Crumbling concrete is Sunak’s poll tax moment

We may look back on the school buildings crisis as more than just a symbol of a disintegrating administration – but the moment the Tories lost the election, writes Andrew Grice

The concrete crisis in schools has handed Labour a perfect metaphor for a ‘broken Britain’, with creaking public services after 13 years of Tory government (UK Parliament)

There are times when a government loses its authority in such a hugely symbolic way that a sea change which will sweep it away in an election defeat becomes inevitable.

Rubbish piled up in the streets during the 1978-79 “winter of discontent” was an image that haunted Labour long after Margaret Thatcher’s 1979 election victory. As James Callaghan, the Labour prime minister she defeated, admitted to an aide before the election: “There are times, perhaps once every 30 years, when there is a sea change in politics. It then does not matter what you say or what you do. There is a shift in what the public wants and what it approves of.”

Sometimes, it’s personal: Thatcher stubbornly sticking to her hated poll tax spelt the end of her premiership. Her successor John Major and the Tories never recovered their economic credibility after Black Wednesday, when Britain was booted out of the European exchange rate mechanism. An inevitable defeat at the following election brought an end to 18 years of Tory rule.