What will be Rishi Sunak’s political legacy, other than the terribly embarrassing thing that happened on July 4? Not free speech on campus: Sunak never got round to putting that law onto the statute book before the general election. Not the absurd age-related rolling smoking ban: ditto. Nor A-level reform. Nor the new law that was going to force convicts to appear in person for sentencing. Nor the Rwanda removals scheme for illegal migrants. All fell by the wayside in the Sunak dash to defeat.
There is a strong case for regarding something he did as chancellor as the one tangible thing to remember him for: minting a new 50 pence piece embossed with the slogan: ‘Diversity Built Britain.’ That such a canard of progressivism has a claim to totemic status in the short career arc of the last Conservative prime minister tells us a lot about the state of the party.
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