Rishi sets out to lose his weak guy image
LONDON: WHEN Rishi Sunak spoke to cabinet last week the UK PM sought to depict himself as a calm technocrat focused on delivery in the face of what threatens to be a new winter of discontent in Britain.
“People are going to judge us on competence, whether it’s strikes or NHS pressures or immigration,” he told ministers.
Yet if the prime minister is sometimes seen as proof that the geeks will inherit the earth, Downing Street is now plotting a series of announcements to show the public that he is actually much tougher than they think on key issues.
And with the autumn statement out of the way, which was seen as un-Conservative by some of his MPs for raising taxes, Sunak is set to launch a series of tough positions on crime, immigration and Brexit to convince backbenchers he is in tune with their concerns.
This week the prime minister will launch the opening salvo, calling for a police crackdown on protesters, like the Just Stop Oil group who paralysed the M25 around London earlier this month, while behind the scenes he has ordered key changes at the Home Office to tackle illegal immigration. The attempt to transform Sunak’s public image from that of an accountant to Action Man comes after Sir Keir Starmer used prime minister’s questions in the Commons to label Sunak as “weak”, a label which Tony Blair — the last Labour opposition leader to win a general election —- used effectively to wound John Major. Tory MP Gareth Johnson called on Sunak to make Just Stop Oil a proscribed organisation, saying: “These people are not protesters, they are criminals.”