Has Rishi Sunak’s baptism of fire showed opposition leaders make the best PMs?
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.
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PMQs analysed
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”.
From left: Keir Starmer, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, Boris Johnson, David Cameron, Theresa May and John Major
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.
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Rishi Sunak’s first speech as PM
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!
Rishi Sunak holding his first cabinet meeting
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
‘He was the light of my life and I lost him’: How a famous surgeon died in an Israeli prison after being taken from Gaza hospital
As a famous orthopaedic surgeon, Dr Adnan Al-Bursh spent much of his career fixing broken limbs and broken bodies at Gaza’s Al-Shifa Hospital.
One of the best-trained doctors in the enclave, a photo showing him covered in blood in Al-Shifa’s operating theatre went viral in 2018.
When war broke out last October, he worked around the clock. Pictures stored on his mobile phone show him standing in a hole, swinging a blunt-edged shovel as the hospital descended into crisis.
It had run out of fuel, food and basic pain relief and there was no more space to store dead bodies. Dressed in hospital scrubs, Dr Al-Bursh and his colleagues dug mass graves as the sound of explosions rang out behind the hospital’s walls.
Soon after the outbreak of the conflict, the surgeon, along with his wife Yasmin, realised that their world had changed forever.
“Adnan was needed every time there was a war,” she recalled. “So, I told him, ‘get ready, there will be lots of operations, they will need your help’. He went to hospital to receive the injured and stayed for 24 hours. He did not stop.”
Dr Adnan Al-Bursh’s wife and children
Dr Al-Bursh spent his days in the operating room and slept in the staff room at night.
He also kept a diary of sorts with his mobile phone, documenting the increasingly desperate scenes unfolding around him.
“Despite the pain, we are steadfast,” he said as he filmed the scene in a crowded operating theatre.
Dr Al-Bursh and others in the staff room
Israel said the foundations of Al-Shifa were laced with tunnels where Hamas operated a ‘command-and-control centre’, something Hamas denies.
As Israeli troops advanced towards the facility, Dr Al-Bursh captured the mood inside. Another video found on his mobile phone shows a colleague in the staffroom recalling a painful conversation with his wife.
“I remember that she only asked one thing of me, what do you think it was? That request was ‘just let me see you smile’.
“Smile. It’s the first thing I want to do after this war, if God saves us.”
Tens of thousands of people had to evacuate the hospital
By mid-November, Al-Shifa was under siege by Israeli troops.
A week later, patients, staff and some 50,000 displaced residents sheltering in the compound were ordered to evacuate.
Dr Al-Bursh captured the scene of long columns of people walking towards southern Gaza.
But the surgeon did not follow them. Instead, he went northeast to another facility – the Indonesian Hospital – still operating in northern Gaza. What he found on his arrival horrified him.
“I was shocked by the size of the catastrophe here,” he said in a video. “There are injured people who have been waiting for their operations for more than ten days. [Their] wounds were severely infected.”
On 20 November 2023, the Indonesian Hospital was surrounded by Israeli tanks and later that evening, projectiles were fired into the second floor. At least 12 people were killed.
Dr Al-Bursh survived with minor scrapes but the front entrance of the facility was torn apart. “The destruction is everywhere,” he said in another video.
A spokesman for the IDF denied that Israeli forces were responsible.
By early December 2023, Dr Al-Bursh had moved to a small hospital, also in the north, called Al-Awda.
A series of pictures, posted on the hospital’s social media page, show him examining patients with fatigue etched on his face.
These are the last known images taken of the surgeon.
These are the last known images taken of the surgeon at Al-Awda hospital
The last images were released on hospital social media
The Israeli military surrounded the hospital on 5 December, and the staff were worried about what the soldiers would do.
Dr Al-Bursh worked at Al-Awda alongside a friend and colleague, Dr Mohammad Obeid.
Eventually, the hospital’s director told them that they would have to leave the building.
“[The director] told us that the [Israeli army] have full data of all males aged between 14 and 65 at Awda hospital,” Dr Obeid said, tearfully. “They told him that if all men do not come down… they will destroy the Awda Hospital with all the women and children in it.”
We put this allegation to the IDF but they did not respond.
