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FT editor Roula Khalaf picks her favorite stories in this week’s newsletter.
Rishi Sunaka’s battle bus is the eye of the political storm; air-conditioned, controlled, it is a safe space from which the Prime Minister conducts the last week of a feverish campaign. In the real world, outside this media and security bubble, chaos reigns.
On Thursday, Sunak launched the latest week-long attempt to avert electoral disaster for the Tories, taking his campaign from Nottingham to Leeds via a pottery factory and trains and warning of the dangers of a Labor government.
The blue bus, with the slogan “Clear Plan, Bold Action, Secure Future” and free coffee, is manned by optimistic Sunak loyalists who are trying to bring order to a campaign that threatens to spin out of control. “All the media in the pen,” one employee whispered into the radio during one photo shoot.
But even in this sheltered environment, the grim reality of Sunak’s predicament constantly penetrates. News of the growing political betting scandal is leaking out every day, and the latest polls suggest the Tories are heading for perhaps their heaviest defeat in history on July 4.
Sunak’s first stop on Thursday was the venerable Derbyshire ceramics firm Denby, where the Prime Minister tried his hand at dipping a sugar bowl and teapot into paint. Georgia Plinston, a seasoned scooper, generously awarded the Prime Minister eight marks out of 10.
But when Sunak was out of earshot, she delivered a verdict familiar to Tory candidates across the country: “I’ve never voted Labor before,” she said. “But we need a change.
Later, Sunak addressed Denby’s employees in a way politicians prefer: workplace meetings are easier to control than public meetings on the street, with employees perhaps nervous about speaking in front of their bosses.
Not so in this case. Fran Cutmore, a potter, listened carefully to Sunak’s warnings about how Labor would raise taxes, cut pensions and let in illegal migrants before delivering her verdict: “Things are infinitely worse than they were in 2010,” she said of 14 years of Tory rule. .
Barry Green, a mechanical and electrical engineer, asked Sunak how he intended to fix the NHS. After the Prime Minister explained how he planned to reduce waiting lists, Green had a follow-up message: “Are you going to stop treating patients in corridors?”
Sunak, who delivered a combative and often spectacular performance in the final televised debate on Wednesday night, is still ready to fight: energetic and enthusiastic, accompanied between stage actions by aides who still believe in him.
The difference between that world and the poison experienced by Tory candidates on the doorstep is stark. “The whole thing is a nightmare – I’m going to lose,” said one Tory candidate representing the seat, which had a Tory majority of more than 20,000 in 2019.
More bad news started arriving on the bus during the day. The free-market Economist newspaper came out in support of Labour, condemning the Brexit project backed by Sunak, who insists it helps British companies.
“Brexit Britain has overtaken the Netherlands, France and Japan to become the fourth largest exporter in the world,” he told workers at a ceramics factory. He later told the Financial Times: “I was proud to support Brexit. It was the right decision for our country.”
Sunak’s bus headed to Alstom’s train factory in Derby – the company says it is the largest such facility in the world outside of China – and the Prime Minister met staff and apprentices to chat to young workers.
The company is helping to produce 54 trains for the HS2 rail project, the northern branch of which Sunak scrapped last year. “The future looks good,” the prime minister told staff. Some of the 250mph trains will run at a much slower speed on tracks built by the Victorians.
As the bus headed down the M1 towards an election event in Leeds, news arrived that Steve Baker, the Northern Ireland Secretary, was considering running for the party leadership if he retained his marginal seat in Wycombe.
His criticism of the harsh conservative tone in recent years has been scathing. “We should start looking like we love other people,” he said. “Whoever they are, regardless of their sexuality, gender, race, color, creed.”
Asked if he was considering a leadership bid, he told the FT: “One thing at a time. I want to represent the people of Wycombe to the best of my ability, as I have always done. Then we’ll see what happens.”
Baker’s comments predict the leadership contest many Tories expect will begin on July 5, when – as they expect – Sunak will leave as Tory leader in the ashes of defeat. But aboard Tory’s eerily quiet bus, the show is just on the road for now.