Appearances can be deceptive. When Rishi Sunak became prime minister last October he presented himself as a break from the past. Gone was the small island populism. Gone were the lies and half truths. Here was a moderate man who could be trusted not to crash the economy. A cosmopolitan politician who could be trusted not to embarrass us all on the global stage. A leader who might even occasionally put country before party.
Five months on and Rish! looks more and more to be the continuity candidate. A third-rate, ineffectual rent-a-gob who is most at home in the Tory echo chamber. Oblivious both to reality and his own failures. Weirdly, Conservative MPs love the new Sunak. They don’t want to face hard truths. That they are comfortably on course to lose the next election, leaving many of them out of a job. That their policies are failing. Have failed. That voters have finally run out of patience. After 13 years of Conservative government, no one can think of anything that works better than it did in 2010.
