The invisible prime minister with the dullness dividend: Why Sunak’s keeping a low profile

Published

3 years ago

December 10, 2022

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He’s done it! It was a low bar to jump over but at least Rishi Sunak has lasted longer as prime minister than Liz Truss.

The nation can be reassured that there will not be a fourth prime minister this year, or even a general election before Christmas, as Boris Johnson subjected the country to in 2019.

This week Sunak passed the new shortest record set by Truss by serving in Number 10 for more than 44 days without resigning.

After the political turmoil brought on by two “disrupter” prime ministers, the public seems pleased by the period of calm which the diligent Sunak has brought with him. In opinion polls he is personally much more popular than his party and about on a par with the leader of the opposition, although Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour is way ahead of the Conservatives.

The people who seem least content, least respectful, and least inclined to give the new prime minister a break are on his own side. He is finding it next to impossible to please the country and the Conservatives at the same time.

Faced with these difficulties Sunak has opted to keep a low profile. Beyond a list of unmissable prime ministerial engagements at home and abroad, he has scarcely been seen in public or on social media. Tory voices have joined his opponents attacking him as an “invisible prime minister”.

Sunak’s ‘dullness dividend’

The circumstances in which he came to power meant that Sunak had no chance of a honeymoon period: a bold 100 days in which he could “hit the ground running” and “come up with fresh ideas”.

Liz Truss had just tried that and crashed the economy.

Sunak and Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor who had already been chosen for him, faced an immediate crisis and a repair job to restore confidence. On the financial front Sunak has achieved what was asked of him.

There has been a “dullness dividend”. Britain’s economic standing is now no worse than it was before the shock of the Truss/Kwarteng mini-budget, interest rate rises are similar to those in equivalent economies, and normal service has resumed on debt markets.

Sunak has kept his head down, moving surreptitiously, because many of his measures – such as putting up taxes and trying to maintain public spending – are “unTory”, according to critics on his own side.

But then Conservative activists never wanted him as leader – after all they rejected him this summer in favour of Truss when they had the chance to vote for him.

Sunak’s paid a price for becoming PM

Sunak was once the rising star of the party. Back then he hired experts to run a slick personal publicity campaign, including videos and postings of his activities as chancellor branded with his signature.

This self-promotion backfired as his relationship with the then prime minister Johnson soured and as their policy differences widened.

Earlier this year “Rishi” was tarnished by being fined along with Johnson for breaking COVID party rules. Around the same time his public image as a future UK prime minister was shattered when the media were pointed towards his wife’s non-dom tax status and his own possession of a US green card.

Tory MPs installed Sunak as party leader and prime minister because the wider public, rather than Tory activists, saw no credible alternative if a general election was to be avoided.

The MPs knew that they had to prevent another ballot of the party membership which would probably have re-imposed the disgraced Johnson on the nation.

Sunak also had to pay a price to get to the top. He was effectively blackmailed into giving key jobs in the cabinet to people who would otherwise have thrown their weight behind another membership ballot, which was the last thing the national interest needed and which he might have lost.

Suella Braverman and Gavin Williamson, who had both previously been sacked from government for misconduct, were the most prominent of these compromise appointments.

They have got in the way of Sunak delivering his promise that “the government will have integrity, professionalism and accountability”.

Williamson has already had to resign for bullying, Braverman is under investigation for similar offences, as is Dominic Raab, whose previous track record barely justified his reappointment as deputy prime minister.

Meanwhile Sunak was unable to find a place in government for his closest ally at Westminster, and former boss, Sajid Javid, who announced this week that he is standing down as an MP.

Beware the Tory man-eating tigers

Sunak has had to strike similar compromises with the broader range of Conservatives in parliament.

Tory MPs have tasted blood so often in ousting four PMs – Cameron, May, Johnson and Truss – that they are the political equivalent of man-eating tigers, unable to stop.

Some of them are already predicting that next spring’s local election results will be so bad that they will have a chance then to get rid of “Rishi” and perhaps replace him with “Boris”. Many have already abandoned hope that the Conservatives can win the next general election and are thinking only of their own skins.

For more than a dozen MPs so far that means not standing for re-election. Quitter Matt Hancock epitomized the prevalent mood of self-interest this week when he lectured the prime minister that he was going because “the Conservative Party must now reconnect with the public we serve.”

