Yahoo Finance Rishi Sunak's ambition is on a collision course with Boris Johnson's ego
Any politician who strives to be prime minister also thinks about ways to deny that ambition, cultivating the idea they could do the job without sounding too greedy for it. Rishi Sunak’s method, when asked if he wants to take over from Boris Johnson, is to say that his current role as chancellor is hard enough. It is a clever formula – the modesty of a precocious apprentice. It sounds like “no” but means “not yet”.
It is true that Sunak has his hands full at the Treasury. He also got there fast, after less than four years in parliament. A 40-year-old with not many miles on the political clock can usually afford to take time on the journey to the very top, although his peers in the Tory party have no doubt that No 10 is the preferred destination. They describe a man whose incandescent ambition dazzles even when sheathed in self-deprecation.
Labour is mapping the chancellor’s upward trajectory warily, mindful of the possibility that Johnson could be deposed before the next election. In recent weeks opposition attacks on the government have pointed quite directly at Sunak, in terms of policy and character. He is accused of being slow to support vulnerable people through a second wave of Covid infections and of secrecy over the “blind trust” where his personal fortune is stored.
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The second of those avenues is probably a dead end. Voters who feel warmly towards Sunak will not turn cold because he is rich, nor will they be appalled that he manages his money shrewdly. That can be a positive credential for Tory chancellors. But lifelong privilege can be relevant as a barrier to empathy when it comes to the issue on which Sunak is more vulnerable: how public resources are deployed in the pandemic; who is protected; who is left behind.
The caricature of cold-hearted Conservatives turning their pinstriped backs on poverty is never far from the surface of British culture. It cut through with ferocity when the government refused to extend free meal provision through the school holiday in England.
Widespread public anger has sowed panic among Tory MPs. As the man responsible for the exchequer purse strings, Sunak cannot avoid being ensnared in the row, although that hasn’t stopped him trying. There was a petty skirmish of interdepartmental briefing on the question of whether a penny-pinching chancellor had blocked money that the education secretary would have given to hungry children. No such request was ever made, says the Treasury.
That is a foretaste of Tory civil strife to come. The party is ideologically unready for the long haul of government subsidy that decent pandemic management requires, and led by a man who is incapable of long-haul thinking about anything. MPs are doubly angry with Downing Street over the free school meal fiasco because it is a replay of the way the exact same issue was mishandled over the summer. A dangerous pattern has emerged. Johnson’s deficient attention span gets the government into trouble. The arrogant, pugnacious No 10 spin machine makes it worse, responding to criticism with denial and contempt. After a stubborn delay, the problem is patched with a clumsy U-turn. Any advantage from appearing to do the right thing is lost in the fog of incompetence.
Sunak likes to keep his distance from the No 10 shambles and the Treasury is traditionally a bastion for that purpose. Politically astute chancellors are noticed only when they choose. They surface for set piece economic interventions that are guaranteed to reach a wide audience. Then the submarine sinks back into the Whitehall foam. Sunak has tried as far as possible to follow that model. Prominent and slickly marketed when it suits him; silent and stealthy when it doesn’t.
On Brexit, for example, his position is invisible. He knows that businesses want a deal and what the cost of failure to get one would mean for the economy. But he understands also that a prospective Tory leader must not be seen in too close proximity to realism when Europe is the topic. His speech to this year’s virtual party conference made no mention of it, which was tactically smart but intellectually disreputable, given what is at stake for the country.
The pandemic will keep forcing the Treasury submarine to the surface. The comparison is commonly made with wartime, given the size of the emergency mobilisation and the financial cost. In that context it is worth remembering that rationing in the UK ended in 1954, nine years after the Axis powers surrendered. Even with a relatively brisk post-Covid recovery, an atmosphere of hardship will drag on long after any “Blitz spirit” has dissipated.
Another round of budget austerity is not politically viable, nor is it economically advisable. Borrowing is cheap and markets are relaxed about a forecast deficit of £350bn, but those conditions are not guaranteed in perpetuity.
From Sunak’s perspective, the political and economic cycles are out of alignment. Normally, the ideal timing for unpopular measures – the tax rises made inevitable by current spending levels – would be as early as possible in a parliament, leaving time for resentment to fade before an election. No one thinks it is wise to claw back revenue at this point in the crisis, when the economy needs every possible fiscal lubricant. But if not now, when?
It is every chancellor’s job to worry about the wind changing. It is the current prime minister’s habit not to care. Even without differences of economic philosophy, tension is inevitable between Johnson’s incoherence, promising the earth with no regard for who should pay, and Sunak’s need to be independent and in control of the Treasury. His campaign for the succession is built on his brand as the serious, capable one in a cabinet of rogues and ninnies. It is a catch-22: being chancellor puts Sunak in pole position to take over, but the longer he serves as a Johnson loyalist, the less attractive he looks as a potential prime minister.
The current Tory leader is in difficulty but his leadership is far from derelict. He still has reserves of support in the country, a ruthless streak and infinite pride. Two axioms stand out from any study of Johnson’s career: first, he must never be underestimated. Second, his greatest skill is getting out of the scrapes that his lack of judgment gets him into. Put those together and you arrive at the forecast that he will be a terrible prime minister who is good at clinging to power. He will leave no legacy to inherit, only a mess to clear up.
There can be no continuity in Johnsonism. It is an episode, a convulsion, a one-off. The next prime minister, even if it is another Tory, must run as an antidote to the current one. That is hard for someone who has helped cook and serve the noxious brew. Sunak has less time than he thinks. He has to decide how long to be part of the Tories’ Johnson problem before somehow offering himself as their solution.
• Rafael Behr is a Guardian columnist
