Back in February the New Statesman reported that Keir Starmer’s inner-circle had concluded that Rishi Sunak was no longer to be feared as a potential successor to Boris Johnson because he was ‘crap at politics’.
At the time this appeared to be a pronouncement that fell under the ‘doth protest too much’ rule, coined by William Shakespeare back in the day, especially given that the briefing also alleged Labour considered Liz Truss a more formidable threat to its electoral fortunes.
But the first month of Sunak’s premiership suggests the Labour briefer was onto something. After the disastrous collapse of Truss’s economic strategy, the failure of which had been accurately predicted by Sunak, he had every chance of receiving an electoral honeymoon.
Opinion polls show that he didn’t get one. Or if he did then it was barely perceptible and very short-lived. The latest polls show things have settled with Sunak’s Tories recording an average 27 per cent support, compared to Labour’s 48 per cent: wipe-out territory.
Perhaps this is because Kwasi Kwarteng’s mini-Budget and its disastrous aftermath simply broke the Tory reputation for economic management as badly as the events of Black Wednesday did 30 years previously.
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