Sunak’s five pledges: how did he do?

Sunak is lucky voters pay so much less attention to politicians than politicians do – at least at election time – to voters. Early last year he sought to put some flesh on his technocratic CV with five pledges by which he said he should be judged. He would halve inflation, grow the economy, cut debt, cut NHS waiting lists and “stop the boats”, he said. He gave himself a deadline (of a year) for only the first of these, and met it. The others were open-ended but he’s still managed not to honour them. The economy shrank. Debt as a share of GDP is up 2.3 per cent. Waiting lists are longer and small boat migrant numbers were up 25 per cent year on year in the first quarter of 2024. Maybe Sunak should have taken a leaf out of Labour’s book and said nothing detailed about what he wanted to do in power. Or maybe, for someone who’s ascended the very top of Disraeli’s greasy pole, he’s just not very good at politics.