A "spellbinding first draft of history": Lord Black reviews 'Sunak at 10'
22 May 2024: Sunak calls a general election in a deluge | Image by: Imageplotter / Alamy
4 min read
Laying bare the insurmountable challenges facing Sunak’s premiership, Anthony Seldon & Tom Egerton's masterful telling of the story of a decent man without a killer instinct makes for an agonising read
In the century since Stanley Baldwin became Tory leader in 1923, there have been only 18 party leaders. Shockingly, nine – half of them – have been in just the last 25 years, a statistic that tells you all you need to know about the febrile and fratricidal state of the Conservative Party.
Of these, Anthony Seldon has written magisterial accounts of five, now adding Rishi Sunak to his list, posing the question of whether – given how ungovernable the party clearly has become – he might perhaps be the last Tory prime minister. (He concludes not.)
This is a sympathetic account of Sunak’s premiership. Seldon is – rightly, in my view – generous about his successes. “Ending the madness” after Boris Johnson and Liz Truss, keeping the country “safe and solvent”, restoring calm to the markets, beginning reconciliation with the EU after a botched Brexit, tackling the challenge of AI and strengthening the Union through the Windsor Framework. History – as Oliver Dowden pointed out to Sunak in his final days – “will judge him kindly” for that.
But, for now, those successes are shrouded by the disasters – some of Sunak’s making; most beyond his control.
This riveting account lays bare the insurmountable challenges Sunak – who never really wanted the job in the first place – faced, which would have thwarted even a Disraeli or a Thatcher.
Most damningly, he entered into a 'Faustian Pact' with Suella Braverman, the country’s worst ever home secretary, to win the leadership
He had no time to think: not once was there a discussion about the strategic direction of his government, meaning no narrative about his values and vision could ever emerge. He was boxed in by the commitments in Johnson’s La-La land 2019 manifesto. And he could never escape the swamp of the Johnson / Truss years – a toxic brew of sleaze, economic incompetence and in-fighting. It was a situation William Hague told him was “probably hopeless”. He was right.
But there were failings that can be laid at his door arising from his painful lack of political skill (culminating in the D-Day disaster), “killer instinct” and refusal to engage in the “dark arts” – a theme running throughout this engrossing account. He failed to get a grip of Whitehall or “utilise the power of the office of prime minister”. He missed the opportunity during a “golden hour” after he took office to denounce Johnson and Truss for the appalling damage they had done. And, most damningly, he entered into a “Faustian Pact” with Suella Braverman, the country’s worst- ever home secretary, to win the leadership: her “unworkable” Rwanda plan turned out to be disastrous for the country and for his premiership.
This is the story of a decent man, with a shining sense of duty, who did his best. But perhaps the most intriguing part of this book is the “alternate history” it teases. What if Sunak had won in September 2022? Or what if he had been allowed to be chancellor – a job for which, like his hero Nigel Lawson, he was so well-suited – for five years under a competent prime minister? History might have been very different – and so might our anaemic economy.
Throughout this account – which is an agonising read for Tories – Seldon, who in masterly fashion always provides a spellbinding first draft of history, painstakingly shows how the Tories “lost their thirst for power” and “grip on [its] commanding heights”.
Kemi Badenoch witnessed this excruciating story throughout. As the Tories gather in Birmingham, the big question is: have we learned from those years and regained that thirst for power? That painful lesson might turn out to be Sunak’s biggest gift to the party.
Lord Black of Brentwood is a Conservative peer
Sunak at 10: The Last Conservative Prime Minister?
By: Anthony Seldon & Tom Egerton
Publisher: Atlantic Books
