Rishi Sunak will need all the help he can get from cabinet – he faces toughest situation any PM has had for decades | Beth Rigby
If he cherished the moment or savoured the win after losing out in the Tory leadership contest in the summer, Rishi Sunak kept it from view.
From his audience with the King straight to Downing Street, the new prime minister went straight to the lectern and made his inaugural address to the nation.
There were no staffers or MP supporters applauding their man. His wife did not stand outside No 10 and look on.
Sunak’s first full day in the top job – live updates
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Sunak: ‘I will fix mistakes’
From the choreography of the moment to the words he spoke, much about Mr Sunak’s launch day was an attempt to show the public his premiership was a break from the past – which is exactly how he wanted it.
Because this is a prime minister who resigned from Boris Johnson’s government after concluding that the business of government was not being conducted “properly, competently or seriously”.
He is a prime minister who warned Liz Truss that her “fantasy economics” would damage the economy. In the end, he had little time for either politician politically or policy-wise, and he used his first speech to try to and put clear blue water between him and them.
When it came to Ms Truss, Mr Sunak was crystal clear – telling the public what she chose not to in her short final speech outside No 10.
“Some mistakes were made,” he told the public as he acknowledged he has been made leader “to fix them”.
And he also took a swipe at the policies – those unfunded tax cuts – she tried to implement as prime minister and which he detested, making it clear that his approach was different to hers: “The government I lead will not leave the next generation, your children and grandchildren, with a debt to settle that we were too weak to pay ourselves.”
When it came to Mr Johnson, Mr Sunak on the one hand praised his “warmth and generosity of spirit” – but on the other, he indirectly criticised the manner in which he ran his administration.
“This government will have integrity, professionalism and accountability at every level. Trust is earned. And I will earn yours,” he said.
Read more:
Sunak prepares for his first PMQs in the top job
Who’s in and who’s out in the new-look cabinet
The key words in Rishi Sunak’s speech
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‘Tories out’: Sunak heckled outside No 10
And finally, Mr Sunak made a pledge to the public that he’d turn the page on Conservative Party introspection and infighting and “put your needs above politics”.
“I understand too that I have work to do to restore trust after all that has happened.”
But this was a speech that also hinted at what was to come – with possible spending cuts and tax rises to help tackle the “profound economic crisis” the country is facing.
This a former chancellor-turned-PM who wants to right the wrongs of his predecessor and put “economic stability and confidence at the heart of this government’s agenda”, while sticking very clearly to the promises made in the 2019 manifesto as he sought to claim a mandate for his appointment, rather than public election, on the back of Mr Johnson’s general election win.
There would be “difficult decisions” ahead. His new fiscal plan is expected next week, in which he will have to try to reassure the markets that debt is under control, and outline some of those agonising choices over possible tax rises and spending cuts.
Perhaps that’s why faced with this level of economic pain, Mr Sunak didn’t choose to make significant cabinet changes.
Big beast moves (and more bruised egos) are a risk he was not minded to take right now.
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Does new cabinet mean unity?
The Change PM became Mr Continuity Cabinet as he kept Jeremy Hunt as chancellor and James Cleverly as foreign secretary.
He even brought Suella Braverman back as home secretary, despite her having to resign from that role just six days ago for a security breach (sending official documents via her personal email) which broke the ministerial code.
Overall, about a third of his cabinet were still in post. He did, however, try to build a unity cabinet in a way that his two predecessors did not – bringing in Ms Braverman and Kemi Badenoch from the right of the party, and keeping Liz Truss’s deputy and key ally Therese Coffey in this top team.
There were jobs too for arch-Johnsonites, be that James Cleverly at the Foreign Office or Chris Heaton at the Northern Ireland office.
He also brought back experience and brought in his own people – be that putting Michael Gove back into the department of levelling up, or his key ally Oliver Dowden into the powerful Duchy of Lancaster role to run the Cabinet Office.
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Grant Shapps was put into the Department of Business while Dominic Raab was reappointed deputy prime minister and made justice secretary.
