Yahoo Finance Will the honeymoon soon be over for Rishi Sunak?
A rare chink appeared in Rishi Sunak's seemingly impregnable armour last week when the Treasury was forced to delete a tweet celebrating the reopening of pubs on July 4.
With more than 44,000 people confirmed dead from coronavirus, the invitation to "grab a drink and raise a glass" was criticised for tone-deafness.
But the unfortunate episode did nothing to dint the Chancellor's abiding popularity as he continues to be credited with riding to the public's rescue amid the Covid-19 crisis.
As Mr Sunak prepares to make a "jobs, jobs, jobs" pledge in his summer statement on Wednesday, the esteem in which the 40-year-old rookie is held is soaring.
A weekend poll put his approval rating ahead of everyone in the Government – including Boris Johnson.
The Deltapoll survey put the former Fulbright scholar on plus 41, compared with plus eight for Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary, and just plus two for the Prime Minister.
It's quite an accomplishment for the MP for Richmond in Yorkshire, who was only elected to Parliament five years ago after a successful career managing hedge funds.
The son of a GP father and pharmacist mother, whose Punjab-born Hindu family emigrated from East Africa to the UK in the 1960s, Mr Sunak studied politics, philosophy and economics at Oxford, graduating with a first before gaining an MBA from Stanford in the US.
But with another poll suggesting that half of all businesses currently participating in the furlough scheme expect to make redundancies in October, some fear the honeymoon could soon be over for the Government's current golden boy.
An Opinium survey for the Bright Blue think tank found that 44 per cent of businesses in the job retention scheme envisaged making cuts to their workforce, with medium-sized businesses that have fewer than 249 employees the most at risk of job cuts.
The proportion of firms saying their business models will have to change permanently after the pandemic is over is 40 per cent, while 34 per expect that demand is unlikely to return to normal levels even after the virus crisis has ended.
With Mr Sunak already being touted as a future Prime Minister, could the economic fallout from the crisis take the shine off his status as a rising star? The answer to that, as far as Conservatives are concerned, appears to lie in his willingness to follow his own free market instincts.
According to one senior Tory, backbenchers have admired the way in which the former Winchester College head boy has played the whole situation politically.
"He's not done many interviews and press conferences, so he's managed to dodge the fallout from the shells landing on Downing Street," said the MP. "He's like Macavity the Mystery Cat – he comes forward when there's positive things to say but not negative.
"He's socially distanced himself from Cummings and Co by getting on with the job. He's cleverly realised that if he just focuses on his brief and doesn't go wider, he's safe."
Mr Sunak is described as being "much more hawkish" and "pro-business" than some of the more cautious voices inside Number 10, and the MP added: "He's been at odds with Downing Street without anyone really noticing. There haven't been any briefings. He gets away with it because they need him.
"Rishi has always ridden to the rescue. But is he going to take the big decisions? In the short term, they are going to have to cut taxes and deregulate. That's his instinctive position.
"He knows more about finances than Boris. He knows who he is and what he's doing."
Backbenchers concerned that Mr Johnson might not go the distance already appear to have set their sights on Mr Sunak, an ambitious father-of-two who a year ago was leading a Government consultation into accessible toilets.
But that is precisely why some fear he may end up having his wings clipped, despite the crisis leaving Downing Street with less control over the Treasury than it had planned when Sajid Javid was forced out in a power grab in February.
"It is only a matter of time before he is going to be asked to play bad cop to Johnson's good cop," said one Tory source. "He's handled the situation well, but he's been playing the role of Father Christmas. At some point, the Government is going to have to limit spending and borrowing – he might need to turn into Scrooge.
"The trouble is that no one's clear if it's going to be a quick recovery or not. It's not just a question of giving money, but how much money is actually going in. If tax revenues are coming down, what's Rishi's solution going to be to that?"
We may find out the answer to that question – and more – on Wednesday.
