Has Rishi Sunak’s baptism of fire showed opposition leaders make the best PMs?

Published

3 years ago

November 10, 2022

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Is Rishi Sunak’s baptism of fire as prime minister evidence that politicians who’ve been Leader of the Opposition make the best PMs?

Some MPs claim Mr Sunak’s early blunders – the disastrous appointment of Sir Gavin Williamson to the cabinet table and his COP27 U-turn, for example – reveal not only a lack of experience but a political naivety.

And at this week’s bruising Prime Minister’s Questions in the Commons, the novice PM appeared to be so nervous that at one point he failed to stand up when it was his turn to respond to Sir Keir Starmer.

Let’s not forget, Mr Sunak is by a long way the most inexperienced politician to become PM in modern times. He succeeded William Hague as MP for Richmond in North Yorkshire in 2015, just seven years ago.

Although he was quickly tipped as a rising star, his ministerial CV was limited – a junior housing minister, then Treasury chief secretary – until he succeeded Sajid Javid as chancellor in February 2020.

His Tory critics would claim that all the slick videos and the fancy branding are pretty worthless if a PM makes a hash of party management, including making bad choices in key ministerial jobs, and lacks political nous and guile.

Earlier this year, many of Mr Sunak’s own supporters on the Tory benches were alarmed by how badly he handled the tax row over his wife’s non-dom status – an issue Labour MPs are still seeking to exploit now.

For his part, Sir Keir was ridiculed earlier this year when he told Labour’s shadow cabinet to stop briefing the press that he was boring and declared: “What’s boring is being in opposition.”

Maybe. But being an opposition leader is a good apprenticeship for being prime minister.

Opposition leaders have the luxury of making their mistakes, bad appointments and U-turns when it doesn’t much matter and before they enter 10 Downing Street.

In modern times, Tony Blair had three years as Leader of the Opposition, from 1994 when John Smith died until 1997, before his decade in Number 10.

David Cameron had five years as opposition leader, from his election as Tory leader in 2005 until he formed his coalition government in 2010.

Arguably, both were more successful as PM than their successors. Gordon Brown, who had only held one cabinet post, chancellor, before becoming PM, and Theresa May, who’d been home secretary for six years.

In opposition, Mr Blair junked Labour’s Clause 4 and cleared out the shadow cabinet he largely inherited from Neil Kinnock. Mr Cameron used his time as Leader of the Opposition to modernise the Tories and drag them into the 21st century.

Before stepping down in 2007, Mr Blair warned Mr Cameron at PMQs to beware of Mr Brown’s “big clunking fist”. Yet by the end of that year, Mr Brown was being mocked by the Lib Dems’ Vince Cable for going “from Stalin to Mr Bean”.

Theresa May, who succeeded Mr Cameron after the 2016 EU referendum, couldn’t cope with Brexit and called a disastrous general election in 2017 in which the low point was her plaintive “Nothing has changed!” cry over a dementia tax U-turn.

Provided he survives the COVID inquiry that has just got underway, history may well judge that Boris Johnson handled the pandemic well. But he was brought down by sleaze and the three Ps: Paterson, partygate and Pincher.

Liz Truss may have been an experienced cabinet minister when she defeated Mr Sunak for the Tory leadership in the summer. But clearly, she lacked the guile and political skills to implement her tax-cutting agenda without bringing the country to the brink of financial collapse.

Further back, Margaret Thatcher succeeded Edward Heath in 1975 and spent four years in opposition plotting her crusade of spending cuts, trade union reforms and privatisation with her guru Sir Keith Joseph before becoming PM in 1979.

Most Tory MPs would agree that John Major, who succeeded her as PM in 1990, was a flop in comparison, because of Black Wednesday in 1992 and years of Tory civil war over Europe before the Conservatives were crushed by Labour in 1997.

Prior to Mrs Thatcher, James Callaghan had succeeded Harold Wilson in 1976 and presided over financial turmoil, with chancellor Denis Healey going cap in hand to the International Monetary Fund, and then the ‘winter of discontent’ – when the country was crippled by strikes.