Others are trying to bend the government to policies which will go down well with voters in their constituencies even if they are not necessarily in the national interest.

Sunak has little appetite to fight ideological battles

In spite of the notional Conservative majority in the Commons, Sunak’s programme is constantly vulnerable to rebellion and potential defeat.

Shire Tories don’t want house building in their back yard, so this week Sunak U-turned on house building.

Landowners and the construction industry like on-shore wind farms so Sunak U-turned to favour them.

Campaigners in the North East want the jobs generated by a new coal mine in Cumbria, so the government has given it the green light, overruling its own environmental advisors.

Sunak has little appetite to fight ideological battles with his own side in parliament, continuing instead to concentrate on practical problems, away from parliamentary scrutiny where possible.

Business managers have dropped the Schools Bill, pleading pressure of parliamentary time, even though the House is actually sitting for fewer hours than usual, and often goes home at teatime on Wednesday.

Raab’s plans for a British Bill of Rights are set to be shelved, in favour of practical measures on strikes and small boat migrants.

The avoidance of hard hats

Chancellors of the Exchequer concentrate on one big thing, surfacing rarely to go public. Gordon Brown was shocked how constant the demands on him were when he became prime minister.

Former Chancellor Sunak is also finding out the hard way – as was shown by his initial decision, quickly reversed, not to attend the COP 27 meeting in Egypt. Since then he has only been out and about when he can’t avoid it, at the G20, Remembrance Day, and the Lord Mayor’s banquet.

Stung by missteps of his predecessors and his former self, Sunak has let it be known that he will not be donning hard hats and high vis jackets for what have become standard photo opportunities.

He will be hoping that trying to do the right thing, slowly and cautiously, will have political dividends over time, rather than being merely its own reward. As yet there is little sign that his low profile is paying off for the Conservatives.

Sunak’s absence of PR bluster has upset Tory cheerleaders who have come to expect the swagger of a Cameron, Johnson or Truss. But then, in the long run, such overconfident celebrity behaviour did neither them nor the UK much good.

World

Stakes high for Trump-Putin summit as Zelenskyy faces nightmare deal

Published

4 hours ago

August 10, 2025

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Stakes high for Trump-Putin summit as Zelenskyy faces nightmare deal

For Ukraine – its exhausted, brave soldiers, its thousands of bereaved families mourning their dead, and its beleaguered president – it is exactly what they feared it would be.

They fear the compromise they will be forced to make will be messy, costly, unfair and ultimately beneficial to the invading tyrant who brought death and destruction to their sovereign land.

Six weeks ago, I spoke to President Zelenskyy in London.

War latest: Team Trump ‘risk being out of their depth’ at Putin meeting

I put it to him in our Sky News interview that Presidents Trump and Putin were heading towards making a deal between themselves, a grand bargain, in which Ukraine was but one piece on the chessboard.

Zelenskyy smiled as if to acknowledge the reality ahead.

He paused and then he said this: “We are not going to be a card in talks between great nations, and we will never accept that… I definitely do not want to see global deals between America and Russia.

“We don’t need it. We are a separate story, a victim of Russian aggression and we will not reward it.”

It was a response that betrayed his greatest fear – that this will become essentially a Trump negotiation in which Zelenskyy and Ukraine will be told “take it or leave it”.

And, by the way, if you “leave it”, then it will be painful.

Harsh realities

It’s the prospect that now confronts Zelenskyy as Trump and Putin plough ahead on a course that has clear attractions for both of them.

Of course, Zelenskyy is right to say there can be no deal without Ukraine. But there are harsh realities at play here.

Trump wants a deal on Ukraine – any deal – that he can chalk up as a win. He wants it badly and he wants it now.

It’s the impediment to a broader strategic deal with Putin and he wants it out of the way. It’s what he does, and it’s the way he does it. And President Putin knows it.

He knows Trump, he sees an opportunity in Trump, and he can’t get across Russia to Alaska fast enough. He will be back at global diplomacy’s top table.

Always a deal to be done

Make no mistake, when Trump says he just wants to stop the killing, he means it. Such wanton loss of young lives offends him. He keeps saying it.

He sees war, by and large, as an unnecessary waste of life and of money. Deals are there to be done. There’s always a deal.

Sadly for Ukraine, in this case, it is unlikely to be a fair deal.

How can any deal be “fair” when you are the victim of outrageous brutality and heinous crimes.

