Conservatives try to shift mood with election promises as UK polling day nears

Rishi Sunak doesnt know whether hell still be Britains prime minister the day after next months election Theres nothing unusual about that What is unusual is that hes been forced to deny rumours he could quit even before polling day amid alarm inside the governing Conservative Party over Sunaks lacklustre campaignSunak gets a chance maybe one of his last to change the narrative on Tuesday when he releases the Conservatives manifesto a handbook of policies that forms each UK partys blueprint for powerDespite gloomy polls and bruising headlines Sunak insists the election is not a foregone conclusion and says resigning has not crossed his mindPeople are going to say what theyre going to say he told reporters on Monday The reality is Im not going to stop going Im not going to stop fighting for peoples votes Im not going to stop fighting for the future of our countryThe Conservative manifesto is likely to include promised cuts to personal taxes a chance for Sunak to repeat his claim that a government led by Labours Keir Starmer would raise taxes while a Conservative one would lower them The Labour Party points out that the tax burden has risen to its highest level in decades during 14 years of Tory ruleOn July 4 British voters will elect lawmakers to fill all 650 seats in the House of Commons and the leader of the party that can command a majority either alone or in coalition will become prime ministerSunaks surprise decision to call a summer election several months earlier than most people expected even those in his own party was intended partly to catch the opposition unprepared But its the Conservatives who have seemed offbalance from the moment Sunak stood outside 10 Downing St in the rain on May 22 to announce the start of the campaignThe Conservatives were already on the defensive after jettisoning two prime ministers without an election in quick succession in 2022 first Boris Johnson felled by scandals then Liz Truss who rocked the economy with drastic taxslashing plans and lasted just seven weeks in officeThe partys prospects worsened last week when populist firebrand Nigel Farage announced that he would run for Parliament at the helm of the rightwing party Reform UK vowing to be a bloody nuisance to the established partiesWhile Reform with its antiestablishment and antiimmigration rhetoric is aiming to attract disaffected voters from both Conservatives and Labour its likely to take more votes from Sunaks party The intervention of Farage has made it even less likely that Rishi Sunak will remain in Downing Street than was already the case minimal though those prospects were said John Curtice professor of politics at the University of StrathclydeSunak then flew home early from commemorations in France of the 80th anniversary of DDay so he could resume campaigning The photos of centenarian World War II veterans and an array of world leaders including US President Joe Biden attending the solemn ceremony on Omaha Beach without him were a publicity nightmareSunak quickly realised his error and apologisedPaul Goodman a former Conservative lawmaker who is now a member of the House of Lords said the irony is that apart from the DDay gaffe the Conservatives have run a perfectly decent conventional campaign but have little to show for itTheyve launched lots of policies theyve had some hits on Labour he said Rishi Sunak actually did pretty well in the debate against Starmer last week All of this appears to have made no difference at allLabour eyeing a return to power after 14 years in opposition is running a cautious campaign centred on the single word change Starmers core message which dismays some in his leftofcentre party is that he has transformed Labour from its hightaxing bigspending days into a party of the stable centrePolitics is a relative business said Philip Cowley professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London You dont have to be liked you just have to be more popular than the other guy And thats what the Labour Party by and large are managing to pull offWhile opinion polls giving Labour a doubledigit lead may change Curtice one of Britains leading polling experts said Sunak was facing a steep mountain to climb even before he called the electionArguably the Tories days were numbered the moment that Liz Truss fouled up he said Because no government that has presided over a market crisis has survived at the ballot boxThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever