MANCHESTER (TIP): Battling gloomy opinion polls and mounting doubts, U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on October 4 promised sceptical voters, and his own Conservative Party, that he would make tough choices to “fundamentally change our country.”
Two of his boldest plans in a speech to the party’s annual conference — cancelling a railway project that has already cost billions and proposing to ban smoking for the next generation — definitely caused ripples. Whether they translate into success for the right-of-centre party in an election next year is another question. Opinion polls in recent weeks have put the left-of-centre opposition Labour Party 15 to 20 points ahead. Sunak told hundreds of party members packed into a Manchester conference hall that he’s not afraid to make big decisions that will deliver “long-term success” rather than “short-term advantage.”
He said the proof was his decision to curtail the embattled High Speed 2 project — an overdue, overbudget high-speed railway line that was planned to link London and Manchester. “The economic case has massively been weakened by the changes to business travel post-COVID,” Sunak said, arguing it would be an “abdication of leadership” to continue. (AP)