The men filed out of the hospital and five, including Dr Al-Bursh, were taken away.
“A soldier came up to us and called out Dr Adnan’s name, who was sitting next to me… I felt he was in a very difficult situation. The occupation soldier took him and the treatment was very rough.”
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The Israeli military base, Sde Teiman, where Dr Al-Bursh was taken. Pic: Breaking the Silence
In a brief statement, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) confirmed to Sky News that Dr Al-Bursh was detained by its personnel. On 19 December 2023, it says the surgeon was taken to an Israeli military base called Sde Teiman, which has been used for processing detainees since the early part of the war.
Allegations of physical, mental and sexual abuse are rife. A former camp inmate, Dr Khalid Hamouda, believes many of the prisoners at Sde Teiman were medical professionals.
“In the camp where I was, there were about 100 prisoners. I think at least a quarter of them were involved in healthcare. Some of them were doctors, nurses and technicians.”
Dr Hamouda was put to work by the guards at the base as their helper or ‘shawish’, and remembers being told to fetch Dr Al-Bursh at the gate. When he collected him, his fellow doctor said he had been badly beaten and felt pain all over his body.
“He thought he may have broken ribs,” Dr Hamouda said. “He was unable to even go to the toilet alone.”
Israeli soldiers stand outside Ofer military prison near Jerusalem. Pic: AP
The IDF told Sky News that after Dr Al-Bursh was processed, he left Sde Teiman on 20 December and became the “responsibility” of the Israeli Prison Service.
In April, the surgeon was taken to an incarceration facility near Jerusalem called Ofer Prison.
He died shortly after his arrival. News of the surgeon’s death was announced in a statement from two Palestinian prisoner support associations at the beginning of May. The Israelis offered no explanation or cause of death.
Sky News has spoken to people who claim to have witnessed the moments before Dr Al-Bursh’s death.
A prisoner, who says he previously knew Dr Al-Bursh in Gaza, provided details in a deposition to lawyers from the Israeli human rights organisation HaMoked.
“In mid-April 2024, Dr Adnan Al-Bursh arrived at Section 23 in Ofer Prison. The prison guards brought Dr Adnan Al-Bursh into the section in a deplorable state. He had clearly been assaulted with injuries around his body. He was naked in the lower part of his body.
“The prison guards threw him in the middle of the yard and left him there. Dr Adnan Al-Bursh was unable to stand up. One of the prisoners helped him and accompanied him to one of the rooms. A few minutes later, prisoners were heard screaming from the room they went into, declaring Dr Adnan Al-Bursh (was dead).”
Dr Al-Bursh treating a young patient earlier in the war
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While some people might suggest that Dr Adnan Al-Bursh was a terrorist, Daqqa said: “If you want to formally answer this question, he was not charged until now. And many of these detainees are not charged from Gaza.”
In a statement to Sky News, a spokesman for the Israel Prison Service said: “IPS is a law enforcement organisation that operates according to the provisions of the law and under the supervision of the state comptroller and many other official critiques.
“All prisoners are detained according to the law. All basic rights required are fully applied by professionally trained prison guards.
“We are not aware of the claims you described and as far as we know, no such events have occurred under IPS responsibility. Nonetheless, prisoners and detainees have the right to file a complaint that will be fully examined and addressed by official authorities.”
Dr Al-Bursh’s family paid tribute to him
Sky News was told by colleagues and Dr Al-Bursh’s wife Yasmin that he was in good physical condition before his arrest.
“He was the light of my life and I lost him,” Yasmin said.
Dr Al-Bursh was prepared to risk his life to save others. This story is one of a countless number, now buried under the immovable weight of Gaza’s recent past.
But Dr Al-Bursh lived and lost his life in a manner that demands acknowledgement, his friends and family members say.
World
Ukrainian frontline commander warns: ‘The world is scared of Russia and losing is not only our problem’
In the courtyard of a farmhouse now home to soldiers of the Ukrainian army’s 47th mechanised brigade, I’m introduced to a weary-looking unit by their commander Captain Oleksandr “Sasha” Shyrshyn.
We are about 10km from the border with Russia, and beyond it lies the Kursk region Ukraine invaded in the summer – and where this battalion is now fighting.
