The polite radical: Rishi Sunak on economic repair, migrants and faith

After Rishi Sunak lost the summer Tory leadership contest, he started on Plan B: to be selected for the Kirby Sigston cricket team in his Yorkshire constituency. He had hoped to play for the club when he was first elected as an MP seven years ago, but politics got in the way. Suddenly with more time on his hands, he began to enquire about this ‘friendly, sociable and inclusive’ team – only to find out that its inclusivity had its limits. ‘They told me that I shouldn’t assume I could make the starting XI, because they’d won their league for two years in a row. They said I might have to go and play for the next village down.’

Sunak started practising, but did not in the end try out. Liz Truss resigned after just 44 days in office and he was parachuted in by Tory MPs in the hope that he could unite the party and calm the markets with a less radical Budget.