Boris Johnson would be foolish to assume the next election is in the bag

A reputation for economic competence is central to the party’s pitch – the government needs to ease the supply chain crisis and have a credible longer term plan for growth

Conservatives rallying in Manchester will be delighted (even astonished) to be several points ahead in the polls around the mid-term of this parliament. But my party would be foolish to assume the next election is in the bag. Opinion polls are snapshots, not forecasts.

Boris Johnson is no fool but a skilful and ruthless political campaigner. He knows that when the country next comes to vote, the Conservative Party will have been in office for 13 or 14 years. That’s when voters muse about whether it’s “time for a change”. The precedents point to a close result: a narrow Labour win in 1964 after 13 years of Tory rule; unexpected victory for John Major in 1992, and a hung parliament and coalition in 2010.

The prime minister’s mind will be on delivery: how to show by 2023 or 2024 that despite the pandemic he can point to at least the first fruits of the improvements in voters’ lives that he promised in 2019.

For Johnson and the Conservative Party that means tackling three strategic challenges: economic stewardship, levelling up and the transformative impact of new technologies.

A reputation for economic competence is central to the party’s electoral pitch. Once lost, it cannot easily be rebuilt. After the Exchange Rate Mechanism crisis of 1992 it took the best part of two decades for the party to recover its reputation for sound stewardship of the economy.

That’s why it’s so important politically for the government both to ease the immediate crisis over supply chains and have a credible longer term plan for growth. This needs to include a route map to restore the public finances and supply-side reforms to cut business costs and encourage investment. If we don’t get this right, the hoped-for higher wages could just pile new costs onto business, driving up prices to consumers and pushing them towards cheaper imports. We all hope that talk of rising inflation being just a short-term phenomenon is right. But similar hopes under the Heath, Callaghan and Thatcher governments were dashed - at a horrific cost to employment, savings and living standards.

“Levelling up” - the commitment to raise expectations, ambition and achievement in towns that have felt ignored by governments of all political parties - is both a matter of social justice and a cause with electoral appeal going far beyond traditional Conservative ranks. The challenge is how to turn that potent slogan into a detailed, effective plan of action - and one that starts to show results within just three years.

That will need a strong push from the centre of government, with the full authority of Number 10 and mechanisms to secure rapid agreement between different Departments, with the Treasury bound in to the plans so that policy-making, implementation and the allocation of money are decided in a single process rather than, as is too often the way, in separate Whitehall silos.

Levelling-up will also need effective partnerships with elected mayors and unitary counties and boroughs, who have the convening power to pull together government agencies, business leaders and educational institutions in their areas and deliver a plan tailored to the strengths and needs of that place.

Industrial regeneration and higher living standards depend in large part on the UK grabbing the opportunities presented by new technologies. There’s a strategic dimension too since the challenge from China is essentially technological (a point highlighted in the government’s Integrated Review of national security), with Beijing openly aiming for a dominant position in world markets for digital, zero-carbon, synthetic biology, quantum computing and autonomous vehicles. The test will be whether the UK or any other western country can avoid becoming dependent on Chinese know-how and Chinese suppliers by mid-century.

The government’s ambition for Britain to be a pace-setter in new technologies deserves applause. To get results, ministers need that cross-Whitehall operational plan to deliver the infrastructure, skills and tax regime to keep the UK ahead of the game.

We’ll also need to be more open about the trade-offs involved in deciding whether to diverge from inherited EU rules and standards. There’s little demand from business or customers for major change in standards for food or industrial goods. But when it comes to digital, data and genetic technology even an unrepentant Remainer like me is critical of the over-cautious approach taken by Brussels and sees opportunities from divergence. But we need to be honest about choices. At what point is the gain from divergence outweighed by the risk of losing data equivalence or privileged access to the EU market? Case by case, how do we strike the right balance?

To get the results he wants by 2024, the prime minister needs not just the right policy decisions but the machinery of government to drive those policies through. The challenge will need every scrap of his undoubted political energy and determination.

Sir David Lidington was the chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and minister for the Cabinet Office between 2018 and 2019