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.
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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.
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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
UK has no plans for conscription – but future decisions will respond to ‘new reality’, says minister
The UK is not considering introducing conscription to ready the country for a potential war – but decisions may be needed in the future to respond to the “new reality” we are now living in, a minister has told Sky News.
In an interview with Trevor Phillips, Latvian President Edgars Rinkeviks has urged European countries to follow his country’s lead and “absolutely” introduce conscription, conceding the continent is “quite weak” militarily.
Politics latest: Calls for European nations to reintroduce conscription
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‘Debate’ in Latvia about introducing conscription for women
Asked if the UK government is considering introducing the measure to boost the armed forces, Cabinet Office minister Pat McFadden said it is important the UK does not find itself operating under “old assumptions” – and that it may be “decisions are needed in the future that respond to a new reality”.
He told Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips: “We are not considering conscription, but of course we have announced a major increase in defence expenditure.
“We do have to recognise that the world has changed. The phrase ‘step up’ is used a lot. Europe does have to step up in terms of its own defence.
“President Trump isn’t actually the first president to say that, but he said it more loudly and with more force than his predecessors – so, I think we have got to recognise that moment.”
‘UK cannot cling to old assumptions’
He added: “When the world is changing as fast as it is, it’s important that we don’t cling on to old assumptions.
“I think the prime minister has played a tremendous role in recent weeks in responding to that situation and explaining it to the public.
“That is why the decision on increasing defence expenditure was needed.
“It may be why other decisions are needed in the future that respond to a new reality, and that we don’t find ourselves caught operating under the same assumption as we used to in the past when the situation has changed.”
‘Battlefield is changing’
Sir Keir Starmer has promised to increase defence spending to 2.5% of GDP but has not set out when this will be achieved. Ministers say a defence review to be published this spring will set out a “roadmap” to it.
The number is much lower than the US president has demanded NATO members spend on defence, with Mr Trump saying they should all be spending 5% – an amount last seen during the Cold War.
Asked if the “new reality” involved a bigger army, Mr McFadden said ministers were waiting for the conclusion of the review.
But he added: “One thing is for sure, you would not spend money today on the same things as you would 10 years ago.
“The experience of the three years of the war in Ukraine has shown just how fast the battlefield is changing in terms of cyber, drones, the use of intelligence.”
The Conservatives’ first policy announcement of last year’s general election campaign was that the party would introduce a new form of mandatory National Service for 18-year-olds.
Asked if the Tories still stood by the plan which was in their manifesto, shadow home secretary Chris Philp told Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips: “We are obviously not going to write our manifesto now, so I am not going to recommit to things in the previous manifesto.
“We’ll need to do the thinking properly. I am not going to speculate four years ahead of the election.
“I don’t think it was really exactly conscription that was being proposed, it was a National Citizen Service which is a bit different.
“The idea of getting younger people to do voluntary work and perform useful tasks is not a bad idea.”
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‘Right time’ to think about conscription
Last year, Britain’s former top NATO commander told Sky News it was time to “think the unthinkable” and consider introducing conscription.
General Sir Richard Sherriff, ex-deputy supreme allied commander of the military organisation, said: “I think we need to get over many of the cultural hang-ups and assumptions, and frankly think the unthinkable.
“I think we need to go further and look carefully at conscription.”
Police searching for the suspect in the Kent pub shooting on Valentine’s Day have recovered a body from the River Thames.
Lisa Smith, 43, was killed after she was shot outside The Three Horseshoes in Knockholt on the evening of Friday 14 February.
Later that night, the suspect, named as Edvard Smith, was believed to have fallen into the Thames from the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge which crosses the river at Dartford 17 miles away.
Lisa Smith
Around that time, the suspect’s car containing a handgun was found abandoned on the bridge and a man was seen on the wrong side of the barrier.
About a week after the shooting, Kent Police said they believed Edvard Smith had died after falling into the water.
The force has now said a body was found in the Thames near Rainham in Essex on Friday afternoon. It has not been formally identified but the suspect’s family have been told of the development.
Edvard Smith was known to Ms Smith and there had been no prior contact between the police and the victim or suspect.
‘So much commotion’
Following the shooting, the landlady of The Three Horseshoes, Michelle Thomas, told Sky News she heard two loud bangs that she initially “thought were fireworks” on the night of the attack.
She said there was “so much commotion – screaming, shouting, crying” and the shooting had left the community in “absolute shock”.
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CCTV captures sound of gunshots near fatal shooting site
She said Ms Smith, from Slough, had been to the pub before, “mostly in the summer” but “wasn’t a regular”.
Ms Thomas also said about 30 people were at the pub for dinner, while 20 more were in the bar as the incident unfolded just after 7pm.
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Kent Police said on Saturday: “A body has been recovered by police from the River Thames, which is being linked to a murder investigation in Knockholt.
“On Friday 14 February 2025, Lisa Smith, 43, was killed after she was shot outside a pub in Main Road. The suspect was known to Lisa and later that evening officers found his car abandoned on the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge. Enquiries established he had fallen into the water below.
“At around 3.45pm on Friday 7 March, a body was located near Rainham, Essex. Formal identification has not yet taken place; however, the man’s family have been informed.”
Parts of the UK are expected to be hotter than the Balearic Islands, Costa del Sol and the Amalfi Coast this weekend.
The country is set to reach the highest temperatures of the year so far, with central England heating up to 20C on Sunday.
Saturday is also set to reach temperatures in the high teens, with East Anglia, northwest England, the north Midlands and North Wales hitting 18-19C, the Met Office said.
Those temperatures are believed to be above average for this time of year.
Get the latest forecast for your area here
Craig Snell, a meteorologist at the Met Office, said there are a “few exceptions” to the “fine and sunny” weekend weather, including areas in the far north of Scotland, but those areas will still be generally dry and sunny.
A map showing warm fronts over the UK on Saturday
Meanwhile, popular holiday destinations in Europe are expected to record cooler temperatures.
A high of 15C is forecast this weekend for Marbella on the south coast of Spain, a maximum of 17C is expected in Ibiza, and 18C is forecast for Sorrento on Italy’s Amalfi Coast.
People were out in force on Saturday, enjoying the warmer weather. Pic: PA
Joggers run along the sea front in Southend-on-Sea, Essex.
Pic: PA
Sky News meteorologist Chris England said the warm weekend is not expected to last, with conditions “cooling off from the North on Sunday night and through Monday”.
Colder fronts will start to move across the UK on Monday
By Wednesday the UK will experience wintry showers and cold temperatures
A spell of rain will move south across the country early next week, bringing the return of a few wintry showers in the North and North East.
“While there is uncertainty in the extent of rain and wintry showers through the middle of next week, there is higher confidence that below average temperatures will continue through the week, bringing a very different feel to the mild weather over the weekend,” deputy chief meteorologist Chris Bulmer said.
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Temperatures will drop back below average across the UK from Tuesday, according to the Met Office.
Rural spots in Scotland could plummet as low as -4C, with maximum daytime temperatures typically between 5-8C.
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