“Unity, experience and competence” is how one No 10 insider explained the reshuffle to me last night. “We do need a bit of experience around the cabinet table with the economy and the international situation.”
He will need all the help he can get from this team in the coming days.
For this is a new prime minister who is about to be tested in the toughest set of political and economic circumstances than any leader has faced in decades.
The lingering question has to be whether he is up to the extreme challenges of being prime minister.
At just 42 years old, he is the youngest serving prime minister in over 200 years and has clocked up just seven years in parliament and three years in cabinet.
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How ‘profound’ are our economic woes?
He is relatively untested and has, say his critics, displayed a shocking lack of political nous for someone with ambitions for the highest office.
They point to revelations in April that Mr Sunak’s multimillionaire wife Akshata Murty was claiming non-domicile status – a scheme that allows people to avoid tax on foreign earnings – when her husband was chancellor as politically naive (Ms Murty has since changed her tax status).
There was also his admission that he’d held a US green card for two years – which means he had to pay US tax on worldwide income and pledge the US as his forever home – while serving as chancellor, with perhaps ambitions to run as PM.
Whether he was advised badly, or he didn’t see the red flags himself, these were scandals that could have been avoided, which in turn question his judgement.
Read more:
Why is Sunak casting such a sombre mood?
How yesterday unfolded – in pictures
What does the prime minister actually do?
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‘I hope Sunak brings our energy prices right down’
That political judgement was questioned again within hours of him becoming prime minister, as he reappointed Ms Braverman as home secretary.
It was all too easy for the Labour Party, who derided the new prime minister for pledging professionalism while putting – to quote shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper – someone “so careless and slapdash into that job”.
Meanwhile, his decision to leave his challenger Penny Mordaunt in the relatively junior cabinet role of Leader of the Commons – friends told me she wanted foreign secretary – may have been seen by her backers as a rather peevish thing to do, although one of her supporters told me Ms Mordaunt was happy with the job.
But for all the politics of this moment, it is the policies that will matter for Mr Sunak in the coming days as he tries to set out an economic plan that will reassure the markets, his party and the public, that he is up to the job and can handle the task in hand.
He told the British public on the steps of Downing Street that he “understood how difficult this moment is”.
This no doubt a message to himself too.
UK
Police investigating alleged attack on prison officer by Southport triple murderer Axel Rudakubana
Schoolchildren are asking teachers how to strangle a partner during sex safely, a charity says, while official figures show an alarming rise in the crime related to domestic abuse cases.
Warning: This article contains references to strangulation, domestic abuse and distressing images.
It comes as a woman whose former partner almost strangled her to death in a rage has advised anyone in an abusive relationship to seek help.
Bernie Ryan, chief executive of the Institute for Addressing Strangulation, has been running the charity since its inception in 2022 after non-fatal strangulation became a standalone offence.
“It’s the ultimate form of control,” she says.
She says perpetrators and victims are getting younger, while the reason is unclear, but strangulation has seeped into popular culture and social media.
“We hear lots of sex education providers, teachers saying that they’re hearing it in schools.
“We know teachers have been asked, ‘how do I teach somebody to strangle safely?’
“Our message is there is no safe way to strangle – the anatomy is the anatomy. Reduction in oxygen to the brain or blood flow will result in the same medical consequences, regardless of context.”
Bernie Ryan, CEO of the Institute for Addressing Strangulation
A recent review by Conservative peer Baroness Gabby Bertin recommended banning “degrading, violent and misogynistic content” online.
Violent pornography showing women being choked during sex she found was “rife on mainstream platforms”.
Ms Ryan says she “wants to make sure that young people don’t have access to activities that demonstrate that this is normal behaviour”.
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Strangulation is a violent act that is often committed in abusive relationships.
It is the second most common method used by men to kill women, the first is stabbing.
According to statistics shared by the Crown Prosecution Service, in 2024 there was an almost 50% rise in incidents of non-fatal strangulation and suffocation – compared to the year before.
Kerry Allan pleads for other victims of abuse to seek help
Domestic abuse victim Kerry Allan has a message for anyone who is in an abusive relationship.