The 47th is a crack fighting assault unit.
They’ve been brought to this area from the fierce battles in the country’s eastern Donbas region to bolster Ukrainian forces already here.
War latest: Russia ready to carry out ‘massive attack’
The captain known by his men as ‘Genius’
In the summer, Ukraine launched an incursion into Russian territory, in Kursk
Captain Shyrshyn explains that among the many shortages the military has to deal with, the lack of infantry is becoming a critical problem.
Sasha is just 30 years old, but he is worldly-wise. He used to run an organisation helping children in the country’s east before donning his uniform and going to war.
He is famous in Ukraine and is regarded as one of the country’s top field commanders, who isn’t afraid to express his views on the war and how it’s being waged.
His nom de guerre is ‘Genius’, a nickname given to him by his men.
Captain Sasha Shyrshyn and Sky News chief correspondent Stuart Ramsay
‘Don’t worry, it’s not a minefield’
Sasha invited me to see one of the American Bradley fighting vehicles his unit uses.
We walk down a muddy lane before he says it’s best to go cross-country.
“We can go that way, don’t worry it’s not a minefield,” he jokes.
He leads us across a muddy field and into a forest where the vehicle is hidden from Russian surveillance drones that try to hunt both American vehicles and commanders.
Sasha shows me a picture of the house they had been staying in only days before – it was now completely destroyed after a missile strike.
Fortunately, neither he, nor any of his men, were there at the time.
“They target commanders,” he says with a smirk.
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‘The world is scared of Russia’
It takes me a moment or two to realise we are only a few steps away from the Bradley, dug in and well hidden beneath the trees.
The disguised American Bradley vehicle hidden in the forest
Sasha tells me the Bradley is the finest vehicle he has ever used.
A vehicle so good, he says, it’s keeping the Ukrainian army going in the face of Russia’s overwhelming numbers of soldiers.
He explains: “Almost all our work on the battlefield is cooperation infantry with the Bradley. So we use it for evacuations, for moving people from one place to another, as well as for fire-covering.
“This vehicle is very safe and has very good characteristics.”
The American Bradley fighting vehicle that Ukrainian soldiers have found vital in their efforts
Billions of dollars in military aid has been given to Ukraine by the United States, and this vehicle is one of the most valuable assets the US has provided.
Ukraine is running low on men to fight, and the weaponry it has is not enough, especially if it can’t fire long-range missiles into Russia itself – which it is currently not allowed to do.
If President-elect Donald Trump cuts the supply of military aid, the Ukrainians will lose – it’s that simple.
US President-elect Donald Trump has been clear he intends to change his nation’s policy on the war in Ukraine. Pic: Reuters
Sasha says: “We have a lack of weapons, we have a lack of artillery, we have a lack of infantry, and as the world doesn’t care about justice, and they don’t want to finish the war by our win, they are afraid of Russia.
“I’m sorry but they’re scared, they’re scared, and it’s not the right way.”
Like pretty much everyone in Ukraine, Sasha is waiting to see what the US election result will mean for his country.
He is sceptical about a deal with Russia.
“Our enemy only understands the language of power. And you cannot finish the war in 24 hours, or during the year without hard decisions, without a fight, so it’s impossible. It’s just talking without results,” he tells me.
Read more from Stuart Ramsay:
How Ukrainian units are downing Russia’s drones
Heartbreaking final moments of girl who tried to flee Gaza
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‘Losing will be not only our problem’
These men expect the fierce battles inside Kursk to intensify in the coming days.
Indeed, alongside the main supply route into Kursk, workers are already building new defensive positions – unfurling miles of razor wire and digging bunkers for the Ukrainian army if it finds itself in retreat.
Barbed wire rolled out in the Sumy region ahead of expected fighting
Tank traps in the Sumy region
Sasha and his men are realistic about support fatigue from the outside world but will keep fighting to the last if they have to.
“I understand this is only our problem, it’s only our issue, and we have to fight this battle, like we have to defend ourselves, it’s our responsibility,” Sasha said.
But he points out everyone should realise just how critical this moment in time is.
