‘Do you think people are stupid?’ Sunak shrugged. Of course he did
Remember the happy clappy Rishi Sunak? The caring Dishy Rishi? The chancellor who could look lovingly into the camera at Downing Street press conferences and promise that he would have our backs? Always. The Good Samaritan who smiled as he dug deep behind the sofa to pay our wages when our employers could not?
That Sunak is long gone. The new Rishi is a far snippier iteration. Someone who walks out of interviews when he doesn’t like the questions. Someone who is visibly irritated to have been forced to fill in a police questionnaire about the birthday party of a boss he cannot stand – and who cannot stand him; the dislike is mutual. Someone who is beginning to realise he might just have missed the boat.
A month or two ago, Boris Johnson looked like he could be a goner at any moment and Sunak a leading contender to replace him. The chancellor’s poll ratings with Tory members were consistently high and he had the aura of competency. Now, not so much. Half the cabinet, including the prime minister, are actively briefing against him and the other half are merely biding their time to see how the cards play out.
But Sunak is not going down without a fight. The job might be a lot tougher now many of his colleagues have withdrawn their support and he is having to take money off the country rather than hand it out, but he’s not planning on rolling over. And even though his spring statement had been torn apart by most independent analysts – along with some Tory MPs – he was determined to defend it to the death in his appearance before the House of Commons Treasury committee.
Like most things the chancellor does these days, it didn’t go particularly well. When your luck’s out, your luck’s out. Sunak began by running through the
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