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

‘At least 798 killed’ at Gaza aid points – as medical charity warns acute malnutrition at all-time high

Published

19 hours ago

July 11, 2025

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'At least 798 killed' at Gaza aid points - as medical charity warns acute malnutrition at all-time high

At least 798 people in Gaza have reportedly been killed while receiving aid in the past six weeks – while acute malnutrition is said to have reached an all-time high.

The UN human rights office said 615 of the deaths – between 27 May and 7 July – were “in the vicinity” of sites run by the controversial US and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).

A further 183 people killed were “presumably on the route of aid convoys,” said Ravina Shamdasani, from the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Its figures are based on a range of sources, including hospitals, cemeteries, and families in the Gaza Strip, as well as non-governmental organisations (NGOs), its partners on the ground, and Hamas-run health authorities.

Aid agency Project Hope said on Thursday that 10 children were among at least 15 people killed as they waited for its clinic in Deir al Balah to open.

The GHF has claimed the UN figures are “false and misleading” and has repeatedly denied any violence at or around its sites.

Meanwhile, Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) – also known as Doctors Without Borders – said two of its sites were seeing their worst-ever levels of severe malnutrition.

Cases at its Gaza City clinic are said to have tripled from 293 in May to 983 in early July.

“Over 700 pregnant or breastfeeding women and nearly 500 children are now receiving emergency nutritional care,” MSF said.

The humanitarian medical charity said food prices were at extreme levels, with sugar at $766 (£567) per kilo and flour $30 (£22) per kilo, and many families surviving on one meal of rice or lentils a day.

It’s a major concern for the estimated 55,000 pregnant women in Gaza, who risk miscarriage, stillbirth and malnourished infants because of the shortages.

The GHF began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May, after Israel eased its 11-week blockade of aid into the coastal territory.

It has four distribution centres, three of which are in the southern Gaza Strip.

The sites, kept off-limits to independent media, are guarded by private security contractors and located in zones where the Israeli military operates.

Palestinian witnesses say Israeli forces have repeatedly opened fire towards crowds of people going to receive aid.

The Israeli military says it has fired warning shots at people who have behaved in what it says is a suspicious manner.

It says its forces operate near the aid sites to stop supplies from falling into the hands of militants.

After the deaths of hundreds of Palestinians trying to reach the aid hubs, the United Nations has called the GHF’s aid model “inherently unsafe” and a violation of humanitarian impartiality standards.

In response, a GHF spokesperson said: “The fact is the most deadly attacks on aid sites have been linked to UN convoys.”

The GHF says it has delivered more than 70 million meals to Gazans in five weeks and claims other humanitarian groups had “nearly all of their aid looted” by Hamas or criminal gangs.

World

At least 798 people have been killed at Gaza aid points, the UN says

Published

1 day ago

July 11, 2025

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At least 798 people in Gaza have been killed while receiving aid in six weeks, the UN human rights office has said.

A spokesperson for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said 615 of the killings were “in the vicinity” of sites run by the controversial US and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).

A further 183 people killed were “presumably on the route of aid convoys,” Ravina Shamdasani told reporters in Geneva.

The office said its figures are based on numbers from a range of sources, including hospitals, cemeteries and families in the Gaza Strip, as well as NGOs, its partners on the ground and the Hamas-run health authorities.

The GHF has claimed the figures are “false and misleading”. It has repeatedly denied there has been any violence at or around its sites.

The organisation began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May, after Israel eased its 11-week blockade of aid into the enclave.

It has four distribution centres, three of which are in the southern Gaza Strip. The sites, kept off-limits to independent media, are guarded by private security contractors and located in zones where the Israeli military operates.

Palestinian witnesses say Israeli forces have repeatedly opened fire towards crowds of people going to receive aid.

The Israeli military says it has fired warning shots at people who have behaved in what they say is a suspicious manner.

It says its forces operate near the aid sites to stop supplies falling into the hands of militants.

In response, a GHF spokesperson told the Reuters news agency: “The fact is the most deadly attacks on aid sites have been linked to UN convoys.”

The GHF says it has delivered more than 70 million meals to Gazans in five weeks and claims other humanitarian groups had “nearly all of their aid looted” by Hamas or criminal gangs.

World

Ten children among at least 15 killed waiting for Gaza health clinic to open, says aid group

Published

1 day ago

July 11, 2025

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Ten children among at least 15 killed waiting for Gaza health clinic to open, says aid group

Ten children and two women are among at least 15 killed in an airstrike near a Gaza health clinic, according to an aid organisation.

Project Hope said it happened this morning near Altayara Junction, in Deir al Balah, as patients waited for the clinic to open.

The organisation’s president called it a “blatant violation of international humanitarian law, and a stark reminder that no one and no place is safe in Gaza“.

“No child waiting for food and medicine should face the risk of being bombed,” added the group’s project manager, Dr Mithqal Abutaha.

“It was a horrific scene. People had to come seeking health and support, instead they faced death.”

Operations at the clinic – which provides a range of health and maternity services – have been suspended.

Some of the children were reportedly waiting to receive nutritional supplements, necessary due to the dire shortage of food being allowed into Gaza.

Israel‘s military is investigating and said it was targeting a militant who took part in the 7 October terror attack.

“The IDF [Israel Defence Force] regrets any harm to uninvolved individuals and operates to minimize harm as much as possible,” added.

The deaths come as an agreement over a 60-day truce hangs in the balance – with President Trump cautiously saying it could happen “this week, or next week”.

Elsewhere in Gaza, the Nasser Hospital reported another 21 deaths in airstrikes in Khan Younis and in the nearby coastal area of Muwasi.

It said three children and their mother were among the dead.

Israel said its troops have been dismantling more than 130 Hamas infrastructure sites in Khan Younis over the past week, including missile launch sites, weapons storage facilities and a 500m tunnel.

On Wednesday, a soldier was shot dead when militants burst out of a tunnel and tried to abduct him, the military added.

Eighteen soldiers have been killed in the past three weeks – one of the deadliest periods for the Israeli army in months.

A 22-year-old Israeli man was also killed on Thursday by two attackers in a supermarket in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, said the Magen David Adom emergency service.

People on site reportedly shot and killed the attackers but information on their identity has so far not been released.

Negotiations over a proposed 60-day ceasefire are ongoing and President Trump reportedly put “heavy” pressure on Israel’s leader, who visited the US this week.

A major sticking point is said to be the status of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) inside Gaza during the 60-day ceasefire and beyond, should it last longer.

However, Sky News understands the Israeli government thinks the chances of a permanent truce are “questionable”.

More than 57,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war – more than half are women and children, according to Gaza’s Hamas-controlled health ministry.

Its figure does not differentiate between civilians and fighters.

The war began in October 2023 after Hamas killed around 1,200 people in Israel and kidnapped 251 others.

Some of them remain In Gaza and are a crucial part of ceasefire negotiations, which also include a planned surge in humanitarian aid into the strip.