When Lewis Carroll’s Alice says she can't believe impossible things, the White Queen gives the smart politician’s reply: "I daresay you haven't had much practice. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”
Rishi Sunak, the U.K.’s pragmatic new prime minister, doesn’t believe impossible things either. However, a number of powerful factions within the ruling Conservative Party want several contradictory things "before breakfast” — and even more of a challenge, before the next general election in two years’ time.
The prime minister is being forced to fend off attacks within his party while a Labour opposition under Keir Starmer, reinvigorated by a 20-point lead in the opinion polls, savages the Tory record since 2010. He has enough material to go on — real disposable income is set to drop by 7.1% over the next two years. All things being equal, that spells electoral doom for the party in power for the last 12 years.