Thread by @pmdfoster

Q: Cons say big wins coz "we're delivering on the people's priorities" -- but in truth #Covid19 has delayed most delivery, and folk get that, bar the vaccine, which was huge tick.

So Q: come 2024? Do cons need delivery? Or will culture war and a smattering of pork cut it? /1

I don't know the answer to this. Is the success of fueling "a narrative" fuelling the idea that politics is now decoupled from delivery -- i.e it's enough to talk about the "people's priorities" in a bullish way that folk identify with, because they don't actually expect much./2

Because deliver is going to be hard -- fiscal recovery from the pandemic is going to crimp spending if @RishiSunak has his way; #brexit (the big winner) is a drag on industry in Red Wall areas, the NHS has huge backlogs from Covid...i.e there are lots of challenges /3

@RishiSunak The 'levelling up' agenda -- vague to the point of vacuity -- is perhaps a symptom of a fundamentally propagandistic approach to politics which puts value/identity foremost precisely because delivery is so hard, and takes longer than single cycles/4

@RishiSunak Actually on these results @BorisJohnson must be a very fair bet for two terms or even more, but does he and his party/team really have the political courage and tenacity to deliver over the longer term on stuff where they do have ambition? Skills, HE/FE, Net Zero, Science/R&D? /5

@RishiSunak @BorisJohnson I've recently been reading the Jeremy Heywood biography...it's amazing how entrenched and long-standing so many of the big issues are: social care, university costs, the skills agenda (particularly for the bottom 40%), productivity.../6

@RishiSunak @BorisJohnson So do you seek to deliver real change, over time -- or essentially run pork- barrel gimmicks, like Freeports, which the OBR say will make zero difference to growth, displacing activity (which may be the point) rather than creating wealth /7

@RishiSunak @BorisJohnson The #Covid19 pandemic postponed the reckoning on a lot of questions and -- despite glitches and the chumocracy charges -- the vaccine (which is a massive coup) wiped that slate clean. But Covid also squeezes space for delivery ahead of 2024. Does that matter? I really dunno. ENDS