Why maths is so fundamental to Rishi Sunak’s politics

Still, Sunak was steadfast. He took aim at his critics saying they were themselves complicit in Britain’s “anti-maths mindset”. Consciously adopting a culture war-style stance, Sunak reasoned: “Now the reason I’ve come here to talk about maths, is not just because I like maths. But because what I am setting out today is a fundamental part of how we need to change our country for the future”.

There appears, of course, something stridently and rather duly utilitarian about this approach. Sunak say his plan to have pupils study some form of mathematics until they are 18 is about charging economic growth and piecing together Britain’s productivity puzzle.

It is a pitch in stark contrast to that of previous PMs on the “education, education, education” ideal; notably Tony Blair whose vision of betterment and progress for Britain placed education at its heart. In the lead-up to the 2001 general election, the then-PM said his approach would empower pupils to engage with “the exhilaration of music, the excitement of sport, the beauty of art [and] the magic of science”. 

But the focus on maths is not entirely new — especially not from the Conservative party. In 2011, then-education secretary Michael Gove revealed that he wanted to see the “vast majority” of pupils in England studying maths to the age of 18. And in 2014 one Elizabeth Truss (then Gove’s junior in the education department) went on a fact-finding mission to Shanghai to see how children there had become the best in the world at maths. Truss confirmed that children in Shanghai were “streets ahead” of their UK counterparts. Her rubbishing of Britain’s “long-term anti-maths culture” was borrowed, if unthinkingly, by Sunak on Monday.

Nor could you argue that Gove and Truss’ maths push failed. Education secretary. In fact, Gillian Keegan stressed with delight on Monday morning that maths is “the number one choice” for British students at A-Level. 

But for our prime minister, number one is not good enough. 

We can be in little doubt that numeracy policy is the PM’s particular passion project. Unlike other government policies on minimum service legislation for strikes or Sunak’s small boats crackdown, the maths blitz does not obviously appear to bare the stamp of Conservative election guru Isaac Levido. Levido-crafted policy is marked out by its identity-based logic — not necessarily its material and utilitarian rationale. Furthermore, Sunak’s maths blitz comes despite all the scrutiny such initiatives invite of his own background, including the fact he sends his daughters to independent schools (the first PM to do so in decades). One wonders whether Levido warned against the approach.

Ultimately, the new maths policy, we can only conclude, is Sunakian creed in its purist form.

The political and moral economies of Sunakian rule

Sunak’s approach to maths policy is defined by its totalising emphasis on economic growth — albeit in a very different sense to his predecessor Liz Truss. Indeed, while tax incentives are important, it is education, Sunak said in January, that is a “silver bullet… [and] the best economic policy”.

Economic visions have been and will continue to be contested, but Sunak’s excitement about the spirit of teenage entrepreneurs has been incredibly consistent through his relatively short political career.

During his unsuccessful bid for the Conservative leadership in August 2022, Sunak vowed to phase out university degrees that do not improve students’ “earning potential”. Speaking to The Times, Sunak criticised the “overly narrow specialisation” of the current curriculum, which he said does not prepare young people for the “economy of tomorrow”.

Of course, throughout that contest, Sunak’s entire political pitch rested on economic policy; namely the trade-off between further tax cuts and inflation. While Truss dared to be “bold”, rubbishing analytical clarity as “bean counting”, Sunak stuck rigidly to his fiscal instincts. (One wonders whether the PM’s inability to win the argument during the summer campaign reinforced his passion for expanding economic literacy). 

In the past, prime ministers have been wary to relay the intricacies of fiscal policy, but Sunak, as chancellor and now prime minister, is unusually uninhibited when talking about his economic vision. It is both strategical approach and political performance — and speaks to the factors informing his newly-announced maths stance.

To uncover the political vision behind Sunak’s latest policy we need look no further than his Mais Lecture delivered as chancellor in February 2022. 

The Mais lecture, viewed as one of the most influential business lectures in the City, has been used as a touchstone for Sunak’s political stance and vision for the economy. In his “moral and material case for the market”, the then-chancellor quoted Adam Smith, talked up trade-offs, prescribed remedies for economic stagnation and sounded out Nigel Lawson and Margaret Thatcher as his ideological lodestars. While certain statements must be viewed through the prism of Sunak’s positioning for a future leadership contest, his commentary here nonetheless takes on new meaning in light of recent maths announcements. 

Indeed, during his address, Sunak stressed how the “moral imperative” of education could contribute to a “new culture of enterprise”. He explained: 

Over the longer-term, the most important thing we can do is rejuvenate our productivity. …  If we cannot accelerate growth, people will begin to lose faith in the moral and material case for free markets. … I am confident and optimistic about the future of liberal democracies, but nothing has a right to exist. So it is precisely in order to preserve the freedoms that only come from market economies that political leaders must ensure that they are successful

For Sunak, “productivity” and the continuation of “liberal democracy” are closely intertwined. Both are sustain society as part of a “culture of enterprise”, something British governments must at every turn renew.

Not merely informed by some glib “the children are our future” approach, Sunak’s maths positioning is, in part, therefore about how fostering good capitalistic ethics can inform economic dynamism. In an ideal Sunakian society, the elision of moral and material imperatives would see an economically literate citizenry serve as the backbone to sustained growth. It is a curiously Jeffersonian approach: only by improving the capacity or wisdom of common people can we secure the future of British “freedom”. 

Of course, Sunak’s fanboyish enthusiasm for Silicon Valley and tech are well-known, and the PM plainly thinks Britain needs to be better prepared for changes to the world economy that are on the horizon. For this, Sunak suggests, a numerate citizenry is nothing short of essential.

The problem for the prime minister is that Conservative MPs talk a lot more about small boats than they talk about the moral implications of innumeracy. Still, far from shuffling the deckchairs of the Titanic, the prime minister sees his maths policy as an integral part of his political vision. He calculates that only with a willing and educated populace will the UK be able to steer the uncertain waters of the world’s imminent tech transformation. It is a moral cause from which Sunak will not shirk. 

For a government defined so consciously by short-termist Levido-style electoralism, this is Sunak flexing his idealistic muscles. In line with Blair’s view of the “exhilaration” of education, Sunak’s maths policy speaks to his broader vision of betterment and progress founded on firmly capitalistic principles.