RISHI SUNAK pretended he is going to change things in a Tory conference speech where he ignored real concerns and the fact that his party has been the government for 13 years.

The Prime Minister was silent on the cost-of-living crisis choking the country as the chaotic Conservative conference in Manchester crawled to a close today, while a new poll showed most voters judge him a flop on key policy priorities.

Instead, he made a number of second-order announcements, including confirming the very badly kept secret that the northern part of HS2 is to be cancelled.

He also revealed that the legal smoking age will be raised by a year every year, meaning young people will never be able to legally smoke, after a free vote in the Commons allowing MPs to exercise their conscience.

A-levels are to be merged with vocational T-levels in a new multisubject qualification over the next decade, buttressed by bonuses for some teachers as Mr Sunak pledged to put education at the front of the queue for cash.

Acknowledging the popular desire for change, Mr Sunak endeavoured, however, implausibly, to claim that the Tories could be the agent of it as the enemies of “vested interests.”

“Our mission is to fundamentally change our country,” he said, a phrase possibly never used by a Conservative leader before, and certainly not after 13 years in office.

But fundamental change was not on offer from a Prime Minister struggling to keep his head above political water as voters reject him and the rampaging right in his own party set their sights on post-election wrangling.

Left MP John McDonnell noted that the speech included “nothing to tackle the housing crisis, low wages, insecure work, poverty-level benefits and public services stretched to breaking point.”

Standing in a converted railway terminus in the very city the line was supposed to end up, Mr Sunak announced the Birmingham to Manchester branch of HS2 was cancelled, having allowed the issue to overshadow the conference. 

The line will, however, eventually reach Euston in central London, although HS2 management has been stripped of responsibility for the site.

Mr Sunak covered the U-turn by pledging that “every penny” of the £36 billion saved would be spent on other transport projects in a new “Network North” in particular. 

He rattled through a gazetteer of northern locations to benefit — Shipley, Blyth, Cumbria, Don Valley, Bradford, Hull — at greater speed than any train they will likely see.

Rail unions condemned the move, with the RMT’s Mick Lynch calling it a “disastrous decision for Britain’s economy, environment and infrastructure” and Aslef’s Mick Whelan saying that the government was “not the green, efficient modern railway of the future we were promised.”

Labour campaign chief Pat McFadden slammed Mr Sunak as “weak” and “desperate” but said nothing about Labour’s view of the policy announcements.

TUC leader Paul Nowak said Mr Sunak had “confirmed what everybody already knew: he has neither a plan nor vision for fixing” broken Britain, and the CBI also regretted the U-turn.

Despite dishing out Tory comfort food  — “life means life,” “if you can work, do work,” “family matters” — his speech will not have satisfied the hardliners nostalgic for Liz Truss ascendant in Manchester.

Nigel Farage, once a mortal threat to the Conservatives but now received as an honoured guest, warned that the Tory “parliamentary party is so one-nation social democrat,” throwing down a gauntlet for post-election war.

It is unlikely to enhance Mr Sunak’s electoral prospects either. He is in a slow bicycle race with Sir Keir Starmer on unpopularity. 

The latest Ipsos poll has the PM at a 28 per cent net unfavourable view among the public, with Sir Keir on a net 14 per cent negative.  

And while the premier told conference that “we are making progress on our five priorities,” the public sharply disagrees, with majorities believing he is doing a bad job on all five, rising to 71 per cent on his pledge to cut NHS waiting lists.