Kerry met Michael Cosgrove in September 2022. While she said “at the beginning it was really good”, within months he became physically abusive.
In August last year her friends found his profile on a dating app.
“I confronted him and he denied it. I knew we were going to get into a big argument and I couldn’t face it, so I said I was going to my mum’s for a few days and take myself away from the situation.
“I came back a few days later and stupidly I agreed we could try again and everything escalated from that.”
Injuries to Kerry’s chest. Pic: CPS
In the early hours of 25 August the pair had come in from a night out at a concert and got into an argument.
“He was having a go at me, accusing me of flirting with other people, and I was angry. I told him he had a nerve after what he’d done to me in the week and how he humiliated me.
“I told him that I wanted to leave, that we were done and that I wanted to go to my mum’s and that’s when it got bad.
“He pinned me to the bed and that’s when he first strangled me.”
Kerry’s neck injury. Pic: CPS
Kerry says this was the first time she’d ever been violently assaulted. Cosgrove was eerily silent as he eventually let go and Kerry gasped for air.
“I remember trying to get my breath back, I was crying and hyperventilating… I was sick on the bedroom floor and I was asking him to go.”
Cosgrove strangled her for a second time before letting go again.
“He was saying I wasn’t getting out of this bedroom alive. I was dead tonight, he hoped that I knew that. Just kept saying how I’d ruined his life.”
Injury to Kerry’s eye. Pic: CPS
“I remember feeling a sort of shock thinking at this point, I’m not going to get out of this bedroom, he’s actually going to kill me.”
Kerry began screaming and shouting for help as loud as she could.
Her neighbours heard the commotion and called the police. While they were en route, Kerry was once again being assaulted.
Bleeding in Kerry’s eye
“I ran over to the bedroom window and tried to jump out, he grabbed me as I went to open the window, and we struggled. And then I was back in the same position, he was on top of me on the bed, and his hands were round the throat again. But this time it didn’t stop.
“I remember trying to struggle and trying to kick out and hit him and I just kept thinking that I definitely was going to die, because at this point, it wasn’t stopping.”
The next memory Kerry has is opening her eyes to see police and paramedics in the bedroom.
Michael Cosgrove. Pic: CPS
Cosgrove had heard the sirens, jumped out of the bedroom window and went to hide in Kerry’s car.
Kerry remembers opening her eyes to paramedics caring for her: “I remember thinking, I’m alive. I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe that I was alive and I wasn’t dead. My last memory is him being on top of me with his hands on my throat.”
Kerry met Michael Cosgrove in September 2022
She gives this advice to anyone who is in an abusive relationship: “Please speak to somebody, whether it’s friends, family, a work colleague, whether it’s somebody online, whether it’s a charity that you’re directed to, any sort of abuse is not okay.
“Whether it starts off emotional, they often start off that way, and they escalate, and they can escalate badly.
“Take what happened to me as a huge warning sign, because I wouldn’t want anyone else to be in the position I’ve been in the last eight months.”
Cosgrove was found guilty of attempting to murder Kerry and intentional strangulation.
He will be sentenced in July.
If you suspect you are being abused and need to speak to someone, there are people who can help you.
The National Domestic Violence Helpline: 0808 2000 247
Respect, the helpline for male domestic abuse victims: 0808 8010327
Galop, the LGBT+ anti-violence charity: 0800 999 5428
Two men have been found guilty of cutting down the famous Sycamore Gap tree that stood for more than 150 years.
Daniel Graham and Adam Carruthers were convicted of causing more than £620,000 worth of damage to the tree and more than £1,000 worth of damage to Hadrian’s Wall in Northumberland.
On 27 September 2023, the pair drove 30 miles through a storm to Northumberland from Cumbria, where they both lived, before felling the tree overnight in a matter of minutes.
The Sycamore Gap tree before it was cut down. Pic: CPS
The pair each denied two counts of criminal damage to the sycamore and to Hadrian’s Wall, which was damaged when the tree fell on it, but were convicted by a jury at Newcastle Crown Court on Friday.
