London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Friday, Aug 22, 2025

The rise of Rishi Sunak

The rise of Rishi Sunak

The chancellor of the exchequer is more popular than his boss. Winter could change that

BEFORE HE WAS prime minister Boris Johnson used to enjoy himself at Conservative Party conferences upstaging his duller colleagues, whose jokes fell flat in half-empty halls. Light on substance but full of can-do optimism, his speeches imagined a Britain buzzing with new homes and futuristic energy sources.

This year, there was no one to upstage, and no appreciative audience. The prime minister’s address was delivered from a recording studio. The content, though, was familiar: by 2030, he said, Britons would travel in zero-carbon jets and hydrogen-powered trains through a land of plentiful housing, thinner waistlines and racial harmony.

Given Britain’s present difficulties, this talk of sunlit uplands sounded hollow. In a survey by YouGov, a pollster, of how citizens of 22 countries think their government has managed by the pandemic, Britain bumps along at or near the bottom. Mr Johnson’s ratings have suffered in consequence (see chart).


Now Tories are looking to a new king across the water: Rishi Sunak, the chancellor of the exchequer. Not that a leadership challenge is brewing. MPs are grateful to Mr Johnson for the party’s electoral triumph last year. But there are growing doubts about his competence and about recent policy decisions. Many Tories believe that the government has recently erred too far in restricting people’s freedoms, a view that Mr Sunak has championed in cabinet.


A survey of party members by ConservativeHome, the party’s house website, before the conference, produced a damning result for the prime minister (see chart). Last month Ipsos MORI, a pollster, found that Mr Sunak has the highest satisfaction ratings for a chancellor since Denis Healey in 1978. Unlike his boss, he scores better than Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, on most metrics. “Without him we are cream-crackered,” says a Tory.

Talk of rivalry has been fuelled by Mr Sunak’s attentiveness towards other MPs, who feel unloved by Number 10, and an advertising campaign which has seen his personal signature attached to Treasury policies, in the manner of a television chef’s cookware range. Mr Sunak sought to cool it in his brief conference speech, which hailed Mr Johnson’s “special and rare quality” as a communicator.

His rising stock is a reflection of Mr Johnson’s problems. The prime minister called rumours that he is still unwell after being hospitalised with covid-19 in April “seditious propaganda”. But in interviews he has struggled to recall details of regional lockdown regimes. His main domestic agendas—of levelling up Britain’s poor productivity and improving public services—lack policy content.Disable rich-text

In many ways Mr Sunak is the opposite of Mr Johnson. To those who never liked or have tired of the prime minister’s personal style, that is part of the chancellor’s appeal. Where Mr Johnson is brimming with personality, Mr Sunak is bland. Where the prime minister is chaotic, the chancellor is perfectly organised, well briefed and pays close attention to detail. Where the prime minister is a mess, the chancellor is impeccably groomed.

He rose swiftly, becoming an MP in 2015 and chancellor in February, and has shown no appetite for ideological grandstanding. Many colleagues regard him as a truer Thatcherite than George Osborne or Philip Hammond, Tory predecessors, but he embraced trade union leaders in designing the wage-subsidy programme.

He supported Brexit because he believes it will help Britain prosper, but refrains from bombastic Brussels-bashing. A Stanford graduate who has written pamphlets on how the Tories can reach ethnic minorities, he appeals to younger, liberal voters.

But his popularity springs mostly from his largesse. The Treasury will this year spend £192bn ($248bn) on responding to the crisis, including a furlough scheme for workers, business loans and restaurant subsidies. His face adorns adverts for discounted ales at JD Wetherspoon, a pub chain, which benefited from a sales-tax cut, under the banner “Sunak’s Specials”.

These schemes used existing tax and payroll systems, so ran more smoothly than the error-prone test-and-trace programme. And the Treasury is the most competent department in government: if Mr Sunak is managing things well, that is partly thanks to the quality of the ministry he inherited.

It is easy to be popular when you are giving people money; harder when you have to take it away. This month Mr Sunak is replacing the furlough scheme with a much less generous wage-subsidy regime, and the prospects for the economy are deteriorating.

Tighter restrictions have hit consumer spending, and summer’s recovery seems to be petering out. Unemployment is forecast to hit 8.3% by year-end. As joblessness rises, the chancellor will come under pressure to increase universal credit, the main unemployment benefit.

He may not be inclined to. He used his conference speech to argue that, once Britain is through the worst of the pandemic, it will need to deal with its vast pile of borrowing.

