Revealed: The tree codenames Rishi Sunak gives his key policies as he becomes increasingly concerned about leaks in Downing Street
- HS2 rail line from Birmingham to Manchester has been called Project Redwood
- Smoking and vaping policies have been entered into No 10 diaries as Hawthorne
Rishi Sunak has become so concerned about leaks in Downing Street that he is giving tree-related codenames to the policies he hopes will help him to win the election.
Sources told the Mail that last week’s headline-grabbing U-turn on net zero policies was referred to by an inner circle of advisers as Cedar – the ‘c’ representing climate change.
The plan to replace A-levels with a French-style baccalaureate was described as Elm – the ‘e’ standing for ‘education’. Treasury pressure to cancel the second leg of the HS2 high-speed rail line from Birmingham to Manchester is called Project Redwood – ‘r’ for rail.
And discussions about new smoking and vaping policies have been entered into No 10 diaries as Hawthorne – ‘h’ for ‘health’.
The cloak-and-dagger system has not stopped details of the plans from emerging: the decision to water down net zero was revealed in last week’s Mail on Sunday, with the full details then disclosed by the BBC on Tuesday, forcing the Prime Minister to bring forward his announcement.
The sudden burst of energy from Mr Sunak has reassured senior Conservatives who had feared that the former investment banker would ‘hide in his bunker’ until election day
The aim of the strategy, which was drawn up over the summer and has been given momentum this autumn by a rebooted Downing Street team, is to ‘create arguments which draw attention to us and draw clear dividing lines with Labour’, sources say.
The plan to delay the 2030 ban on new petrol and diesel cars, which was the standout measure in the net zero announcement, has angered a vocal minority of pro-green Tory MPs, who have threatened to vote against it in Parliament and even, in some cases, to send letters of no confidence.
The policies – some of which had been slated for inclusion in Mr Sunak’s crunch address to the Tory party conference in Manchester next month – are said to signal the start of a ‘political drumbeat’ from Downing Street which will grow louder as the general election nears.
Although most Tory MPs still expect it to be called this time next year – in the hope that interest rates will then be falling and the feel-good factor returning – at least two Cabinet ministers say they are working on the basis of a May poll, to be held in the wake of a tax-cutting March Budget. ‘Net zero, HS2, A-levels – this feels like the start of the campaign,’ one MP said.
The sudden burst of energy from Mr Sunak has reassured senior Conservatives who had feared that the former investment banker would ‘hide in his bunker’ until election day. One said: ‘He is often in his office straight through from 7am until 10 or 11 at night. It is what they do in the City, but hard work is nothing without a vision to accompany it. We have been looking for signs of what he actually stands for.’
Mr Sunak’s advisers argue that he has been working around the clock to do exactly that – to flesh out a distinctive policy platform with which to take on Labour, which remains stubbornly ahead in the polls.
A senior official says: ‘This is not about winning short-term political points. This is about taking difficult decisions which are right for the country ten, 20 and 30 years in the future. That has always been Rishi’s approach – such as when he backed Brexit, and introduced the Covid furlough scheme – and it has always been vindicated.’
Treasury pressure to cancel the second leg of the HS2 high-speed rail line from Birmingham to Manchester is called Project Redwood – ‘r’ for rail
Discussions about new smoking and vaping policies have been entered into No 10 diaries as Hawthorne – ‘h’ for ‘health’
The plan to replace A-levels with a French-style baccalaureate was described as Elm – the ‘e’ standing for ‘education’
However, a senior Tory MP said: ‘It’s early days, but I still don’t see the over-arching vision. So far, it is just a series of unrelated ideas without a uniting theme or ideology.’
Shortly after Cedar was unveiled on Wednesday, news leaked out about Elm – replacing A-levels with a new style of British baccalaureate in which children would study more subjects after the age of 16, with English and maths becoming compulsory until the age of 18.
A source said: ‘Rishi has always thought pupils should study maths for longer, as they do in other countries. But the danger is it will only appeal to voters who enjoyed the subject as much as him, which isn’t very many.’
Source: Read Full Article
