STEPHEN GLOVER: Britain is poised to get what it needs

STEPHEN GLOVER: Britain is poised to get what it needs – a leader around whom warring Tory factions can settle and coalesce

So it has happened. After all the various claims from the Boris Johnson camp, their man has dropped out of the latest Tory leadership race. Rishi Sunak is effectively Prime Minister.

It is of course sad for Boris, but by a wide margin the best outcome for the country. The prospect of Rishi and Boris Johnson going down to the wire was a deeply alarming one.

Britain has got what it so sorely needs — a clear result, around which warring Tory factions can, with luck, settle and coalesce. A deal between the two candidates was never on the cards.

The danger was that Rishi would easily win the vote among Tory MPs but that the result would be reversed in the ballot of Conservative Party members. There could have been a stand-off in which some of Mr Sunak’s supporters refused to accept Mr Johnson as leader.

Now that Boris Johnson has dropped out of the latest Tory leadership race, Rishi Sunak is effectively Prime Minister

That would have led to chaos, and the inevitable fall of the Government — followed by a landslide Labour victory. The Tories might have been finished for a generation. Now there is some hope.

For all Boris’s qualities, the truth is that Rishi was the stronger of the two contestants. I discount Penny Mordaunt as being inexperienced, and very possibly (like Liz Truss) not up to the job.

In different, happier circumstances, Boris might have deserved another chance. He is a man of immense and unusual gifts — as well as considerable flaws — whom it is not easy to reject. Yet this turbulent and divisive man shouldn’t now be leader of our country.

Britain is in a mess. Putin has created an energy crisis. The pandemic has thrown the public finances into disarray. And for the past few weeks Liz Truss has taken us on a mad, and wholly unnecessary, white-knuckle ride on a big dipper that has further frayed our already jangled nerves.

What most of us long for, I submit, is calm, stability and competence — which is what Rishi Sunak offers. He understands numbers and economics — which Boris emphatically does not.

Somehow the sight on Saturday of the blond bombshell bounding off his aeroplane at Gatwick made me yearn for peace and quiet. So did that picture yesterday of the rather manic-looking ex-prime minister, with one thumb in the air and a pugnacious expression inviting us to join him on the next phase of his journey. Not for me, thank you. Not now.

The prospect of Rishi Sunak and Boris Johnson going down to the wire was a deeply alarming one 

Whereas Rishi’s presence in No 10 will soothe the markets, the sight of the free-spending Boris back in his old job would have rattled them. Rishi offers us hope that this convulsive period in our national life — which has lasted pretty much since the 2016 EU Referendum — might not go on for ever.

To be specific: Mr Sunak has a chance of re-uniting the Tory Party, and healing some of its wounds, because, unlike Boris, he is not viscerally hated by a sizeable chunk of its MPs. This is a crucial point in his favour.

Moreover, although Rishi is often said, wrongly I think, to be on the Left of the party, he has attracted the support of several key figures on the Right, including rising star Kemi Badenoch, Steve Baker, Suella Braverman and Boris’s former chum, Lord Frost. All of them are solid Brexiteers.

Consider this point. If Rishi Sunak were the Establishment patsy that his detractors have alleged, I don’t believe he would have backed Brexit in 2016. As a young MP who had only been in Parliament a year, he had much to lose by offending the pro-Remain party hierarchy.

Naturally, I don’t think he’s perfect. As Chancellor during the pandemic, he was chiefly responsible for the furlough scheme, which covered 80 per cent of salaries up to a cap of £2,500 a month. It lasted too long and was too generous. Tens of billions were squandered on other ill-conceived Covid measures such as Test and Trace or lost to fraud.

Some of the £400 billion Covid debt that has been built up — in proportion to the size of Britain’s economy, one of the largest in the world — could have been avoided with more prudent management.

I discount Penny Mordaunt as being inexperienced, and very possibly (like Liz Truss) not up to the job

But as Prime Minister at the time, Boris Johnson should also accept responsibility for this extravagance. In fact, he was a more fervent evangeliser for lockdown than Mr Sunak, who resisted calls for a third misguided episode last December after the Omicron variant was detected.

Another error that can reasonably be laid at Rishi’s door is the rise earlier this year in National Insurance. Its recent reversal is virtually the only positive achievement of Liz Truss’s administration.

Britain was the only major economy to raise taxes in the immediate aftermath of the pandemic and with an energy crisis looming. That was Rishi’s decision, with Boris, despite some qualms, offering covering fire.

My argument is not that everything that Mr Sunak has touched has turned to gold. He was a competent rather than an outstanding Chancellor. But he has shown that he understands the markets, and correctly forecast their panicky reaction to Liz Truss’s unfunded tax cuts.

By the way, one argument sometimes deployed against Rishi — namely that he was Boris’s ruthless assassin — is overdone. Didn’t Margaret Thatcher connive in the removal of Ted Heath as PM, and indeed Boris Johnson in the defenestration of Theresa May?

It is admittedly true that Mr Sunak is an unknown quantity as the occupant of No 10, whereas Boris’s strengths and defects are known to all of us. The truth is that Rishi hasn’t been given the opportunity to show he can be an effective national leader. It is a risk we have to take, as we do with all new prime ministers.

For the past few weeks Liz Truss has taken us on a mad, and wholly unnecessary, white-knuckle ride on a big dipper

Ah, I hear some Boris supporters say, what about the polls over the weekend suggesting that Boris would do better than Rishi against Sir Keir Starmer? My answer is that no one can know. How well Mr Sunak does in two years’ time will be determined by how successfully he grapples with the daunting economic problems that face us.

It was far too early for Boris Johnson to return, though his time could conceivably come again. His failings are fresh in the electorate’s mind, and his achievements not yet sufficiently treasured. The admittedly biased Commons committee investigating whether he misled the House has barely begun its inquiries.

At a moment when the country craves stability, the return of Boris Johnson would have brought more tumult and discord. I don’t doubt he would have done some things right if given the chance, but he was too divisive a figure to run this country in its present disrupted condition.

If he and Rishi had been able to make a deal and unite the Tory Party, that would obviously have been splendid. But it wasn’t realistic. Rishi couldn’t contemplate being subservient to Boris, and Boris was unable to imagine being inferior to Rishi.

Now that Rishi Sunak is on track to become the next Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, there is a hope — I put it no more strongly — of measured, stable government. The Conservative Party has an infinitely better chance of holding together than it would have done if Boris Johnson had won.

This country has been crying out for calm and competence. Rishi Sunak is the only person who can bring our long national nervous breakdown to an end.

Source: Read Full Article