Week-in-Review: Who will win Sunak and Starmer’s five-a-side pledge-off?

Detractors argued that missions prioritised expedience and electioneering — with Sir Keir strikingly silent on some issues while foregrounding others. In turn, opponents immediately poured scorn on the fact that the word “immigration” featured just once in Starmer’s address. Tellingly, opponents mooted that “small boats” had made up one-fifth of the prime minister’s vows.

Of course, it is the very nature of the “five-point” approach to political presentation that some policy areas will be omitted. Starmer’s decision to pass over immigration is mirrored by Sunak’s neglect of net zero and energy security.  

In this way, there’s relatively little to learn from Starmer and Sunak’s co-equal silences. We well know that Sunak is under pressure from within his own party from a crackdown on “small boats”; and Starmer has made clear that he thinks he can win the argument on energy security (see his GB Energy conference announcement).

For both party leaders, a potential problem amid all the firming up and electioneering is that a coherent vision may fail to cut through. It is a point that Sir Keir is particularly exposed on, having already picked up a penchant for regular rebrands. Indeed, as Starmer was delivering his speech on Thursday, Penny Mordaunt could be seen mocking Starmer’s “11^th relaunch” at the commons dispatch box. Equally, the closest Sunak’s five pledges got to a vision was a commitment to “educational excellence” on the teaching of maths. It all leaves plenty of room for political point-scoring. 

So amid the party-political furore, will either Starmer or Sunak’s pledge-making cut though? Two recent case studies provide some useful insight. 

The EdStone 

For many commentators, the much-mocked Ed-stone underlines the folly of pre-election pledge-making. Constructed in the run-up to the 2015 election by order of Labour leader Ed Miliband, this comically large limestone tablet was unveiled before the national press to astonishment and amusement in equal measure. The intention was obvious: here was Miliband *literally* craving his promises in stone; he promised moreover to move the slab to the Downing Street Rose Garden after a Labour election. 

But the absurd optics notwithstanding, the pledges themselves were roundly rubbished as vague and patronising. Miliband promised:

1. A strong economic foundation
2. Higher living standards for working families.
3. An NHS with the time to care
4. Controls on immigration
5. A country where the next generation can do better than the last.
6. Homes to buy and action on rents

Among the six vows, there was no uniting principle, no overarching scheme. Nothing to object too but, equally, nothing to believe in. The Edstone is now presumably lying in an Indiana Jones-style warehouse, it memory serving as a monument to Miliband’s political failure 

Tony Blair’s pledge card

The gold standard of political pledges is Tony Blair’s pre-1997 election pledge card. The details speak for themselves:

1. We will cut class sizes to 30 or under for 5, 6 and 7 year olds by using money saved from the assisted places scheme
2. We will introduce a fast track punishment scheme for persistent young offenders by halving the time from arrest to sentencing
3. We will cut NHS waiting lists by treating an extra 100,000 patients as a first step by releasing £100m saved from NHS red tape
4. We will get 250,000 under-25 years-olds off benefit and into work by using money from a windfall levy on the privatised utilities
5. We will set tough rules for government spending and borrowing and ensure low inflation and strengthen the economy so that interest rates are as low as possible to make all families better off

Unlike Miliband’s much-maligned six commitments, these vows were deemed to be specific and achievable. How will Blair cut class sizes? Simple: by “using money saved from the assisted places scheme”. 

Of course, the political incentives on oath-taking have changed since the 1990s; there remains little chance of us seeing finely-printed pledge cards any time soon. But one wonders whether the prime minister’s messaging will match up to Blair’s proven example. How will Sunak cut NHS waiting lists? Well, I’m not sure he’s told us yet.  

One potentially significant semantic point is that a Sunak- or Blair-style “pledge” is not necessarily the same as Starmer-style “mission”. Indeed, where a “pledge” must be by definition specific, achievable and agreeable — “missions”, by contrast, are judged on their intent and vision. The long-term policy implications of “economic growth”, an NHS “fit for the future”, “safe streets” and making Britain an “energy superpower” with “safe streets” are not at all clear. But this is not the point right now; the Labour leader is merely hinting at what Starmerite success looks like. 

It is one of the rare advantages of opposition politics that Starmer is not obliged to explain every specific detail. But Sunak has no such excuse — and the prime minster’s vagueness may in the long run prove politically costly. 

Towards 2024…

In Starmer we find a political leader operating in the comfortable middle ground between boldness and indecision — pursuing politics that is neither too dogmatic and driven nor too meaningless and meandering.

So Starmer did up the electoral ante in Manchester — but probably by just one notch. How seriously his “missions” are taken will depend both on the detail to come (expected in a series of upcoming speeches) and the potential success of Sunak’s own pledges. The foundations for 2024 have been set, but where we go from here is still fundamentally unclear.