But it may well be the deal they have to take unless they want to fight an increasingly one-sided war with much less help from Trump and America.

A senior UK diplomat told me if things turn out as feared, it should not be called a land-for-peace deal. It should be called annexation “because that’s what it is”.

But here’s the rub.

Peace, calm, the end of the nightly terror of war has much to recommend it. In short, a bad peace can often seem better than no peace. But, ultimately, rewarded dictators always come back for more.

If Ukraine has to accept a bad peace, then it will want clear security guarantees to make sure it cannot happen again.

It is the very least they deserve.

There is much at stake in Alaska.

World

Desperation only grows in Gaza, as crowds swell at protests in Israel

Published

4 hours ago

August 10, 2025

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Desperation only grows in Gaza, as crowds swell at protests in Israel

As if life in Gaza wasn’t hard enough, there is now a heatwave – compounding the problems of minimal water, food and the basics you need to keep a family alive.

To keep your children halfway clean, when you’ve been displaced over and over again, forced to live under tarpaulin rammed up against your neighbours.

“We suffer greatly, especially because we live in tents,” says Riham Akel, who was displaced from the north and now lives in Gaza City.

“They are made of cloth and plastic that do not protect us from the heat. In addition, there is no electricity, drinking water or water for washing, no fans or air conditioning.”

Given Israel’s planned takeover of Gaza City – and the evacuation of the 800,000 or so people now living there – it’s likely she’ll be forced to move again.

In Hostages Square in Tel Aviv, the crowds have swelled these past two Saturdays – almost doubling after Hamas published propaganda videos showing two of the remaining hostages starving in captivity – and now this week, Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to push ahead with full security control of the Gaza Strip.

People here just want it to stop.

Yael said: “I feel like a hostage in my own country, as though no one listens to me – 80% of the citizens don’t want it anymore.”

“When you talk about the government it’s not only Gaza,” says David Solomon. “They are trying to undermine the democracy in Israel, they’re trying willingly to destroy the whole of Israel, they don’t care just for another year or two of their survival.”

There are also calls for IDF soldiers to refuse to carry out Netanyahu’s plan to take over Gaza City.

Another major point of contention is what many see as the failure of the International Red Cross to bring food to the hostages. Food for the Palestinians in Gaza is not much discussed, except for a small group on the fringes.

“We believe that the Israeli public is ignorant on purpose,” says Gilad Melzer – holding up a sign saying “Stop Genocide” with a photo of a starving child.

“Some of it wants to stay ignorant and some, the government wants to keep them ignorant of what is going on in Gaza and they’re ignorant as well of what is going on in the occupied territories.”

Benjamin Netanyahu seems to have made up his mind, though. He will ramp up the fight, despite international outcry, despite the opposition of his military leadership and despite the tens of thousands who rally each week in Hostages Square, hoping someone in government will bother to listen.

There is a sense of hopelessness here – that the solidarity of numbers still makes so little difference.

World

Gaza ‘injured his soul’: Israeli soldier died by suicide two days before he was due to return to duty

Published

4 hours ago

August 10, 2025

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Gaza 'injured his soul': Israeli soldier died by suicide two days before he was due to return to duty

When your son is risking his life fighting in Gaza, you don’t expect to hear news he’s been killed on a rest period at home.

Eliran Mizrahi had served 187 days as a reservist in Gaza since 8 October, before he died by suicide in June last year.

His mother Jenny has turned Eliran’s childhood bedroom into a shrine. The 40-year-old’s combat vest hanging on the wall still has sand in it from Gaza.

The cap he was wearing when he died, sits just above it on a shelf laden with memories of his life.

Israel is seeing a wave of soldiers like Eliran taking their own lives – five died by suicide just last month.

IDF (Israel Defence Forces) investigations have found it is what they have seen and done in Gaza that are the cause, according to reports by the Israeli public broadcaster.

Eliran’s mother told Sky News her son returned from Gaza a changed man and she fears there will be many more suicides among Israeli soldiers.

“He never left Gaza in his mind,” says Jenny.

“When he came back he couldn’t go back to work. He was a great father with a lot of patience. And he lost his patience with his children, with people.

“He was very silent. He didn’t sleep at night, he had nightmares. We didn’t know anything about it. He didn’t speak. Whenever we asked him he said everything is okay.”

