Backing Badenoch and Braverman is key to Sunak’s success

What do you do when you are a prime minister presiding over a desperately difficult economic outlook riddled with features that are all but intractable in the short-term? Well, in Rishi Sunak’s case, you find other issues that might persuade people to vote for your party and convincing message-carriers to hammer home the approach you are taking.

Sunak’s cabinet appointments have left fiscal conservatives in charge of the economic repair job while unleashing cultural conservatives on areas such as immigration control and the militant trans agenda.

The reappointment of Suella Braverman as Home Secretary was the biggest talking point and biggest risk Sunak took when forming his new administration. But as he told the Commons in his first appearance at PMQs, he had hired Braverman to focus on ‘cracking down on criminals and defending our borders’ in contrast to a Labour party he characterised as ‘soft on crime and in favour of unlimited immigration’.