Are the bookies giving odds on how long he’ll last? Still, first non-White PM, that’s one for the history books.
OK, looks like the Conservatives are finally Ready for Rishi! Or at least Ready for Anyone Who Appears to be Marginally Competent!
I boldly predict that he will last longer as PM than Truss 
I predict he WILL last til the next election, because he’s neither a national embarrassment, a crook, or totally incompetent. And then I hope I’m right in thinking he will lose, because his policies will be really unpopular with the electorate.
I’m interested to see who now get the top jobs, and praying that Rees-Mogg is consigned to history.
The bet here is Year of Next General Election. At time of posting:
2022: 16/1
2023: 3/1
2024: 2/9
That seems plausible, given there’s not much of 2022 left and no-one likes winter elections. On the other hand, there’s no incentive at all for the Tories to call an election so…
Definitely a historic moment and it is good to see the UK has its first PM of colour and first PM to practice a religion that isn’t Christianity*.
Sunak is in a long line of Oxford and private school educated PMs though, and is also incredibly rich - both of which things may hurt him as the cost of living crisis bites.
Obviously he stood for this job a couple of months ago so we’ve got a reasonable idea of what his policies are, but there are some things it would be good to clear up in the light of recent events:
Is he still in favour of fracking?
Does he still want to take a penny off income tax, given the new chancellor just put it back on?
Will he raise NIC contributions back to where he recently put them as Chancellor the Exchequer, reversing the yet more recent cut?
In general, how is he adapting his fiscal policy to the new fucked up situation Liz and Kwarzi have left him?
As far as party management goes: will he go for a government of all the talents/team of rivals approach and put Truss/Boris backers in his Cabinet, or will he follow recent precedent and keep ideological opponents outside the tent? What has he had to promise to various people to get their support and will he keep those promises?
*Disraeli was the UKs first ethnic minority PM, but was a practising Christian.
This assumes that him leaving is followed by a general election, as opposed to Prime Minister Mordaunt or similar…
Then the UK is well and truly fucked, isn’t it? 2-3 more years of more of the same is going to absolutely wreck you.
On the other hand, he’s got less incentive to so obviously steal from the coffers as BoJo did.
True, but if the Tories were to no-confidence him and try to install a third PM on the trot then I’m pretty sure there would be actual riots.
Can you suggest a sensible alternative?
Managed decline is as good as it gets, I fear.
Yeah, but he’s horribly out of touch. In his first leadership campaign, he made and released a video of him being an “ordinary guy” buying petrol. It wasn’t his car, he borrowed a shop staff members’ Kia because it looked better than his Jag or whatever, and he let himself be filmed holding his contactless card to the barcode scanner - he’s too rich to go shopping and doesn’t know how to do it.
Point being, it’s very, very easy to paint him as completely out of touch with people going through economic tough times and he’s incredibly bad at presentational retail politics.
Not the same?
Now, this may be the tofu-eating wokerati in me talking, but I hear Labour has some good economic policies. Especially around energy. But then, even just not banning rural solar PV would be better than the Tories.
Is that really going to matter all that much? Sure, he’ll get mocked for it, but he’ll be the PM either way, right??
Of course. But his ability to do that job depends in part on his personal popularity with the electorate and while he’s not likely to hit Truss levels of 70% disapproval, he’s not going to be well liked once his austerity 2.0 agenda kicks in, and the fact that he personally is absurdly rich is going to exacerbate that. So to the extent that this thread is about him leading the UK, this is going to be a problem for him.
I guess that’s my question - does it, though? It looks like only popularity with other Tories really matters in the current structure.
That’s not supported by history I think, rich people usually got rich by taking anything that was not nailed down, when they reach political power they continue with their usual ways, it’s not a question of “incentives” or they would’ve stopped making money and dedicted themselves to enjoy it after the first 10 millions or so.
Ye-es but e.g. in his heyday a big reason Boris was popular with the party was because he was popular with the electorate. They’re going to be doing some pretty horrible shit to us over the next 2 years and being teh leader who can polish those turds is valuable.
Which isn’t to say that his immediate problems aren’t party management ones, but one way to deal with those is to be able to point at a graph of “best PM, Blue Offering or Red Offering” and say “see, line go up”.
…
Thinking about it, another massive point in his favour party management wise is he is in a reasonably good position to say, “Who the fuck are you going to replace me with exactly, and how the fuck are you going to survive doing it?” with a pretty good degree of credibility.
Sunak doesn’t seem to be that sort of rich person, IMO. I mean, sure, “eat the rich”, whatever, but all rich people aren’t necessarily robber barons.
OK, I get what you’re saying.
Oh, yes, but it would be the same whoever the Tories put in charge. Worse, probably. A general election is all we have to look forward to now. My only other hope is that he royally fucks up and forces a no confidence vote. Or pisses off a chunk of his MPs who rebel. But I fear I’m clutching at straws.
Quietly content that the odious ERG couldn’t agree on a candidate to back en masse, which means he’s got trouble brewing there.
Important thing for me is that we keep the gap in the polls and ensure a Labour victory at SOME point soon. Til then, you’ll find me in the basement in a tin hat.
Has anyone seen that 12 BILLION pounds which were lost to Covid support fraud?
That’s not also counting all the billions given away to his friends to fill containers at Folkstone with overpriced useless PPE gear.
Ok, but then he will not steal because he’s not that sort of person, not because he’s rich as Croesus.
Sure, point taken.