Wilson, by contrast, had the luxury of a year as opposition leader after Hugh Gaitskell died in 1963 before his 1964 election victory and then – in a luxury a party leader wouldn’t be afforded now – led the opposition again during Edward Heath’s 1970-74 government.

It has to be said, of course, that Heath, who had been opposition leader from 1965 until his 1970 victory, disproves the theory that opposition leaders make the best PMs, presiding over strikes, three-day weeks and blackouts.

In his new biography of Wilson, who won four general election victories and is often viewed as the consummate political tactician and party manager, Labour MP Nick Thomas-Symonds argues that he had two objectives.

They were to keep his party together and to stay in Europe – and he achieved both, the shadow international trade secretary claims. Compare that with Cameron’s attempts to do the same, which ended in disaster!

Thomas-Symonds also argues that while Roy Jenkins got the credit for Labour’s social reforms of the 1960s – on issues like abortion, homosexuality and race – it was Wilson who made sure there was parliamentary time for them to become law.

In a famous quote, another politician of the 1960s and 70s, Enoch Powell, remarked: “All political careers end in failure.”

And that’s true even of PMs like Blair and Cameron, who are perceived as being relatively successful.

Labour MPs will tell you Blair should have said a resounding no to US president George W Bush on Iraq in 2003, just as Wilson did to Lyndon Johnson in the 1960s over Vietnam.

And Cameron’s Brexit gamble blew up in his face, though it served Boris Johnson well in the 2019 general election, when he won the Tories’ biggest Commons majority since Margaret Thatcher’s in 1987.

But no one could ever accuse any of the UK’s leading prime ministers of naivety and inexperience, which is what some critics claim Rishi Sunak is suffering from at the moment.

World

Nine of Gazan doctor’s 10 children killed in Israeli strike on Khan Younis

Published

7 hours ago

May 24, 2025

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Nine of Gazan doctor's 10 children killed in Israeli strike on Khan Younis

Nine of a doctor’s 10 children have been killed in an Israeli missile strike on their home in Gaza, which also left her surviving son badly injured and her husband in a critical condition.

Warning: This article contains details of child deaths

Alaa Al Najjar, a paediatrician at Al Tahrir Clinic in the Nasser Medical Complex, was at work during the attack on her home, south of the city of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, on Friday.

Graphic footage shared by the Hamas-run Palestinian Civil Defence shows the bodies of at least seven small children being pulled from the rubble.

Rescuers can be seen battling fires and searching through a collapsed building, shouting out when they locate a body, before bringing the children out one by one and wrapping their remains in body bags.

In the footage, Dr Al Najjar’s husband, Hamdi Al Najjar, who is also a doctor, is put on to a stretcher and then carried to an ambulance.

The oldest of their children was only 12 years old, according to Dr Muneer Alboursh, the director general of Gaza’s health ministry, which is run by Hamas.

“This is the reality our medical staff in Gaza endure. Words fall short in describing the pain,” he wrote in a social media post.

“In Gaza, it is not only healthcare workers who are targeted – Israel’s aggression goes further, wiping out entire families.”

British doctors describe ‘horrific’ and ‘unimaginable’ attack

Two British doctors working at Nasser Hospital described the attack as “horrific” and “unimaginable” for Dr Al Najjar.

Speaking in a video diary on Friday night, Dr Graeme Groom said his last patient of the day was Dr Al Najjar’s 11-year-old son, who was badly injured and “seemed much younger as we lifted him on to the operating table”.

The strike “may or may not have been aimed at his father”, Dr Groom said, adding that the man had been left “very badly injured”.

Dr Victoria Rose said the family “lived opposite a petrol station, so I don’t know whether the bomb set off some massive fire”.

‘No political or military connections’

Dr Groom added: “It is unimaginable for that poor woman, both of them are doctors here.

“The father was a physician at Nasser Hospital. He had no political and no military connections. He doesn’t seem to be prominent on social media, and yet his poor wife is the only uninjured one, who has the prospect of losing her husband.”

