick Boles, the former skills minister, is offering informal insights to shadow ministers on how to transition from opposition to power.

Lord O’Neill of Gatley, a former Conservative Treasury secretary and champion of the Tory-declared “Northern Powerhouse”, has helped on a Labour review of business start-up funding.

Lord Cooper, who was made a Tory peer by Lord Cameron thanks to his polling and strategy advice, has on multiple occasions addressed the Labour shadow cabinet. He went to school with Sir Keir.

The Telegraph can reveal that Tom Fletcher, who was Lord Cameron’s foreign policy adviser and a former Lebanon ambassador, is also now feeding in thoughts on diplomacy. David Lammy, Labour’s shadow foreign secretary, sometimes picks up the phone to him. “Nothing formal, just someone we speak to,” says a Labour source familiar with the chats.

Mr Fletcher already had Labour credentials, having also advised Gordon Brown in Downing Street. But all are signs of Whitehall-types sensing the prevailing wind.

Mr Osborne, the former Tory chancellor who bears the scars of election defeats in the nineties and noughties as well as the insights of the Cameron rebuild, likes to talk about political “spirals”.

On Political Currency, his podcast with Ed Balls, he noted that for parties in trouble, problems beget problems. And for those riding high, all is seen through the prism of success.

Proof points of the Tory downward slide are just as easy to identify. The ways to snap out of it, to reverse the polling decline and the endless leadership speculation, are trickier to locate.

This week, one Conservative MP, echoing the sentiments of many colleagues, described the position the party now finds itself in as “being between a rock and a hard place”.

That reality is highlighted by two findings buried in the Telegraph-Savanta opinion poll, a new weekly election tracker that will publish voter insights in the run-up to the election. 

One showed that on all five of Rishi Sunak’s self-declared priorities for office, unveiled with a flourish the January before last, Labour is deemed more likely to deliver success. 

In other words, voters believe Sir Keir not Mr Sunak is better placed to reduce inflation, grow the economy, get debt falling, stop the small boat crossings and reduce NHS waiting lists.

It is that relentless pressure that explains the Tory grinding of teeth. It has led to the loose speculation – ridiculed by No 10 – that perhaps Mr Sunak could even consider letting someone else lead.

“It’s not personal. There is no vision. There is no ability to articulate it,” mused one Tory MP critic of the Prime Minister. “I don’t think he’s enjoying it. He may be looking at a way out.”

Stick with Sunak?

But then, who next? There is no single, perfect Tory leader sitting on the backbenches waiting to be picked, or at least not in the eyes of Tory voters, according to the Telegraph-Savanta poll.

Last weekend, respondents were asked who they would rather lead the Conservative Party: Mr Sunak or one of a number of the theoretical challengers. 

The Prime Minister was put up head to head in the survey against Penny Mordaunt, Kemi Badenoch, Suella Braverman, Robert Jenrick, and – out of curiosity – Nigel Farage.

Mr Sunak was favoured comfortably against all of the five theoretical rivals by people who voted Tory at the last election. In other words: whatever the woes, best stick with Mr Sunak.

Whether there are 53 Tory MPs who think otherwise is the most significant factor in determining whether the Prime Minister remains in post into the general election, which is still expected in the autumn. 

Only two Tory MPs are on record calling for Mr Sunak to go, and by implication presumably have submitted a letter hoping to trigger a no confidence vote to the 1922 Committee.

Are there close to 51 others who could soon do the same, meeting the threshold for the vote? Even one of the most relentless Tory plotters does not think that will happen.

Clinging to hopes of better news

Sunak allies are not quite so confident. “Who knows what the Conservative parliamentary party of 2024 will do? We can’t control them,” admitted one, acknowledging the political reality.

They are clinging to hopes of better economic news in May – the announcement the UK is out of recession; another lowering of inflation; a hint of interest rate cuts – for comfort.

But May is also being eyed by friends and foes as the danger zone. The Tories are forecast to lose half of their council seats up for grabs on May 2 when the local elections take place. 

Whether two high-profile Tory mayors, Andy Street in the West Midlands and Lord Houchen in Tees Valley, win re-election may determine the scale and heat of any Tory fallout.

Keep calm and carry on is the message. “I think everyone needs to enjoy a long weekend and have a cold shower” a CCHQ source said of fevered Tory speculation about the election.

For a political party that has specialised in dishing out its own Venom cocktails to ailing party leaders, a lot more than a good night’s sleep will be needed to calm the nerves.