Patrick O’Flynn Patrick O’Flynn

The decline and fall of Rishi Sunak

Truss's victory is almost a done deal

Ed Balls, the intellectual powerhouse behind the economics of the New Labour era, was once described as having a brain the size of a planet. He was treated with reverence as a result. Yet when he ran for the leadership of his party he came a poor third, losing to goofy Ed Miliband, a guy who had once served as his office junior. Similarly, one of the reasons Rishi Sunak became the candidate of choice in this Tory leadership race was because of his alleged super-smartness.

As a product of Winchester – the public school most associated in elite circles with outstanding mathematical and analytical brains – as well as Oxford, Goldman Sachs and various hedge funds, it stood to reason that Sunak was operating on a higher intellectual plane than were his opponents.

Sunak had every conceivable skill required to take apart complex problems, winnow the evidence and produce optimal strategies. It placed him way above that ridiculous Truss woman who made cringeworthy speeches about cheese imports and pork markets.

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