The Tories have hit an all-time low: an Ipsos poll shows the party on a dismal twenty per cent, with the percentage of under-35s intending to vote for them in single figures. Never has a flush looked quite so busted as Rishi Sunak.

It was against this bleak backdrop that the Prime Minister’s lectern was trundled on to Downing Street on Friday night. There was something about the suddenness and urgency of this occasion – asking the press to assemble just as the pubs fill up at the start of the weekend – that put a little spring in the heart. After months of blatant antisemitism on the streets, and now with the intimidation of MPs by Islamists and their fellow travellers, was the PM finally going to actually do something?

This was desperately thin stuff

I should have known better than to think so. That lectern is wheeled out far too readily nowadays, debasing its own coinage. Theresa May was forever having it put out, for supposedly momentous occasions which I now can’t remember except for a sense of ‘was that it?’.

In Sunak’s speech, there was some vague talk about ‘a line being drawn’. But, like all of his many Tory predecessors over 14 years, Sunak doesn’t even talk a good fight. Instead, we got the familiar litany of inane platitudes.

We don’t, apparently, like nebulous ‘extremists’ who despise and agitate against equally nebulous ‘British values’, whatever they are. There was even a mention of ‘our island story’, which is meant to sound Churchillian, but which only ever makes the person who says it sound like a right nana.

This was desperately thin stuff, with no mention of policy or actual action. Sunak revealed that he was going to have a stiff word with the police, which involves asking them nicely to do their job at the hate marches. But it’s obvious that such threats have absolutely no force. The system of operational independence relies on the police feeling an obligation to do their job: an obligation their upper ranks quite obviously no longer feel.

In an attempt to put his words into action, Sunak is, we’re told, planning to ‘broaden’ the definition of extremism in law. Tory MP Miriam Cates has adumbrated on X/ Twitter why this tinkering – rather than enforcing perfectly adequate existing laws – is obviously a very bad idea. ‘This is a slippery slope towards the abolition of fundamental freedoms,’ she points out.

Sunak is, not for the first time, reaching for the wrong solution. The consequences of mass immigration and Britain’s changing demographic is a horrible, nightmarish thing for him to have to confront – the consequence, we mustn’t forget, of Tory (and Labour) policy for decades. But within the bubble of Westminster politics, it’s easy not to see these effects. So Sunak chooses instead to turn a blind eye to the situation, until he is forced into issuing a response. His speech on Friday – and this subsequent pledge to crack down on ‘extremism’ – is the outcome, but it will change nothing.

One of the qualities most needed in a leader – sorely lacking in Sunak’s case – is the ability to confront unpleasant facts. Our Prime Minister instead has a propensity for messenger shooting, as Suella Braverman, who was sacked as Home Secretary in November, can attest. Back then, Braverman accused the Metropolitan Police of bias in the policing of protests. For those comments, she was forced out. But now, four months on, Sunak seems to be saying much the same thing, albeit more weakly.

Even though the PM finally appears to be wising up to what is unfolding on Britain’s streets, he still clearly prefers to believe things aren’t so bad. To admit it would be to square up to the daunting scale of the grim task at hand, to realise that you have to fight thorny battles for years. A good leader would relish the opportunity to straighten things out; it would be their meat and drink. Yet Sunak seems terrified of action; he is afraid of his own power, so chooses to do next to nothing.

Sunak is, not for the first time, reaching for the wrong solution

If Sunak really does want to make Britain a more cohesive place, he needs to know that British values aren’t being undermined in our daily lives by the ‘far-right’ or Islamists, but by almost every cultural and governmental institution, who are overwhelmingly white, middle class and nominally left wing. All too often, these organisations relegate the day job in place of an obsession with things like diversity, equity and inclusion. They spout the message of inclusivity but alienate the vast majority of people living in Britain by obsessing over things that help no one.

Even our most sacred and venerable institutions – the Church of England or Oxford and Cambridge universities – seem embarrassed by our past. If this ‘island story’ that Sunak mentions means anything, it’s our proud and great history. But we hear next to nothing about this; instead, the focus is on apologising and trying to atone for past misdeeds.

The Tories have been in power for 14 years and they have failed spectacularly. Democracy is in crisis in the UK, because, in too many cases (such as on the issue of immigration) politicians don’t want to do what the public wants. Our first-past-the-post electoral system makes it impossible to boot them out, so the faces in Parliament stay the same but anger and resentment builds among voters. The Tories’ dire polling should be a wake-up call for Sunak. Instead, it’s more likely to fall on deaf ears – and when Sunak inevitably gets the boot, he’ll be replaced by another politician, Keir Starmer, who will also reach for the wrong solution and fail to tackle the real issues facing our country. Until people who are prepared to face ugly facts are in charge, nothing will get better.