Sunak at 10: The Last Conservative Prime Minister? by Anthony Seldon and Tom Egerton
This book makes one think the better of Rishi Sunak. We are reminded of his high gifts and honourable conduct.
Here is a statesman who felt a proper reluctance to seize the highest prize. In the autumn of 2022, as the Liz Truss premiership collapsed, he had to be persuaded by his friends, advisers and wife that it was his duty to try to float the ship of state off the rocks onto which Truss had steered it.
This arduous task he duly performed. The ship was lightened just enough to get it off the rocks. We the passengers showed no gratitude for this deliverance, but after a year and eight months sacked the captain who had performed it.
He departed as gracefully as he had arrived: no sulking in the manner of Edward Heath, no leaving of his party and constituents in the lurch like Sir Keir Starmer.
Before becoming PM, Sunak served for two years and five months as Chancellor of the Exchequer, a role for which he possessed remarkable qualifications. He has a deep knowledge of economics, experience of high finance in London and California, an indefatigable appetite for work, soon knew more about the detail of any question which crossed his desk than his officials did, and more about the mysteries of AI, but wore his learning lightly, and by his humility and good manners won the devotion of his team.
These, it may be noted, are qualities which would have made Sunak a brilliant official, or chief of staff. In the best Wykehamist tradition, he brought clarity to any question.
Of politics he knew almost nothing. He had friends who knew about politics: such people as William Hague, Oliver Dowden, Robert Jenrick, James Forsyth and Liam Booth-Smith.
In the summer of 2019, the Conservative Party defenestrated Theresa May, who had failed to get Brexit done, and cast around for a new leader. On page 30 of the book under review, we find Sunak rationalising his decision to support Boris Johnson:
“There is no one else who could walk up a high street who people would flock to. Boris is a star and we need that.”
Dowden, Jenrick and Sunak (described to me by the manager of one of the rival leadership campaigns as “the rising star community”) wrote an article for The Times which appeared at a most helpful moment in the contest, 5th June 2019, under the headline:
“The Tories are in deep peril. Only Boris Johnson can save us.”
Johnson went on to win the leadership, and the general election of December 2019, and at the end of January 2020 got Brexit done.
But all was not well in No 10. Dominic Cummings, whose contribution in the second half of 2019 had been indispensable, now wished to conduct a sweeping reform of the British state, and saw the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sajid Javid, as an obstacle to his plans.
In February 2020, Javid resigned rather than accept the loss of his independent team of special advisers, Cummings having ruled that all special advisers, including those at the Treasury, would from now on be answerable to himself.
Sunak had won golden opinions as Chief Secretary to the Treasury, the office to which Johnson had appointed him in July 2019, and duly replaced Javid.
One may note how rapid Sunak’s rise was. He had only been elected to the Commons in 2015. Like Starmer, who also entered the House in 2015, he had far too little time to acquire the political education which only prolonged experience as an MP can give.
The Commons has become less good at subjecting its members to that kind of education. MPs are no longer steeped in politics in the way that they were in late-night sittings. They go home early, and spend far more time in their constituencies, attending to matters which would once have been left to local councillors.
Margaret Thatcher worked an arduous apprenticeship in the Commons, 20 years from 1959-79, before she got the top job.
Tony Blair was in from 1983-97, about 14 years, Gordon Brown from 1983-2005, about 22 years. David Cameron was only in from 2001-10 before becoming PM, but had already accumulated a lot of political experience as a special adviser.
Theresa May was an MP from 1997-2016, about 19 years, before reaching No 10.
Johnson was first elected in 2001, left the Commons in 2008 after being elected Mayor of London, returned to the House in 2015, and became PM in 2019.
As a backbencher he spent the bare minimum of time in the Commons, where at first one has to wait for hours before being called to speak, but eventually learns by practice and observation the curious art of parliamentary oratory, and also gets to know other MPs, including those in one’s own party whose support will be required in order to remain PM for any length of time.
Johnson neither knew nor respected Conservative MPs, and added insult to injury by employing Cummings, who went out of his way to tell those MPs how boneheaded they were.
Liz Truss was an MP and minister from 2010 to 2022 before becoming PM for 49 days, during which time her parliamentary performances were of singular feebleness: she had no idea how to defend what the Government she led was attempting to do.
Starmer was in from 2015 to 2024, so about nine years, before becoming PM. His Commons performances were those of a cautious lawyer, giving almost nothing of himself away, rather than a parliamentarian.
Sunak had even less experience of the Commons, 2015 to 2022. When one considers the inadequate length of his apprenticeship, one stands astonished at how well he performed.
Pitt the Younger became PM after just under three years in the Commons, and spent almost 19 years at the top: a staggering achievement.
But the great majority of our PMs were MPs for at least 20 years before they reached the top of the greasy pole.
Greatness seldom arrives overnight. Churchill had spent 39 not quite continuous years in the House before becoming PM, Gladstone almost 36 years, Disraeli 30.
Longevity does not guarantee success: we like our PMs to be precarious. But the rapid turnover of PMs in recent years is caused in part by totally inadequate preparation. They cannot command the House because they do not know its ways.
Observant readers will notice that not much has yet been said about the book under review. It consists of over 500 pages of ill-digested information about the Sunak premiership.
At the start of each of the ten long chapters, the authors set themselves an exam question, generally of the utmost dreariness. For example, on page 217:
“The question is: to what extent did Sunak recover in the months after the Windsor framework, and if so, why was this recovery stunted?”
They proceed to set down, in the manner of panicking examinees, all the information they can lay their hands on, including a good many snippets from interviews which may be of some value to future historians.
But they write without time, documents, wit, proportion or any sense of the story they are trying to tell. They are good at talking to civil servants, but have no conception of the Conservative Party.
Their tone is that of a dull schoolmaster striving to assert a superiority he does not possess. Here are the final sentences on page 555:
“The Tory party still needs to engage in a process of deep self-reflection to understand why it failed in government, and tore itself so destructively apart, if it is ever to regain power. But at this point in time we believe it unlikely that Sunak will have been the last Tory prime minister.”