The Sycamore Gap tree sat in a dip in the landscape and held a place in pop culture, featuring in the 1991 Kevin Costner film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.
It also formed part of people’s personal lives, as the scene of wedding proposals, ashes being scattered and countless photographs.
Footage of the moment the tree was felled was played during the trial.
Daniel Graham. Pic: Northumbria Police/PA
Adam Carruthers. Pic: Northumbria Police/PA
In the clip, the sound of a chainsaw can be heard, and the silhouette of a person can be seen, before the trunk eventually tumbled.
The footage was shot on Graham’s iPhone 13, with the metadata providing the coordinates of the tree.
Part of tree kept as ‘trophy’
Over the course of the trial, the pair blamed one another, but the prosecution argued they were both responsible for what the court heard was a “mindless act of vandalism”.
As well as the video footage of the felling, an image of a piece of wood and a chainsaw was found on Graham’s phone.
Adam Carruthers (R) and Daniel Graham (L) worked together felling trees. Pic: CPS/PA
An image of a piece of wood and a chainsaw was found on Graham’s phone. Pic: PA
Richard Wright KC, prosecuting, told the court: “This was perhaps a trophy taken from the scene to remind them of their actions, actions that they appear to have been revelling in.”
Voice notes played in court
The jury was also played voice notes the pair had sent one another, commenting on the media coverage the incident was receiving.
In one of them, Graham, 39, said to 32-year-old Carruthers: “Someone there has tagged like ITV News, BBC News, Sky News, like News News News”, before adding: “I think it’s going to go wild.”
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Sycamore Gap seeds saved
Another piece of evidence was a photo of the defendants felling a different tree, about a month before the Sycamore Gap was cut down.
The prosecution said Graham, who owned a groundworks company and Carruthers, who worked in property management and mechanics, were “friends with knowledge and experience in chainsaws and tree felling”.
From the beginning, much of the trial focused on the significance of the tree, with Judge Mrs Justice Lambert telling the jury to put their “emotion to one side” before proceedings began.
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Voicenotes from Sycamore Gap tree trial
‘Mindless acts of violence’
Northumberland Superintendent Kevin Waring, of Northumbria Police, said: “We often hear references made to mindless acts of vandalism – but that term has never been more relevant than today in describing the actions of those individuals”.
Graham and Carruthers gave no explanation for why they targeted the tree, he said, “and there never could be a justifiable one”.
Northumbria Police and Crime Commissioner, Susan Dungworth, called the felling of the tree “unfathomable” and said, although “there was no remorse [from the defendants], there was compelling evidence, and now there will be justice”.
Gale Gilchrist, chief crown prosecutor for CPS North East, said Graham and Carruthers took “under three minutes” to bring down the “iconic landmark” in a “deliberate and mindless act of destruction”.
She said she hoped the community “can take some measure of comfort in seeing those responsible convicted”.
‘Enormity of the loss’
Reflecting on the verdict and the actions of the pair, Tony Gates, chief executive of Northumberland National Parks Authority, said: “It just took a few days to sink in – I think because of the enormity of the loss.
“We knew how important that location was for many people at an emotional level, almost at a spiritual level in terms of people’s connection to this case.”
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Moment Sycamore Gap tree cut down
Read more from the trial:
Two men went on ‘moronic mission’ to fell Sycamore Gap tree
Man told police he was being ‘framed’ over tree felling
Defendant says friend wanted to cut down world’s ‘most famous tree’
Jurors played voicenotes in Sycamore Gap tree trial
The tree’s stump still sits by Hadrian’s Wall, where new shoots have been emerging.
Its largest remaining section will go on display at the National Landscape Discovery Centre in the Northumberland National Park later this year.
The effort to preserve the tree’s legacy also goes beyond the region where it stood.
Forty-nine saplings taken from the tree have been conserved by the National Trust. They will be planted in accessible public spaces across the country as “trees of hope”, which will allow parts of the Sycamore Gap to live on.
The defendants, who didn’t react when the verdicts were delivered, will be sentenced in July.
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