The chancellor has risen up to become a PM-in-waiting
Next to the increasingly gaffe-prone Johnson, Sunak can’t help but look prime ministerial, says Andrew Woodcock
Rishi Sunak is not the first ambitious politician to try to establish his own “brand” as an aid to propelling him to the top.
Margaret Thatcher had her handbag and perm, Tony Blair had his passion for football and rock music, Boris
Johnson his untucked shirt and artfully ruffled hair – all of them calculated to help them stand out from a crowd and become one of the rare breed of politicians whom ordinary voters can actually recognise.
But I find it hard to remember a Westminster branding operation as slick and professional as the one that has turned “dishy Rishi” into a household name within months of entering the cabinet.
The 40-year-old chancellor’s every pronouncement is accompanied by glossy photos showing him looking smooth and confident while powering his way through mind-boggling financial problems; so plugged in that even his coffee cup has Bluetooth. Social media posts bear his distinctive signature in a way observers say would be more suited to a celebrity launching a perfume brand or a range of rose wines.
Even the official Treasury press release setting out his latest plans for the furlough scheme was entitled “Rishi’s Plan for Jobs”, rather than, say, “A statement from the chancellor of the exchequer on the employment situation” as might have been the case under Kenneth Clarke or Gordon Brown.
Pictures of him serving up food in an expensive suit on Wednesday delivered the message that this was not a harried chancellor desperately trying to stave off the worst unemployment crisis since the Great Depression, but a rather charming and well-turned-out young man inviting you out for a candlelit dinner.
But one can’t help asking whether those in No 10 who forced out Sajid Javid in favour of a young and pliable chancellor whose advisers would be directly answerable to Dominic Cummings aren’t now wondering whether the move was quite the masterstroke it seemed at the time.
Next to the increasingly careworn and gaffe-prone Mr Johnson, the chancellor can’t help looking like a successor-in-waiting.
Of course, he is helped by the fact that his job currently consists of opening up the coffers and throwing money at everyone he sees. When it comes to the tougher task this autumn of explaining what taxes are going to have to rise to pay for it all, even the slickest of branding may struggle to make him look quite so appealing.
Yours,
Andrew Woodcock
Political editor