The Sunak supremacy

In some ways, it’s easy and even important to keep Rishi Sunak’s performance in announcing his coronavirus job retention scheme in perspective. It should, after all, be pretty easy to be popular in politics when you are offering to spend literally limitless amounts of money protecting people from economic hardship.

A cynic would also say that it’s relatively easy to look grave and statesmanlike when you’re standing next to a prime minister who can still look more inclined to play Prince Hal than Henry V.

But even taking those things into account, I still consider Sunak’s performance one of the most impressive I’ve seen from a British politician in more than 20 years in and around Westminster. I watched Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and David Cameron at their best, generally in times of adversity and when the country craved the sense of comfort that comes from the feeling that the people in charge know what they are doing and are calmly getting on with it.