If you’re in any doubt about whether Rishi Sunak’s pledge to cut VAT from energy bills amounts to a U-turn, just consider what he said himself last weekend.
“We can cut more taxes, but only if we defeat the enemy of inflation and that can only happen if we are honest about the ravages it causes,” he told supporters.
And yet here we are, just four days later, with Sunak announcing a major tax cut of the sort he had previously dismissed as “fairytales”.
It’s impossible to escape the conclusion that the former chancellor knows that with six weeks of his leadership battle with Liz Truss still to go, he is already running out of time.
Monday night’s BBC debate was a golden opportunity for him to start turning round the polls putting him 24 points behind his rival among Tory members.
But it was one he flunked by appearing too eager to get his points across, a strategy which saw him constantly interrupting Truss and led to justifiable accusations of “mansplaining”.
It was unsurprising, therefore, that a YouGov snap poll found that Truss had won the debate in the eyes of Conservative members - the very people who will decide which of the two contenders will succeed Boris Johnson.
Ballot papers will start dropping through 170,000 letterboxes next week, and with many of the recipients expected to vote straight away, Sunak knows he needs a game-changer before then to get back in the game.
If he hoped the VAT pledge might just provide it, he is likely to be sorely disappointed.
Rather than putting some much-needed wind in his sails, it has led to accusations of “flip-flopping” by his opponents, who point out he consistently rejected the same policy when he was chancellor.
Business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng, a Truss supporter, eagerly put the boot in this morning when he said: “I’m delighted that Rishi Sunak has come late to the party and realised tax cuts are a good idea, they’re not a fairytale.
“Being a grown up means that you can have tax cuts. I’m delighted to see that he’s come round to that view.
“It’s a U-turn. Let’s not beat about the bush. This is a U-turn.
When last night’s Talk TV debate was unfortunately cut short, another opportunity for Sunak to get on the front foot in the campaign slipped away.
Now, feared interrogator Andrew Neil lies in wait for Sunak on Friday evening - an interview bid which Truss has, probably wisely, turned down for fear of the damage it could potentially do to her own Number 10 bid.
It may well be his final chance to rescue his own leadership ambitions. If he fails to take it, the contest will be over before it’s truly begun.
