I’m not here to praise Rishi Sunak, or to bury him — the soon-to-be-former British prime minister has dealt with both of those tasks admirably, all by himself. If Sunak is remembered for anything, it will probably be as a curious footnote: After becoming the fourth leader of the U.K.’s government (and the Conservative Party’s parliamentary majority) within four years, he managed to restore a semblance of political stability and “normalcy” to 10 Downing Street after the tragicomic chaos and self-destruction of the Brexit vote and Boris Johnson’s tenure. Whether stability and normalcy are achievable long-term goals in any so-called democracy these days remains to be seen.
Sunak wrote a memorable first draft of his political obituary this past week, standing in a drenching rainstorm on the pavement outside his official residence to announce that an unscheduled general election — a “snap election,” in British parlance — will be held on July 4. (The social media meme “10 Drowning Street” took off within minutes.) All 650 seats in the House of Commons will be up for grabs, and nearly all observers expect Sunak and the Tories — a term that predates the official founding of the Conservative Party by 150 years — to lose, perhaps in a historic wipeout, returning the opposition Labour Party to power for the first time since 2010.
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