Road to the election: Can the Tories cut Labour’s poll lead before it’s too late?

After an underwhelming King’s Speech, what opportunities remain for the prime minister to turn his party’s fortunes around before a general election? Sean O’Grady explains how the next year could unfurl

Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer walk through the Central Lobby at the Palace of Westminster before the King’s Speech on Tuesday (PA)

Given its timing in the electoral cycle, the King’s Speech wasn’t an ideal base from which to launch any kind of political offensive. The last party conference probably was, but it’s fair to say the prime minister’s pitch to the country that he is the candidate of change didn’t make the political weather. Still, all is not lost, and the weeks and months ahead will offer opportunities to at least erode Labour’s lead. So what may be expected on the road to the next election?

Some of these new laws in the King’s Speech will help the Tories?

They ought to – a bit. The crime measures and making sure that “life means life” for murderers is the fulfilment of a long-held Tory ambition cherished ever since the effective abolition of the death penalty in 1967. If nothing else, it will cheer up the base, depressed at the loss of Boris Johnson and Liz Truss. The same may go for some of the other policies, such as reform of leasehold and a ban on live animal exports, and they should also like the liberalisation of offshore oil and gas licensing. But the trouble is that the voters tend to be ungrateful types, happy to pocket what they like and still demanding more. And the laws don’t on the whole impact on most people’s most pressing concerns – inflation and the cost of living crisis, the NHS, migration and crime more generally.