It is going to be tough for Sunak

Can Rishi Sunak deliver? That is the big question that confronts the United Kingdom, the Conservative Party, and its newly appointed Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. In the leadership contest with Liz Truss, who served as prime minister before him for 45 days, Sunak made it plain that taxes have to be raised, expenditure cut, while Truss offered tax cuts and to subsidise power bills. The market reacted violently to Truss’s plan which she announced as prime minister through her chancellor of exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng’s mini budget. Kwarteng had to resign and after him Truss. Her plan seemed economically unviable.

Sunak in his first speech outside 10 Downing Street on Tuesday did not specify what his exact measures would be to tame the economic chaos facing the country. But he pointed out that Truss made mistakes though the mistakes were committed with good intentions. And he generously praised Boris Johnson because Sunak under Johnson rolled out a generous package to the people during the Covid-19 lockdown. Sunak has now to taper all the giveaways of the last two years and bring back a sense of normalcy.

But it is not going to be an easy task. There is a belief that as a former hedge fund manager at Goldman Sachs, Sunak has enough expertise to turn the economy around. But as the saying goes the test of the pudding is in the eating of it. He has time but not time enough. A year is a little too short to restore the economic health of a country. But if his prescriptions work and the economy improves, then he would have won the battle.

Truss, and before her Johnson, were fierce in their opposition to the Russian war in Ukraine and to Russian president Vladimir Putin.

The two carried an ideological conviction that Britain must support Ukraine against Russia and it is of utmost importance for Britain in its ideological battle between Western democracy and Putin’s ways. It is indeed a matter of curiosity whether Sunak will display the ideological passion of Johnson and Truss against Russia and whether he would consider it of utmost importance for Britain in its battle between democracy and Russia’s approach. He might consider support for Ukraine more in terms of economic advantage than anything else.

It is indeed the case that Sunak is not going to manage it alone. It is the team that he puts in place that will impact the outcome. It will be interesting to know who will be chancellor of exchequer in his cabinet. Will Jeremy Hunt, the man who replaced Kwarteng in Truss’s cabinet, continue because he had started undoing what he thought were the mistakes of Truss.

We are also not sure what he thinks of immigration, and whether he has any ideas of his own on sending illegal immigrants to Britain to Rwanda. And there is the problematic issue of settling the trade issues with European Union (EU) post-Brexit. And given the public mood, which seems to be against the Conservatives and in favour of the opposition Labour, Sunak could well be the lame duck prime minister.

Though the Labour Party looks quite unelectable because it does not seem to have any concrete plan to set the economy right, people might just vote for it in 2024. Johnson and Truss were making brave statements that they will there in 2024, and Sunak had repeated the assertion.

But that does not mean the Conservatives are really confident of winning the next general election though they desperately want to. Sunak’s task is not made easy in any way. But there is indeed a job to be done on the economic front. And Sunak’s energies will be focused on that.