Achi news desk-
Unless the polls move and move a lot, Rishi Sunak knows his time left as prime minister could be short.
But he is the driving force behind a smoking plan with significant cross-party political support, which looks set to herald significant social change.
And that cross-party support suggests that it is an idea with more political longevity than it might be, because Labor would not scrap it if they won the election.
In other words, whatever happens, that’s what some in politics call a legacy.
As I wrote here when Mr Sunak first set out his plans last autumn – in what he described at the time as “the biggest public health intervention in a generation” – this is a government trying to stimulate, or elbow, a social movement along: the near end of smoking.
On Tuesday, Health Secretary Victoria Atkins said she hoped creating a smoke-free generation would “save thousands of young people from addiction and early death as well as saving our NHS billions of pounds”.
What was once mainstream is now fringe. Now the attempt is to almost eliminate it, over time.
This is not the end of this discussion: what we have seen so far is the early parliamentary stages. There is more to come before it becomes law.
So that’s the big picture, potential social change stuff. What about the politics?
Almost 60 Conservative MPs voted against Mr Sunak’s idea.
Yes, they had a free vote – they weren’t told how to vote – but they challenged it nonetheless. Cabinet minister Kemi Badenoch is among them.
Another 100-ish abstained. Cabinet minister Penny Mordaunt is among them.
A source close to Ms Mordaunt told me she abstained because she “didn’t support the bill. She has many objections to him. The practicality of it. Its implementation and enforcement. But as she was a cabinet minister, she thought that voting against it would look more aggressive and posturing than abstaining.”
Who could that be a dig at? Ah, Kemi Badenoch.
And what do Ms Mordaunt and Ms Badenoch have in common? A splash of ambition.
Some are talking up both as future Conservative leaders.
Read more about the smoking ban
When you look at the numbers, almost half of Conservative MPs could not bring themselves to endorse one of their leader’s main ideas over the past six months.
Which tells you something about the shaky nature of the Conservative parliamentary party, although there isn’t much that wasn’t quite clear to the regular observer already.
Labor is already talking happily that it’s a good job they supported the idea or Mr Sunak would have lost.
And they also think publicly about what those opponents might do once the opportunity comes to change the ideas, to add improvements.
But again they would be defeated if those who are in favor still support the plan as it is.
When governments succeed in latching on to a plan that fits the grain of where society is already going, the force of law can push it forward deeply and, probably, permanently.
This idea – for now at least – looks like it could be one of those.
And, for all his political troubles, Mr Sunak is its author.
Ad blocking test (Why?)
Source link
Related
