Can rich Rishi save the Tories from defeat?
No, but he might save them from oblivion.
The Tories are toast, everyone realises that. Their polling figures are dire, their reputation for sound financial management ruined, their party hopelessly divided. Also, in a very real sense, the Conservatives deserve to lose the next general election. The whole point of democracy is to throw out governments that make a mess of things, and the mess the Tories have made is incalculable. It has undermined sterling and made the UK a laughing stock across the world. Things were bad enough under Boris, but at least he got some things right, like the vaccine task force and backing Ukraine.
So the question isn't will the Toris lose but by how much. At present the party risks emulating the Canadian Progressive Conservatives in 1993 who went from an overall majority to only 2 seats. That's what the recent opinion polls here indicate. Such a loss could end the Conservatives as a viable political force, as I discussed in a recent post . So it matters whether they can at least leave office with the prospect of possibly returning in a couple of elections. And it may be that the Tories have just pulled back from the brink.
Rishi Sunak, at least, has the right story to tell. He warned Liz Truss that she was living in “fairy land”; that her unfunded tax cuts were reckless and would lead to a collapse in the value of the pound and a catastrophic increase in the cost of government borrowing. It is rare in politics when politicians actually get things right. His accurate forecasting will undoubtedly play strongly both in the markets and the country.
As Chancellor, Rishi Sunak managed to negotiate the the pandemic with authority and competence - bar the unfortunate losses over bounce back loans to businesses, most of which didn't bounce back because the recipients had scarpered. But he also forced Boris, against leaders's instincts, to increase taxes to pay for his health and social care policies. Cakest he isn't.
That is the main reason some on the Tory right dislike Sunak. They think he is personally responsible for increasing taxes to their highest level since the 1950s. He has been called a “consocialist”, by Richard Tice the leader of Reform UK. A blue Gordon Brown, even Davos Man – a prisoner of globalist financiers. But anyone who knows anything about recent history knows that it was Boris who was pressing his foot hard down on the spending accelerator while Rishi was trying to put on the brakes before he went over the cliff.
So he talks well, has a good story. But what of the negatives? Well, the most obvious is his breaking of the law. Boris Johnson was driven out of Number Ten because he got a fixed penalty notice during party gate. Now Rishi Sunak is likely to enter it even though he received a similar fine. And for the same birthday party, as Labour has been quick to point out.
Sunak was not of course involved in other bibulous events during lockdown – as far as we know. Most don't level partygate against Sunak because he is not a party kind of a guy. He doesn't drink, is a workaholic and extremely organised in his personal life and in his political work unlike Boris Johnson. Sunak comes across as a rather a pernickety swot – which perhaps isn't a bad thing right now.
Then there's his wealth. Rishi Sunak is fabulously rich – he is said to be worth over £700 million and his wife is even richer, though Akshata Murthy has given up her non-dom status and is now paying UK taxes. I think Rishi's richness was over played during the last leadership election campaign, which was only a couple of months ago even if it feels like years. Nor is his wife's financial arrangements his responsibility. We don't live in a patriarchy.
Talk about his expensive suits and his Prada shoes was used by his detractors in the Tory party to suggest that he could not appeal to the common man or woman in the North of England. This showed contempt for the intelligence of the common man. They care less about the cost of his shoes, than about the cost of their mortgages. And the cost of their gas. Boris was surely the ultimate Eton toff and they voted for him. So Rishi worked for Goldman Sachs? At least he knows about money.
Sunak was the hero of the pandemic because he genuinely did prevent millions of people from falling into destitution by paying them 80% of their previous pay packets when they were laid off through lockdown. Boris my have inspired furlough, but Rishi delivered it, and he realised that taxes would have to rise to help pay for the aftermath. That helped to wipe out any suggestion that Sunak is a doctrinaire, small state Thatcherite. Liz Truss did the rest by showing that the libertarian alternative, slashing taxes on the wealthy, is just not happening
So Rishi Sunak could partially restore the Tory fortunes. And there is one further point in his favour. If he wins the leadership contest he will be Britain's first non-white Prime Minister. The Conservatives have not only delivered the most diverse cabinet in British history, and had three women prime ministers, but will have installed in Number Ten an Asian who was born to African Hindu parents with Punjabi Indian descent.
This origins story will immunise Rishi Sunak from a lot of the ritual abuse that Tory politicians get on social media and the BBC, even though he went to an expensive private school. White cartoonists will have to be careful how they depict him to avoid accusations of racism and punching down on a member of an ethnic minority. And if any Labour MP is stupid enough to say he's only “superficially” Asian, they'll be out the door quicker than you can say Rupa Huq.