Jenny describes Eliran as someone who was happy and friends with everyone. A father of four “with a big heart” and a big smile. But his experience of the war “injured his soul”.

Initially, he was deployed to clear bodies of people slaughtered by Hamas at the Nova Festival on 7 October and then deployed to Gaza a day later.

Eliran was active on social media and shared videos of his time in Gaza. He was commander of a unit of D9 bulldozers that destroyed buildings and tunnel shafts.

After his death, his D9 partner, Guy Zaken, told a parliamentary committee they were often shot at and they ran over hundreds of bodies.

Yet they filmed themselves smiling and singing to send to their families. Eliran shared some of those videos on social media.

Israel has levelled vast parts of Gaza. Eliran’s actions were part of a systematic campaign the UN says has damaged or destroyed over 90% of Gaza’s homes. Human rights experts warn this could be a war crime.

Eliran was pulled out of Gaza after he sustained knee injuries in an RPG (rocket-propelled grenade) attack on his bulldozer.

‘The bodies and the blood’

He was later diagnosed with PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) – we don’t know the cause of his trauma but in the end he couldn’t live with it. Two days before he was due to return to active duty, he took his own life.

“What he saw over there in Gaza injured his soul. You see all the bodies over there and all the blood. It hurts your soul,” says Eliran’s mother.

Israeli media is reporting at least 18 soldiers have taken their own lives so far this year.

Thousands are suffering with PTSD. And more and more reservists are quietly refusing to turn up for duty.

The IDF says supporting its service members is a top priority and it invests significant resources in doing so, including deploying mental health officers in all military units.

Tuly Flint was one of those officers. A clinical social worker and expert in trauma therapy in his professional life, and a lieutenant colonel in the military reserves, he was deployed to offer psychological support to troops who served in Gaza.

Last year, after treating many soldiers and becoming exposed to the extreme suffering of Gazans, Tuly came to the conclusion the war had no purpose and it was a crime against humanity. So he refused to continue to serve in the IDF.

“At the beginning of the war what we usually saw was simple PTSD. People who talk about the horrors they saw in the first few weeks with the massacre of Hamas,” says Tuly.

“But since the second month of the war, people started talking about what takes place on the Palestinian side.

“Even people that were not talking about Palestinians’ rights, or anything like that, they started talking about the fact that they saw bodies of children, of old people, of women.”

‘You think, are they lying to me’

I asked Tuly how soldiers feel hearing Benjamin Netanyahu‘s narrative that there is no starvation in Gaza – that the images we see are a lie.

The Israeli military bears witness to what is happening in Gaza in a way most of the world, including international journalists, still can’t.

“When you hear your government and your commanders telling things that are not true, you start thinking, are they lying to me also?” says Tuly.

“When you hear your prime minister lying about things that you saw in Gaza, things that you did … people talk about torching houses, people talk about a ‘deadline’ – not a metaphor – a deadline when people cross they will be killed no matter if they are children or women … they see people starving and they also see the chaos.”

After nearly two years of war, the human cost is weighing heavily on Israeli society. A majority of Israelis now believe that only a deal, not military pressure, will bring the remaining hostages home.

And the humanitarian crisis unfolding just across the border is becoming a source of public unease. Former military and intelligence chiefs are also now against the war.

The Commanders for Israel’s Security group (CIS) has argued, in its professional judgement, “Hamas no longer poses a strategic threat to Israel” – and has written to Donald Trump asking him to compel Benjamin Netanyahu to end the war.

Tuly Flint says there’s an erosion of trust between soldiers and those leading them.

“When you come back home and you hear so many people – former chiefs of staff, former heads of the security bodies of Israel – saying ‘this war has no aim anymore’ … you say to yourself: ‘I hear from former chiefs of staff that I’m killing hostages by waging war and my government is still sending me there?’

“When you see the pictures that you’ve seen with your own eyes and your government says ‘no this is a lie, no this is propaganda’, this makes you distrust everyone. And when you distrust everyone, why would you ask for help?”

The mental and moral burden on soldiers could be about to grow.

Despite strong objections from the IDF’s chief of staff, Israel is expanding military operations in Gaza with plans to take control of the entire territory.

We understand that references to suicide in any context can be difficult for some people. We provide details of support available from the Samaritans where any such references are included. You can find these here: call Samaritans for help on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org in the UK. In the US, call the Samaritans branch in your area or 1 (800) 273-TALK.