Sulky Sunak has scuppered himself

There is a scene in one of the Lord of the Rings films in which kindly Bilbo Baggins becomes contorted with fury as he glimpses the ring around the neck of his young cousin Frodo and tries to snatch it away. This shocking loss of emotional balance reminds us of the old saying that power corrupts. It also puts one in mind of the recent snappy and petulant public displays of the hitherto mild-mannered Rishi Sunak.

In his latest interview, the Chancellor has even started referring to himself in the third person – always a psychologically revealing moment in the life of a celebrity. ‘She’s not her husband’s possession,’ he said of his wife Akshata Murty, ‘Yes he’s in politics and we get that but I think, you know, that we get that she can be someone independent of her husband,’ he told the Sun.

This interview, in which he hits out at an ‘awful smear’ from Labour, comes as his allies brief other newspapers that they think 10 Downing Street is in fact behind a co-ordinated campaign against him.

That such thoughts are being aired within Team Rishi is highly revealing; it implies that rumours of bad blood with Team Boris next door are well-founded.