Patrick O’Flynn Patrick O’Flynn

After Sunak, who?

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Nothing happens, and nothing happens, and then everything happens, the author Fay Weldon once declared. 

This observation about life’s tendency to deliver sudden squalls between periods of apparent calm could certainly be applied to the leadership of the Conservative party. 

It is only a year ago that Kemi Badenoch rather brilliantly used the leadership contest that followed the downfall of Boris Johnson to force her way into the top rank of Conservative politicians after having been overlooked during various Johnsonite Cabinet reshuffles.

Now her merits are widely acknowledged and she is firm favourite at the bookies to become the next leader of the party. Of course, nothing is happening on that front right now because Conservative MPs have sensibly concluded that the public would not take it well were they to launch into yet another leadership coup before the next general election.

So there are no crisis stories being written about Rishi Sunak’s Downing Street operation despite the Tories being much further behind in the polls than they ever were under Johnson and having failed to record an appreciable bounce-back from the dire days of Liz Truss.

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