STEPHEN GLOVER: What made Rishi think he was fit to be PM?
Tory prime minister Arthur Balfour lost his seat in the so-called Liberal landslide in 1906. At least that hasn't happened to Rishi Sunak, who won in his North Yorkshire constituency.
Yet the Tories under Sunak performed even more abysmally than under Balfour. In terms of seats this was their worst showing since the Conservative Party was created in 1834.
In 1906 they returned 156 seats in a Commons of 670. On Thursday they got 121 seats out of 650. This dire result will go down in history, and still be spoken of in tones of wonder in a hundred years.
Rishi Sunak gives a speech in Downing Street today following the Tory Party's landslide defeat to Labour
Who is to blame? There are several possible candidates. Was it Boris Johnson and Partygate? Or Liz Truss's disastrous mini-Budget? Should we look further back to the era of that supercilious couple, David Cameron and George Osborne, who failed to kickstart the economy after the shock of the Great Recession?
I'd say that all these factors played their part. But Rishi Sunak was on the bridge when the ship went down. He must bear a large share of responsibility for the disaster that has overtaken the Tories.
One could reasonably say that he was dealt a poor hand of cards. But the point is that he had eagerly pushed his way to the card table. He was desperate to play, and it's no good his defenders trying to excuse him by saying that he never had any chance of winning.
Everyone has strong opinions about my Mail colleague Boris Johnson. Some see him as a larger-than-life figure who reshaped British politics. Others regard him as a Lord of Misrule. In a way it doesn't matter what we think of him.
What matters is that he triumphantly won the 2019 election for the Tories. Millions of people, especially in the Red Wall, voted for him as much as for his party. Our system, whether we like it or not, has become increasingly presidential. When Boris was removed in 2022 by a coup, many of those who had backed the Conservatives three years earlier were irrevocably alienated.
The leader of that coup was of course Rishi Sunak, who resigned immediately after his friend Sajid Javid had struck the first blow. We can't know what would have happened if Rishi had remained loyal to Boris, but I'm as sure as I can be that the Tories wouldn't have just suffered so calamitous a defeat.
Rishi Sunak reaches to hold hands with his wife Akshata Murty, as they leave 10 Downing Street after his speech
Remember that when the coup took place Labour's opinion poll lead over the Conservatives was in single figures, a creditable achievement for a mid-term government. Labour feared Boris, and when he was gone — with Sue Gray, now Sir Keir Starmer's chief of staff, having helped despatch him with a withering report about Partygate — it could scarcely hide its glee.
We also can't know what would have happened if Mr Sunak, rather than Liz Truss, had immediately succeeded Boris, and spared us those tumultuous 49 days of her brief, ill-starred reign. Perhaps in such circumstances Rishi would have made a better fist of things.
But the deed — the removal of a popular and fairly successful leader — had been done. Regicide is always a perilous stratagem. If Rishi had been an Abraham Lincoln, he might have been able to set his party on a successful course, but he wasn't, and he didn't.
Why did he think he was fit to be prime minister? That is my question. Voters hadn't chosen him as a leader. He wasn't renowned as a great campaigner, though he had been given a bit part in the 2019 election, having a few months earlier rooted for Boris (along with two other Tory MPs) in a letter to The Times.
I respect Rishi. He is cleverer than almost anyone else in the Commons, and by all accounts extremely nice. He is also energetic (a key quality in any leader) and tireless, as he showed in the election campaign.
But he was — actually, is — also young and relatively inexperienced. Rishi's entire political career has lasted a mere nine years. He entered the Commons in 2015, became a junior minister in early 2018, and two years later was anointed chancellor by his patron, Boris Johnson.
Mr Sunak may have understood economics better than any Tory chancellor since his hero, Nigel Lawson. Still, the furlough scheme, costing £70billion, was an extravagance (much applauded by the Left) that engendered dependence on the State, while the Eat Out to Help Out scheme (nearly £1billion) was ridiculous and wasteful.
Rishi was 42 when he seized the crown from Boris and became prime minister. He had been a politician for only seven years. His previous jobs working for the ruthless investment bank Goldman Sachs and two hedge funds had hardly given him a wide and varied experience of life.
Young, untested leaders are the curse of our time. David Cameron became Tory leader aged 39 after only four years in Parliament, while his friend George Osborne was made shadow chancellor at 33.
Ambitious political tyros are promoted too soon, and so learn on the job, inevitably making mistakes as they rise. While people in their 40s in other walks of life are still learning their trade, these sleek creatures abandon politics for lush financial pastures. So it will probably be with Rishi.
I repeat my question: why did he think, with so little experience, and not having bothered to consult the British electorate, that he was fit for the highest office? Why did he assume he would make a better job of it than Boris Johnson? Because he had been a golden boy? That wasn't enough.
Installed in No 10, Rishi betrayed a strange combination of characteristics. He was at the same time impulsive and cautious. He loved seizing the initiative in a theatrical way — making statements behind his podium in Downing Street that were far from earth-shattering.
Occasionally they were reckless, as when he delivered his five pledges in January 2023, two of which — bringing down NHS waiting lists and stopping the small boats crossing the Channel — he had little prospect of fulfilling.
On the big issues, caution usually reasserted itself. He dragged his feet for months before agreeing to increase defence spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP. He didn't dare abolish or reduce inheritance tax, despite there being much evidence that such a move would be highly popular with centre-Right voters.
Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson with then Chancellor Rishi Sunak in 2022, ahead of the coup
He also delayed tax cuts for far too long and, when they finally came, bizarrely agreed with Jeremy Hunt that they should apply to National Insurance rather than income tax. He failed — one of his most damaging errors — to act to reduce legal immigration until it had reached astronomical levels.
And then — in impulsive mode once again — Rishi announced a July general election, even though it was clear to the tea ladies at Conservative headquarters that the economy will be in better shape later in the year.
Fatally, he didn't take into account the effect of Reform UK, or foresee the return of Nigel Farage. It was Reform, not Labour, that cooked the Tories' goose on Thursday, depriving them of dozens of seats. The most arresting statistic is that Labour won just 33.7 per cent of the vote, only marginally more than the 32.2 per cent it achieved in 2019, when it won its lowest number of seats since 1935.
Who can doubt that Reform would be less popular if Mr Sunak had gripped the issue of immigration earlier, and reduced taxes sooner? Who doesn't wonder whether many of those who voted Reform would have stuck with the Tories if Mr Sunak and his allies hadn't got rid of Boris?
Rishi fought a dogged, resilient and unimaginative campaign. His absence from a meeting of world leaders at the D-day celebrations was unforgivable, and the betting scandals that swirled around him harmful. There was no inspiration such as that supplied by Boris in a rousing speech on Tuesday evening.
Arthur Balfour recovered from his 1906 electoral humiliation, and by 1916 was foreign secretary. It's hard to imagine Mr Sunak making a similar comeback. He had to resign, of course. Someone else must have a go at reviving the Tory Party, and putting it on a sure path that appeals to centre-Right voters.
Aged only 44, Rishi Sunak is being thrown on the political scrapheap. He flew too high, too soon. This talented, though recklessly ambitious, man has crashed to earth in the most dramatic way.
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