The prime minister has a politics problem – he isn’t very good at it

Rishi Sunak can’t win – in every sense of the phrase. Not only did he set himself up for a fierce backlash by making a trans blunder at Prime Minister’s Questions today, but even his successes don’t seem to improve his or his party’s opinion poll ratings or general election prospects.

This week’s restoration of power-sharing in Northern Ireland is a case in point. It won’t bring the “competence dividend” Sunak allies privately hope for. Even though, like his Windsor framework a year ago paving the way for it, it took the sort of painstaking work and attention to detail at which he excels.

Why won’t the prime minister get the credit he deserves on Northern Ireland? Sadly, the issue has a low salience in Great Britain – but Sunak’s real problem is that many of the swing voters who usually decide elections don’t base their verdict on party policies but on party leaders and their character. This “valence” judgment includes whether leaders are competent, strong and in touch. It played a big role in the three election victories of both Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair, and partly explains why the Tories have now been in power for 14 years.

Displaying competence was the right strategy when Sunak became PM. The need to show it was even more important than usual after the incompetence and instability under Johnson and Truss.

When competence didn’t bring immediate rewards last year, a panicky Sunak tried other tactics – such as presenting himself as the change candidate. That bombed, so now Sunak has gone full circle, and back to competence. Combined with talking up an improving economy, it’s his best shot; one ray of hope in Downing Street is that one in five 2019 Tory voters are still in the “don’t know” column. If they haven’t gone over to Labour yet, perhaps the Tories could win them back. However, the private fear in Tory land is that they will not vote at all; such a silent protest vote contributed to Blair’s 1997 landslide.

Although many people like some of Sunak’s key policies – such as cutting NHS waiting lists and stopping the boats – they don’t believe he is competent enough to deliver them. So his admission this week that he hasn’t achieved his waiting list pledge will damage him. Blaming the strikes in the NHS won’t wash; voters expect a competent government to resolve them. (Indeed, there are reports today that Sunak blocked pay deals with consultants and junior doctors to avoid setting a precedent).

His waiting list pledge was rash; he didn’t consult his then-health secretary Steve Barclay about it. Waiting lists may come down a bit before an autumn election but the damage has been done on the second most important issue to voters after the economy. It was also rash, of course, to promise to stop small boats rather than reduce their numbers. More than a year after making his five pledges, only one – to halve inflation – has been met. To the many floating voters who are never going to pore over the detail of the Tory or Labour manifestos, that looks like incompetence.

This means that policies that should prove popular, such as last month’s cut in national insurance contributions and the tax cuts in next month’s Budget, won’t move the dial.

Sunak’s “competence deficit” is good news for Labour. The party might be in a pickle over its biggest pledge, the on-off £28bn-a-year pledge on green investment – but many voters will look at the big picture. As well as competence, they want change. Keir Starmer now outscores Sunak on all fronts, including offering change, being a strong leader and knowing how to get things done. If Sunak could pass the competence test, it would be easier for him to shift the public’s attention to Labour’s leader and policies.

That Starmer is ahead on being able to work well with foreign leaders suggests people have made their mind up about Sunak, and not favourably. He has done well on this front, notably in resetting relations with the EU. But again, he reaps no “competence dividend” because of voters’ overall instinct about him.

The Tories have convinced themselves Starmer is Labour’s weakest link but the PM is viewed less favourably than the Labour leader. So a presidential campaign is unlikely to work.

Nor, I suspect, will Sunak’s claim that his “plan is working.” Even spending real money doesn’t guarantee an electoral bonus; there’s a risk the much-needed plan to boost childcare will be introduced incompetently, as The Independent revealed.

Nor will Sunak’s warning to voters not to “go back to square one” with Labour cut it.

It’s the wrong message; with public services creaking after 14 years of Tory rule, I think many people would quite like to turn the clock back. Sunak is unwittingly reminding them how to do it.