GK Associate Joshua Owolabi evaluates the Prime Minister’s response to the latest inflation figures and how it might influence his messaging strategy for the upcoming local elections.
The latest inflation figures will have come as a welcome relief to Rishi Sunak. The fall in the consumer prices index reading (CPI) to 3.4% in February means inflation is at its lowest since September 2021.
Given the challenging environment he was faced with at the start of his premiership, and the limited amount of time at his disposal before the next election, Sunak has focused his efforts on a few core policy areas. In January 2023, he set out five pledges that would underpin his government’s policy agenda. It is highly unlikely that Sunak will succeed in achieving two of these ambitions - stopping the boats and cutting NHS waiting lists - and there are doubts as to whether the third is achievable, namely seeing the national debt fall by the time of the general election.
However, he can confidently state that he’s fulfilled his promise to halve inflation – CPI inflation was at 10.7% when Sunak announced the pledge. Even if it was the least ambitious of his five promises, it is still a concrete achievement that he can tout to the electorate.
Sunak’s messaging suggests that he also believes that he will fulfil his pledge to grow the economy – he’s declared that 2024 will “prove to be the year that the economy bounces back”. In a recent interview with the BBC, he was resolute in his belief that businesses and families were “seeing that things have turned”. Would they agree with him? There are a lot of Conservative MPs who think otherwise. They are arguing that there’s work to be done to convince the public that they will be better off this year, as they continue to battle through the cost of living crisis. Nevertheless, the positive inflation news offered Sunak some protection during a recent meeting with Tory backbenchers. His rallying cry for unity as the economy turns the corner was received relatively well by those in the room.
As is always the case with the 24-hour news cycle, new headlines have pushed the inflation news into the background. Many Conservative MPs head into April uneasy as Rwanda and small boat crossings threaten to dominate the narrative ahead of local elections in early May. The Prime Minister will be hoping that the headlines about falling inflation have cut through to voters, as he’ll be keen to underscore his credibility on economic management and build desperately needed momentum before voters head to the polls.