Neoliberal Centrist Dad, episode 6
It turns out Rishi Sunak really was the best placed person to save the Conservative party. Too bad he blew it
I have been extremely impressed with Rishi Sunak since he became the leader of the opposition. For instance, his response to yesterday’s budget. Whatever your politics, you have to admit that he was sharp, with fire in his belly. It seemed a far cry from the guy who couldn’t seem to say anything original or interesting when he was in Number 10, his interactions with the public and media coming off as damp squibs.
I don’t say any of this lightly - as many long time readers will know, I have been extremely critical of Sunak’s premiership, arguing it may have been the worst in the history of the United Kingdom. People have countered me when I’ve said this - was he really worse than Truss or Johnson? Really? Except Johnson’s premiership was always going to come unwound because of his basic laziness, and Truss simply was not close to being up for the job. Sunak, on the other hand, is clearly someone with the capabilities, both intellectually and character-wise, to be the prime minister. That’s why I have been so critical of Sunak’s time as Tory leader - it’s always been clear to me that he is capable of so much more than what we’ve witnessed over the past two years.
Sunak’s USP when he became PM was “I”m the clever one who will fix everything”. And yet, the entire strategy of his government was to row away from this image as hard as possible, as if it was toxic. Thus, giving Braverman the Home Office again, the “Stop the Boats” podium and the psychotic obsession with the Rwanda scheme. I worked on the Yes to AV campaign in 2010-11 and one of things that sank that campaign so badly was that focus groups had said “No one likes AV, after you explain it to them” - after that revelation, the whole thing was built around the idea that the product was bad and we just had to avoid talking about it. I feel like Sunak’s premiership was the same - it was like it started from the premise that “Rishi’s unlikable in his normal form, so we have to try and make him into something else.” The difference being, the dislike may well have been true about the Alternative Voting system, but I don’t that was ever true of Sunak. If they’d built his premiership around his strengths instead of trying to make him something he clearly was not, it might well have been different.
The tragedy for the Conservative party here is that the new and improved Sunak is exponentially better than either Badenoch or Jenrick. Again, his response to the budget was really impressive. Not for the first time since he became leader of the opposition, I was like, “Who is this guy? I like him”, something I never felt once when he was prime minister. His improvement as a politician since leaving Number 10 has exposed the fact that the Tories may have wasted their one last, big chance. Looking at the Sunak of today up against Kemi and Bobby J, you are left with no other thought than that the immediate future of the Conservative party looks pretty bleak.
Why was Sunak so bad as prime minister then? Many will say “pressure”, but I have a suspicion that a big part of it is he surrounded himself with poor advisers. It’s been a common thread in British politics over the last decade, as advisers have become evermore important and powerful. If you get it wrong in terms of personnel, then your leadership comes unwound very quickly. Sunak might well be the all time worst casualty of this.
Some might say that Sunak was never going to win the next election after the Truss catastrophe, regardless of what he did. That’s probably true, but if he'd spent a couple of years earnestly trying to fix the problems Great Britain faces instead of rabbiting on about meat taxes and seven bins, I think the election result would have been a lot closer than it was in the end. Also, he could have set his party up for the challenge ahead, instead of leaving it in pieces. Farewell, Rishi - we hardly knew ye.
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My heart is breaking for poor old Rishi, and the Tories
You may be right that this was Sunak's finest hour but analogous to a Morris Marina, almost Britain's worst ever car ( I had 2 ), pulling off say a rescue of hostages, plodding away from the scene of the crime.
I was not so impressed by Sunak. He was shouty and overzealous, losing his cool. The points made included lies and misleading half truths. Employers N.I. does not apply to workers, just because employers are people who do some work. That includes myself who sometimes pays that.
Sunak had something in common with various other Tory leaders of recent times. He did not have a clue what to do as PM, but wanted the job for prestige. Where he most contrasted was Bozo was that he thought he could micromanage the country into a better state by stuffing various info into spreadsheets and number crunching. That is more something for civil servants to consider doing. PM is a big job and is all about delegating and communicating with flair and gravitas. Sunak had none of those. But he did a hyperactive attempt at a hatchet job as his outro, before he rides off into the sunset on a slightly more expensive private plane to California.