If the Tories argue “that we can simply borrow our way out of any hole,” he asked, “what is the point of us?” Since Mr Johnson is keen to maintain a high level of public services, Mr Sunak will either have to fight the prime minister or raise taxes.

“Hard choices are everywhere,” Mr Sunak added. He is beginning to make some. The popularity he has won so easily will soon be tested.

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Ukraine Declares De Facto War on Hungary and Slovakia with Terror Drone Strikes on Their Gas Lifeline
Animated K-pop Musical ‘KPop Demon Hunters’ Becomes Netflix’s Most-Watched Original Animated Film
New York Appeals Court Voids Nearly $500 Million Civil Fraud Penalty Against Trump While Upholding Fraud Liability
Elon Musk tweeted, “Europe is dying”
Far-Right Activist Convicted of Incitement Changes Gender and Demands: "Send Me to a Women’s Prison" | The Storm in Germany
Hungary Criticizes Ukraine: "Violating Our Sovereignty"
Will this be the first country to return to negative interest rates?
Child-free hotels spark controversy
North Korea is where this 95-year-old wants to die. South Korea won’t let him go. Is this our ally or a human rights enemy?
Hong Kong Launches Regulatory Regime and Trials for HKD-Backed Stablecoins
China rehearses September 3 Victory Day parade as imagery points to ‘loyal wingman’ FH-97 family presence
Trump Called Viktor Orbán: "Why Are You Using the Veto"
Horror in the Skies: Plane Engine Exploded, Passengers Sent Farewell Messages
MSNBC Rebrands as MS NOW Amid Comcast’s Cable Spin-Off
AI in Policing: Draft One Helps Speed Up Reports but Raises Legal and Ethical Concerns
Shame in Norway: Crown Princess’s Son Accused of Four Rapes
Apple Begins Simultaneous iPhone 17 Production in India and China
A Robot to Give Birth: The Chinese Announcement That Shakes the World
Finnish MP Dies by Suicide in Parliament Building
Outrage in the Tennis World After Jannik Sinner’s Withdrawal Storm
William and Kate Are Moving House – and the New Neighbors Were Evicted
Class Action Lawsuit Against Volkswagen: Steering Wheel Switches Cause Accidents
Taylor Swift on the Way to the Super Bowl? All the Clues Stirring Up Fans
Dogfights in the Skies: Airbus on Track to Overtake Boeing and Claim Aviation Supremacy
Tim Cook Promises an AI Revolution at Apple: "One of the Most Significant Technologies of Our Generation"
Apple Expands Social Media Presence in China With RedNote Account Ahead of iPhone 17 Launch
Are AI Data Centres the Infrastructure of the Future or the Next Crisis?
Cambridge Dictionary Adds 'Skibidi,' 'Delulu,' and 'Tradwife' Amid Surge of Online Slang
Bill Barr Testifies No Evidence Implicated Trump in Epstein Case; DOJ Set to Release Records
Zelenskyy Returns to White House Flanked by European Allies as Trump Pressures Land-Swap Deal with Putin
The CEO Who Replaced 80% of Employees for the AI Revolution: "I Would Do It Again"
Emails Worth Billions: How Airlines Generate Huge Profits
Character.ai Bets on Future of AI Companionship
China Ramps Up Tax Crackdown on Overseas Investments
Japanese Office Furniture Maker Expands into Bomb Shelter Market
Intel Shares Surge on Possible U.S. Government Investment
Hurricane Erin Threatens U.S. East Coast with Dangerous Surf
EU Blocks Trade Statement Over Digital Rule Dispute
EU Sends Record Aid as Spain Battles Wildfires
JPMorgan Plans New Canary Wharf Tower
Zelenskyy and his allies say they will press Trump on security guarantees
Beijing is moving into gold and other assets, diversifying away from the dollar
Escalating Clashes in Serbia as Anti-Government Protests Spread Nationwide
The Drought in Britain and the Strange Request from the Government to Delete Old Emails
Category 5 Hurricane in the Caribbean: 'Catastrophic Storm' with Winds of 255 km/h
"No, Thanks": The Mathematical Genius Who Turned Down 1.5 Billion Dollars from Zuckerberg
The surprising hero, the ugly incident, and the criticism despite victory: "Liverpool’s defense exposed in full"
Digital Humans Move Beyond Sci-Fi: From Virtual DJs to AI Customer Agents
YouTube will start using AI to guess your age. If it’s wrong, you’ll have to prove it
Jellyfish Swarm Triggers Shutdown at Gravelines Nuclear Power Station in Northern France
×