Sunak starts unity bid with a stable top table
LONDON: Rishi Sunak has recreated Liz Truss’s top team and retained leading allies of Boris Johnson in a cabinet that emphasises continuity over change.
Although Sunak distanced himself from both Truss and Johnson in his acceptance speech outside Downing Street, almost every senior appointment served under one or both of his predecessors.
Sunak faces the tough task of unifying the fractured Conservative Party and his cabinet appointments are a start. His decision to keep Jeremy Hunt at the Treasury and James Cleverly at the Foreign Office, and to bring Suella Braverman back as home secretary, means the “great offices of state” are exactly the same as they were with Truss.
Braverman’s return to the Home Office came less than a week after she was sacked for breaking the ministerial code.
However, her decision to endorse Sunak was a pivotal moment in the Conservative leadership election, making it clear that Johnson would not win the universal support of the Tory right in his attempt to return to Downing Street.
Hunt, who also endorsed Sunak, had been widely expected to stay at the Treasury. Had Sunak won the leadership in the summer, Hunt would have been extremely unlikely to get the role, but he is now seen as a crucial part of calming the markets.
Hunt warned it was “going to be tough”.
Cleverly’s reappointment was more of a surprise. A Johnson loyalist who backed the former prime minister’s leadership run last week, he had been tipped for demotion. Sunak’s decision to keep him is a significant olive branch to Johnson’s backers.
To add to the continuity, Sunak brought Dominic Raab back as deputy prime minister and justice secretary - the roles he held for the last year of the Johnson cabinet.
Michael Gove was reappointed to the Department for Levelling Up, which Johnson created for him last year but dramatically sacked him from in July in a last-ditch effort to save his government.
Penny Mordaunt stayed as leader of the Commons despite hopes of a bigger job.
Meanwhile, a YouGov poll found Sunak is trusted to manage the British economy well, with seven in 10 voters thinking he will make a better leader than Truss.
The poll, however, had him trailing Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer in approval ratings and 48 per cent of voters did not trust him to make the right decisions on the cost of living crisis. With a fortune of $1.2 billion, 67 per cent regard him as “out of touch”.