Rishi Sunak presides over a party still bitterly divided over what was the biggest mistake in the year of three prime ministers
There is a Labour attack video from October that best sums up 2022 for the Tories. Released on the night that chaos consumedthe House of Commons over a vote on fracking that prompted Liz Truss to resign the next day, it didn’t require much work from aides at party headquarters. Instead, they simply tweeted out a television interview with a Conservative politician and titled it: “This is what Tory MPs think of their own government.” The MP in question – Charles Walker – goes on to decry the situation his party has created as a “shambles”, a “disgrace” and “utterly appalling”.
It reflects how the past 12 months have played out in British politics. The Conservative government has rattled through three prime ministers, four chancellors, five byelection losses and only narrowly avoided economic collapse. At times, Keir Starmer’s Labour party has looked as though it can’t quite believe its luck: why go on the attack when the Tories are doing such a good job fighting themselves? As one shadow cabinet minister puts it: “If Labour can’t win the next election after these clowns, when can we?”
