6/29/2023 0 Comments Stay afloatThe Conservatives seem to have discovered a fondness for superlatives. On China, I would expect Sunak to take a tough line. This includes not just the war in Ukraine but also rebuilding Britain’s relations with the rest of Europe. He will also need to address foreign affairs. He can leave the finances to Hunt and turn his attention to addressing the bemused and worried electorate. ![]() So, Sunak will have to demonstrate that he’s in charge. She wanted to get things done once she had made up her mind. Margaret Thatcher was just a great politician. Edward Heath and Gordon Brown were technically good but lacked the breadth to make them great prime ministers. On the other hand, people can be technically deficient but muster the passion that goes with greatness. I have seen many great cabinet ministers who fail as politicians. Sunak has to be a politician not just a techno whiz kid. So, he can master the technical intricacies of money and finance without getting stretched. He went to the Stanford Business School which is academically tougher than Harvard or the Wharton School. From the peers’ gallery in the House of Commons, I watched his first appearance in the new job. In his previous government post, Sunak displayed exemplary ability when, in February 2020, just before the Covid-19 pandemic, he became chancellor in Johnson’s generally chaotic administration. Sunak and Jeremy Hunt, the new chancellor, have taken over to clear up the mess. The burden of higher interest rates on government debt will persist for a while. The tax announcement forced emergency Bank of England support for government securities. Yet Truss went ahead, with disastrous effects on financial markets and public confidence. Sunak warned that public finances made that unaffordable. During the summer, prior to getting elected by party members, Truss made extravagant promises of tax cuts to stimulate economic growth. During their thankfully brief tenures, Truss and her chosen chancellor of the exchequer, Kwasi Kwarteng, showed they could neither add nor subtract. Leaders get compared with their predecessors. ![]() He fortunately failed to garner the requisite votes to mount a challenge this week. However, most MPs are fed up with Johnson, who faces a serious parliamentary inquiry into alleged standards breaches. Some members of parliament may misguidedly rank Boris Johnson, prime minister before Truss, and the man Sunak helped to eject in July, as a better choice of leader. Polls put the Conservative party 30 points behind the Labour opposition. ![]() Sunak will have to develop a political persona to reach the public. And he needs to stay afloat at least until 2024 when the next general election is due.Īs a British citizen of Indian descent (like Sunak), I cannot recall a time, in nearly 60 years of living in the UK, when Britain’s national confidence and international reputation have been lower. He has to avoid the catastrophic errors of his predecessor Liz Truss. The first job of Rishi Sunak, Britain’s new prime minister and the third in two months, is to unite his crew and steady a ship that has been holed below the waterline.
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