The Prime Minister phoned the First Minister on his first day in office.
The fact that he is receiving plaudits for the move this morning shows how low the bar is when it comes to intergovernmental relations.
This is an important and timely moment to press Control + Alt Delete on the relationship between the SNP and Conservative governments.
No doubt things will improve in the short-term. But the same lagging system errors will persist.
The one thing Nicola Sturgeon and her party want is the one thing Rishi Sunak is determined to deny her.
And that’s a referendum on Scottish independence.
She argues that she has a mandate for a second referendum because there’s a majority for it in the Scottish Parliament as the result of last election.
Rishi Sunak values mandates too.
He’s relying on the one the country gave his party in the 2019 election as the reason why he doesn’t need to call a general election today.
That’s despite all the dramatic political and economic events that have come to the fore in the past three years.
Both want their own mandate respected while the other is dismissed.
Rishi Sunak tells MPs he spoke to Nicola Sturgeon on the phone last night after becoming PM.
His predecessor Liz Truss described the Scottish First Minister as an “attention-seeker” who was best ignored.
— Theo Usherwood (@theousherwood) October 26, 2022
So don’t expect the Prime Minister to drop his opposition to another referendum.
Nor should we anticipate the First Minister abandoning her demands for an immediate general election.
Nicola Sturgeon won’t be the hardest call for Rishi Sunak
We used to say a week was a long time in politics.
Now seeing a politician surviving a day with the same standing that they began it with feels like an achievement.
In that context, Rishi Sunak has had a good start.
The markets have relaxed a little.
There were very few dissenting voices in response to the shape of his cabinet.
Equally, he pulled off a statesman-like arrival into Downing Street, quite literally making all the right calls.
Yet there’s no question that each day he faces in office will be harder than the one before. Particularly when the economic reality of his first fiscal statement is laid bare.
He’s taking his time over the key decisions within it.
It’s hardly surprising that he wants to get “under the bonnet”, given the time he spent as Chancellor.
Yet it’s still a strong signal of how defining a moment he knows this will be.
While we await pronouncements on what he’ll do about uprating benefits in line with inflation (something he supported in his leadership campaign) or maintaining the pension triple lock (a commitment the Tories made in the 2019 election), he has to decide whether the country can afford it.
And no one can doubt that public finances are substantially weaker now after seven weeks of Liz Truss in power.
Will Sunak budget cuts boost Sturgeon case for Indyref2?
If he keeps those promises, deeper cuts will be required elsewhere in order to fill the circa £40 billion black hole in the books.
Does that mean cutting the NHS as it recovers from Covid?
Anything less than a 10% increase to NHS funding is a real terms cut because of inflation.
What about defence?
A department used to having its budget salami sliced away must surely think it’s safe with a critical war in Ukraine expected to endure.
If he doesn’t want to cut budgets, he’ll have to raise taxes.
Will his party thole that?
Is their newfound party unity a strong enough bond to survive that?
Every one of those decisions will play into the SNP’s hands, re-energising their cause for independence.
While Nicola Sturgeon might want a general election today, the truth is that her cause will grow stronger the further into the future that day comes.
Conversation