A safe space at the eye of the storm: onboard Rishi Sunak’s battle bus

Rishi Sunak’s battle bus is the eye of the political storm; air-conditioned, controlled, it is the safe space from which the prime minister is conducting a frenetic final week of campaigning. In the real world, beyond this media and security bubble, there is chaos.

On Thursday, Sunak began a final week-long attempt to avert electoral catastrophe for the Conservatives, taking his campaign from Nottingham to Leeds via a pottery and a train factory, warning of the dangers of a Labour government along the way.

The blue bus, with its “Clear Plan, Bold Action, Secure Future” slogan and free coffee, is staffed by upbeat Sunak loyalists seeking to bring order to a campaign in danger of running out of control. “All media in pen,” whispered one staffer into a walkie-talkie at one photo-op.

But even in this protected environment, the grim reality of Sunak’s predicament keeps on intruding. News trickles in every day of the growing political betting scandal and the latest polls suggesting that on July 4 the Tories are heading for perhaps their heaviest defeat on record.

First stop for Sunak on Thursday was the venerable Derbyshire pottery firm Denby, where the prime minister tried his hand at hand dipping in paint a sugar bowl and a tea pot. Georgia Plinston, a seasoned dipper, generously gave the prime minister eight marks out of 10.

But when Sunak was out of earshot, she delivered the kind of verdict familiar to Tory candidates across the country: “I’ve never voted Labour before,” she said. “But we need change.”

Later Sunak addressed Denby staff in the kind of event favoured by politicians: workplace gatherings are more easily controlled than public meetings in the street, with employees perhaps nervous about speaking out in front of their bosses.

That is not the case here. Fran Cutmore, a potter, listened carefully to Sunak’s warnings about how Labour would put up taxes, hit pensions and let in illicit migrants, before delivering her verdict: “Things are infinitely worse than in 2010,” she said of 14 years of Tory rule.

Barry Green, a mechanical electrical engineer, asked Sunak how he intended to fix the NHS. After the prime minister explained how he planned to cut waiting lists, Green had a follow-up: “Are you going to stop treating patients in corridors?”

Sunak, who gave a combative and often effective performance in a final TV debate on Wednesday night, is still up for the fight: energetic and enthusiastic, he is shepherded between stage-managed events by aides who still believe in him.

The difference between this world and the venom experienced by Tory candidates on the doorstep is vast. “The whole thing is a nightmare — I’m going to lose,” said one Tory candidate representing a seat that had a Conservative majority in 2019 of more than 20,000.

During the day more bad news started to arrive on the bus. The free-market Economist newspaper came out in favour of Labour, denouncing the Brexit project that Sunak backed and that he insists is helping British companies.

“Brexit Britain has overtaken the Netherlands, France and Japan to become the fourth-biggest exporter in the world,” he told workers at a pottery factory. Later he told the Financial Times: “I was proud to support Brexit. It was the right decision for our country.”

Sunak’s bus headed to the Alstom train factory in Derby — the company claims it is the largest such facility in the world outside China — and the prime minister met staff and apprentices for some good-natured chat with young employees.

The company is helping to make 54 trains for the HS2 rail project, whose northern leg was scrapped by Sunak last year. “The future looks good,” the prime minister told staff. Some of the 250mph trains will be running at much lower speeds on tracks built by Victorians.

As the bus headed up the M1 towards a campaign event in Leeds, news arrived that Steve Baker, a Northern Ireland minister, was considering a run for the party leadership if he held on to his marginal Wycombe seat. 

His critique of a harsh Tory tone in recent years has been scathing. “We’d better start looking like we love other people,” he said. “Whoever they are, whatever their sexuality, gender, race, colour, creed.”

Asked whether he was considering a run for the leadership, he told the FT: “One thing at a time. I want to represent the people of Wycombe the best that I can, as I always have done. Then let’s see what happens.”

Baker’s comments portend the leadership contest that many Tories are anticipating will start on July 5 when — they expect — Sunak will quit as Tory leader in the ashes of defeat. But on board the eerily calm Tory bus, for now, the show is still just about on the road.