“If we look at it widely, we have to understand that us losing will be not only our problem, but it will be for all the world.”
Stuart Ramsay reports from northeastern Ukraine with camera operator Toby Nash, and producers Dominique Van Heerden, Azad Safarov, and Nick Davenport.
World
Joe Biden welcomes Donald Trump at White House for transition of power meeting president was never offered
US President Joe Biden greeted Donald Trump at the White House saying “welcome back”, as the two political rivals met for the first time since a fiery debate in June.
Mr Biden and Mr Trump were seen exchanging pleasantries as they sat side by side in front of a roaring fire in the Oval Office today, in a meeting aimed at ensuring the smooth transfer of power from one leader to another.
It is the first time the president-elect has visited the White House since he left the Oval Office after being defeated by Mr Biden in the 2020 election.
“Donald, congratulations,” Mr Biden said, greeting Mr Trump with a handshake and adding that he looked “forward to a smooth transition”.
“Welcome, welcome back,” the president said.
Trump-Biden latest: Follow US election fallout live
The president and president-elect shaking hands. Pic: Reuters
The president-elect thanked Mr Biden for the invitation and for a peaceful transition of power saying it will be “as smooth as it can get”.
Mr Trump added: “Politics is tough, and it’s many cases not a very nice world, but it is a nice world today, and I appreciate very much a transition that’s so smooth it’ll be as smooth as it can get, and I very much appreciate that, Joe.”
The last time Mr Trump and Mr Biden met in person was for the presidential debate on 27 June, when the Democrat’s gaffes cost him his candidacy.
Mr Biden dropped out a few weeks later in July, endorsing vice president Kamala Harris to run in the presidential race instead.
First lady Jill Biden also made an appearance at the meeting, greeting the president-elect as he arrived at the White House and giving him a “handwritten letter of congratulations” for his wife, Melania Trump, a statement from her office said.
Mr Trump thanked the outgoing president for a smooth transition of power. Pic: Reuters
The letter also “expressed her team’s readiness to assist with the transition”.
The incoming first lady was invited to meet Dr Biden, but reportedly declined the invitation.
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The meeting follows the longstanding tradition of outgoing presidents meeting their successors to discuss a smooth transition from one administration to the other.
However, Republican Mr Trump failed to give the same opportunity to Mr Biden in 2020 as he refused to accept his defeat against his Democratic rival.
Today’s nearly two-hour meeting between Mr Biden and the president-elect saw them discuss foreign affairs, including the ongoing war in Ukraine and the safe release of Israeli hostages captured by Hamas during the militant group’s 7 October attack on southern Israel last year.
Mr Biden stressed the importance of supporting Ukraine as it fights off Russia’s full-scale invasion, the White House said, amid concerns that Mr Trump would follow through with threats to cut US aid to Kyiv.
The White House said Mr Biden’s team is open to working with Mr Trump’s on securing the release of Israeli hostages, which, along with a ceasefire in Gaza, has been the focus of negotiations between Israel and Hamas and their mediators.
It also said the Biden administration had secured extra commitments from Israel in the past couple of days over the situation in Gaza, where a 13-month war has caused the death of more than 43,000 people, Palestinian health officials say.
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‘It’s always nice to win’
Mr Trump, who previously won the keys to the White House when running against Hillary Clinton in 2016, will be sworn in as president on 20 January following his decisive election win against Ms Harris last week.
Sky News’ US partner network NBC News has projected the Republicans have retained control of the House of Representatives.
It means all levers of power in Washington are now under Mr Trump and his party’s control, having also secured the Senate.
They will also be backed by a Supreme Court with a 6-3 conservative majority, including three justices appointed by the president-elect.
Earlier today, Mr Trump met with billionaire Elon Musk earlier today before he celebrated his victory with Republicans in the House of Representatives.
“Isn’t it nice to win? It’s nice to win. It’s always nice to win,” Mr Trump said. “The House did very well.”
Mr Trump received a standing ovation from House Republicans, many of whom took videos of him as he ran through their party’s victories up and down the ballot, in what would be his final presidential election.
“I suspect I won’t be running again unless you say ‘he’s good, we’ve got to figure something out’,” Mr Trump said to laughter.
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