Rishi Sunak

Rishi Sunak has led a chaotic Conservative government since the latter part of 2022, the year he became the third Prime Minister in the space of a couple of months, following the resignations of Boris Johnson and Liz Truss. Sunak was born in 1980, educated at Winchester College (a public school) and Oxford University, before working for Goldman Sachs (a multinational bank) and a series of hedge funds. He was elected as Conservative MP for Richmond, in Yorkshire, at the 2015 General Election – being the successor to William Hague, who took early retirement to the House of Lords. Sunak joined the government in 2018, and became Chancellor of the Exchequer in 2020, replacing Sajid Javid.

Sunak was the man behind the Eat Out to Help Out scheme. During August 2020, public money subsidised people eating meals at restaurants and pubs, the aim being to boost the economy. A smiling Sunak was filmed, pretending to be a waiter, delivering dinners to customers. The economic benefit of the scheme was questionable, and it soon became clear that Eat Out to Help Out led to an increase in Covid cases, and deaths, at a time when it looked as though the pandemic was relatively under control. Other schemes set up by Sunak, to help businesses struggling during the pandemic, proved open to fraud.

Rishi Sunak is married to Akshata Murty, a businesswoman, and the couple are known to be multi-millionaires. They own several houses, including one in London believed to be worth about £7 million. It is doubtful whether Sunak understands the experiences of the millions of people on average, or below average, incomes. Sunak’s October 2021 budget set out planned tax increases, forecast to take the tax burden, as a proportion of gross domestic product, to its highest level since 1951. In contrast to the Conservative Party’s tax-cutting propaganda, Sunak was carrying out the reverse.

In the space of a few months, during 2022, Sunak resigned from the government of Boris Johnson, was runner-up to Liz Truss in a Conservative leadership contest, and then replaced the latter as premier. Sunak was appointed Prime Minister, by King Charles III, on October 25, becoming the fifth Conservative to take the role during the party’s twelve years in power. This was an echo of the four Tory premiers between 1951 and 1964 – namely Winston Churchill, Anthony Eden, Harold Macmillan, and Lord Home. Sunak, aged 42, eclipsed both Tony Blair and David Cameron, becoming the latest youngest Prime Minister since Lord Liverpool, way back in 1812 – the original milestone had been set 210 years earlier. Standing outside 10 Downing Street, Sunak announced “This government will have integrity, professionalism, and accountability at every level”. A few hours later, Sunak showed he did not mean this, re-appointing Suella Braverman to the role of Home Secretary, just six days after her resignation for breaking the Ministerial Code.

Two weeks into the Sunak premiership, Gavin Williamson departed from the Tory Cabinet, for the third time in three and a half years, having been accused of bullying several MPs. Moving into 2023, Nadhim Zahawi, the Conservative Party Chairman, and Dominic Raab, the Deputy Prime Minister, both left the Cabinet, after investigations into misconduct. Sunak, who had a reputation for indecision, belatedly sacked Suella Braverman, in November 2023, after she had been a disruptive influence in the Cabinet for several months. With their economic policy failing, an increasingly authoritarian Conservative government clamped down on public protest, and trade union rights. They also tried to distract the public, with a culture war narrative, attacking modern British values, and ramping up hostility towards desperate asylum seekers, fleeing from persecution abroad. This was done despite Sunak and Braverman being born into families of Indian origin, which migrated to Britain, via east Africa, in the 1960s.

The year 2024 opened with lots of speculation over the date of the next General Election, which was likely in the next few months, although a dissolution of Parliament could be delayed until December, with an Election the following January. On January 4 2024, Rishi Sunak said publicly “my working assumption is we’ll have a General Election in the second half of this year”. In the following weeks, the combination of Tory government dishonesty, opinion polls, and By-Election results, consistently suggested the Conservative Party were headed for a large defeat in the forthcoming General Election. The Conservatives won only four out of the 22 By-Elections in the current Parliament, held between May 2021 and February 2024. Labour won 12 of these By-Elections, the Liberal Democrats four, the SNP and the Workers Party of Britain one each. Both Labour and the Liberal Democrats gained several previously safe Conservative seats, while a large number of the By-Elections were caused by Tory MPs leaving Parliament in disgrace.

This profile is from my forthcoming book “British Politics”, which provides an A to Z summary of the contemporary political scene, with historical background.