‘I am working night and day’: Rishi Sunak on Jilly Cooper, immigration – and his plan for the next election

This Christmas, Rishi Sunak will be reading Tackle!, Jilly Cooper’s new bonkbuster. Cooper sent the Prime Minister a signed copy after she discovered – through The Spectator – that he is a fan. Tackle! is about an equestrian-turned-football manager who inspires a ragtag team to unexpected victory. ‘If you want to score, you’ve got to be a player,’ declares the cover. ‘It is literally on my bedside table,’ says Sunak when we meet in his office in 10 Downing Street.

‘This is the first year in a long time that I have actually read some fiction,’ he says. ‘I read these lovely books, which is good escapism for me.’ One is Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow (about gaming geeks) and the other is Lessons in Chemistry (about a female chemist fighting misogyny in the 1950s).

Perhaps it is not surprising that he is turning to escapism.