He said it was “a particularly sad day”, while Dr Rose added: “That is life in Gaza. That is the way it goes in Gaza.”

Sky News has approached the Israeli Defence Forces for comment.

Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza began when the militant group stormed across the border into Israel on 7 October 2023, killing some 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and abducting 251 others.

Israel’s military response has flattened large areas of Gaza and killed more than 53,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry, which does not differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count.

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UN’s Antonio Guterres condemns ‘teaspoon’ of aid allowed into Gaza after dozens die in airstrikes

Published

19 hours ago

May 24, 2025

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UN's Antonio Guterres condemns 'teaspoon' of aid allowed into Gaza after dozens die in airstrikes

The head of the UN has said Israel has only authorised for Gaza what amounts to a “teaspoon” of aid after at least 60 people died in overnight airstrikes.

UN secretary general Antonio Guterres said on Friday the supplies approved so far “amounts to a teaspoon of aid when a flood of assistance is required,” adding “the needs are massive and the obstacles are staggering”.

He warned that more people will die unless there is “rapid, reliable, safe and sustained aid access”.

Israel says around 300 aid trucks have been allowed through since it lifted an 11-week blockade on Monday, but according to Mr Guterres, only about a third have been transported to warehouses within Gaza due to insecurity.

The IDF said 107 vehicles carrying flour, food, medical equipment and drugs were allowed through on Thursday.

Many of Gaza’s two million residents are at high risk of famine, experts have warned.

Meanwhile, at least 60 people have been killed by Israeli airstrikes across Gaza overnight.

Ten people died in the southern city of Khan Younis, and deaths were also reported in the central town of Deir al-Balah and the Jabaliya refugee camp in the north, according to the Nasser, Al-Aqsa and Al-Ahli hospitals where the bodies were brought.

The latest strikes came a day after two Israeli embassy workers were killed in Washington.

The suspect, named as 31-year-old Elias Rodriguez from Chicago, Illinois, told police he “did it for Gaza”.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Sir Keir Starmer, Emmanuel Macron and Mark Carney of fuelling antisemitism following the shootings.

The leaders of the UK, France and Canada are “on the wrong side of humanity and (…) history”, he said, after they threatened “concrete action” against Israel this week if it continues its “egregious” military operations in Gaza.

Mr Netanyahu also accused Sir Keir, Mr Macron and Mr Carney of siding with “mass murderers, rapists, baby killers and kidnappers”.

But UK government minister Luke Pollard told Sky News on Friday morning he “doesn’t recognise” Mr Netanyahu’s accusation.

Earlier this week, Mr Netanyahu said he was recalling negotiators from the Qatari capital, Doha, after a week of ceasefire talks failed to bring results. A working team will remain.

The war in Gaza began when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel on 7 October 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapping 251 others.

The militants are still holding 58 captives, around a third of whom are believed to be alive, after most of the rest were returned in ceasefire agreements or other deals.

Israel’s offensive, which has destroyed large swaths of Gaza, has killed more than 53,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry.

World

’12 people’ injured in stabbing at Hamburg train station – as woman arrested

Published

22 hours ago

May 23, 2025

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'12 people' injured in stabbing at Hamburg train station - as woman arrested

A woman has been arrested after 12 people were reportedly injured in a stabbing at Hamburg’s central train station in Germany.

An attacker armed with a knife targeted people on the platform between tracks 13 and 14, according to police.

They added that the suspect was a 39-year-old woman.

Officers said they “believe she acted alone” and investigations into the stabbing are continuing.

There was no immediate information on a possible motive.

The fire service said six of the injured were in a life-threatening condition, three others were seriously hurt, and another three sustained minor injuries, news agency dpa reported.

The attack happened shortly after 6pm local time (5pm UK time) on Friday in front of a waiting train, regional public broadcaster NDR reported.

A high-speed ICE train with its doors open could be seen at the platform after the incident.

Railway operator Deutsche Bahn said it was “deeply shocked” by what had happened.