Laura Kuenssberg: Rishi Sunak needs political superpowers to make his rebrand work

In the next few days we will all see more of the new-look Rishi Sunak.

'Mr Safe Pair of Hands' is gone - it's 'No more Mr Nice Guy' now.

Less of the touchy feely "green crap", as his forerunner David Cameron once branded it - more of the red meat for motorists and rhetoric for Tory members. And if that means the home secretary riling up the left about refugees, so be it.

Meet Rishi Sunak the "change candidate", to use the political jargon. The man who wants to tell you why the country is going wrong - and how he'll fix it.

With the public grumpy, Conservative strategists reckon that voters will want something different at the next election. The idea is simple: pitch Mr Sunak as someone who wants to change the status quo - apart from him being in Number 10, that is.

It's a tactic that was clear in his big speech last week when he asked: "Do we want to change our country... or carry on as we are?"

A cunning scheme, perhaps, after months and months of dreadful polling. As one cabinet minister puts it, if you have kept trying the same thing and you're still miles behind, it is simple logic to "take a risk".

But after 13 years in charge, it might take a political superhero to make the rebrand work.

The first obstacle - which I'll be asking him about when he appears on my show tomorrow - is his reputation.

He was initially presented to the public as someone safe, responsible, and serious - in other words, not Liz Truss or Boris Johnson. He was the grown up in the room, the guy who read the briefing papers, understood the spreadsheets and did not upset the apple cart.

It may be a considerable job to convince the public that he was secretly a firebrand all along, bristling with zeal to change the world.

Second, having what Sunak calls an honest debate about the "consensus" means junking some government promises.

As far as the public is concerned, U-turns are not always the worst thing - better to stop a disaster than let it happen. But whether it's the shifting of green targets or the wobble over HS2, there is a political cost.

There have been noisy barbs from prominent Tories; businesses and campaigners are spooked.

While some insiders point to flickers in the polls after Sunak put the brakes on the green agenda, there is not yet much evidence that green scepticism is a big force influencing voters' behaviour - albeit the Uxbridge by-election win, widely attributed to Labour mayor Sadiq Khan's expansion of London's Ultra Low Emission Zone (Ulez), has piqued the attention of top Conservatives.

Switching tack risks the impression that the government doesn't know what it wants or stands for.

Flirting more overtly with the right of the party - whether on the environment or allowing the home secretary to speak pointedly about refugees - tickles some of the party's traditional backers. But again, there's a flip side.

Is this the "real Rishi", as allies have excitedly briefed? I'll be putting that directly to him too. One MP's response to the question was far too rude to write down here, but it translated into: "I fervently hope not."

Their real concern was that the right of the party is essentially insatiable. Measures for motorists or changing the rules for boilers won't quench the thirst of the increasingly vocal group who see themselves as real Conservatives - shouting about the level of taxes today, for example, and on the fringes at conference in the next few days.

And what's the biggest challenge for any wannabe political superhero trying an epic rescue?

Well, for Sunak to present himself as the man for change is a tacit admission that lots of things have gone wrong on his party's watch. One former cabinet minister asks simply: "How can you be the change candidate when the party has been in charge for so very long?" First-time voters for the next election were barely at primary school when the Conservatives took power.

Should we be surprised by what seems a sudden transformation? Well, over the summer the PM was already talking up the idea of pursuing net zero targets in a "proportionate way", and promised to review what were branded "anti-car" policies then.

He and his team study focus groups' reaction to government closely - but what's interesting is that those who know Sunak well have long whispered that he is "more right wing than people realise".

He was a Brexiteer - not automatically in the group of Conservatives who see themselves as the moderate middle. As the pandemic unfolded he was considered a 'hawk' in the debate over lockdowns, when ministers were trying to balance the economy and health.

As Boris Johnson's chancellor he certainly signed some big cheques - but his discomfort with the scale of government spending was widely understood. There was always a sense that he was making decisions based on circumstance, not conviction.

For a lot of this year he has been accused of being too blank, sticking only to what his critics saw as his pedestrian five pledges. Number 10 is filling that vacuum - perhaps saying something is better than nothing. And as the conference season trots on, it is harder for voters to wail: "They're all the same."

The big question is: will this work?

Some Conservatives sniff opportunity, an increasing vulnerability from Labour, who have opened themselves up to new attacks by saying more about immigration and their desire for a new relationship with the EU.

Sunak's allies say the PM has a passionate desire to win and to change the country, which they say the public will see in time. Remember that Boris Johnson ran as a change candidate in 2019 with staggering success (also remember, though, that he had a supersized political personality, both loved and loathed, and a brass neck).

Most voters don't sit around wondering about political strategy months before an election. Minds are made up firmly nearer the time. As one senior Conservative says, the broader feeling in the country when the ballot comes will be the strongest factor in whether Rishi Sunak manages to pull off political heroics.

"I don't think it's entirely, or even mostly about Rishi," they tell me. "It is the results on the ground, earnings and jobs, the NHS, strikes and the cost of living."

For all that the two big parties' positions in the polls have been pretty stable for a long time, politics can change like the wind.

We'll see on Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg tomorrow morning, and in the coming days at the Tory get-together in Manchester, how determined Rishi Sunak really is to take a different approach.

What's clear is that, after so many months in the doldrums, he is switching style. He is refusing to lose by default.