Rishi should have touched on climate change
Sunak gets a lot of coverage in the papers this morning for his first big speech of year setting out his thoughts on the main themes that no doubt will run until the general election.
One big criticism so far is that he failed to mention climate change which given the challenges facing the government was probably a mistake and will certainly get referred to again.
He starts 2023 with the Tories still with a big deficit in the polls and with a massive challenge ahead. One point in his favour is that his personal constituency majority in North Yorkshire is absolutely rock solid Tory and in an election campaign he won’t have to give it much attention.
His big policy speech gets a lot of coverage as we can see in the the front pages above and will help him established himself with the electorate. But the Tories have been in power now for 13 years and the “time for a change” message that Labour will surely use could resonate quite easily.
Sunak also has the challenge that unlike Labour he has to win an overall majority of Commons seats in order to stay at number 10. Starmer will likely become PM if the Tories lose 47 or more seats even if LAB wins fewer seats and gets fewer votes
But there is a long way to go and events could intervene.