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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”.

Rishi Sunak PMQS

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.

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Labour Leader Keir Starmer opens up PMQs with a question about housing targets, accusing the Prime Minister of breaking promises.

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.

Rishi Sunak PMQS

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.

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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.

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Every shop and home burned or ransacked: The Syrian city engulfed in tribal violence

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Every shop and home burned or ransacked: The Syrian city engulfed in tribal violence

The Syrian presidency has announced it’s assembling a special taskforce to try to stop nearly a week of sectarian clashes in the southern Druze city of Sweida.

The presidency called for restraint on all sides and said it is making strenuous efforts to “stop the fighting and curb the violations that threaten the security of the citizens and the safety of society”.

By early Saturday morning, a ceasefire had been confirmed by the US special envoy for Syria, Tom Barrack, who posted on X that Syrian President Ahmed al Sharaa and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had agreed to a ceasefire supported by US secretary of state Marco Rubio.

The post went on to state that this agreement had the support of “Turkey, Jordan and its neighbours” and called upon the Druze, Bedouins, and Sunni factions to put down their arms.

Sky News special correspondent Alex Crawford reports from the road leading to Sweida, the city that has become the epicentre of Syria’s sectarian violence.

For the past 24 hours, we’ve watched as Syria‘s multiple Arab tribes began mobilising in the Sweida province to help defend their Bedouin brethren.

A fighter aims a gun
A body is wrapped in a blanket

Thousands travelled from multiple different Syrian areas and had reached the edge of Sweida city by Friday nightfall after a day of almost non-stop violent clashes and killings.

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“We have come to protect the [Arab] Bedouin women and children who are being terrorised by the Druze,” they told us.

A fighter in Syria
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Arab fighters said they had come to protect the Bedouin women and children

Fighters at a gas station
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Fighters at a petrol station

Every shop and every home in the streets leading up to Sweida city has been burned or ransacked, the contents destroyed or looted.

We saw tribal fighters loading the back of pickup trucks and driving away from the city with vehicles packed with looted goods from Druze homes.

A burning building
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Shops and homes leading up to Sweida city have been burned or ransacked

A burned out car

Several videos posted online showed violence against the Druze, including one where tribal fighters force three men to throw themselves off a high-rise balcony and are seen being shot as they do so.

Doctors at the nearby community hospital in Buser al Harir said there had been a constant stream of casualties being brought in. As we watched, another dead fighter was carried out of an ambulance.

The medics estimated there had been more than 600 dead in their area alone. “The youngest child who was killed was a one-and-a-half-year-old baby,” one doctor told us.

A doctor talks to Sky's Alex Crawford
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Doctors said there had been a constant stream of casualties due to violence

The violence is the most dangerous outbreak of sectarian clashes since the fall of the Bashar al Assad regime last December – and the most serious challenge for the new leader to navigate.

The newly brokered deal is aimed at ending the sectarian killings and restoring some sort of stability in a country which is emerging from more than a decade of civil war.

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Israel and Syria agree to ceasefire, says US ambassador to Turkey

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Israel and Syria agree to ceasefire, says US ambassador to Turkey

Israel and Syria have agreed to a ceasefire, the US ambassador to Turkey has said.

Several hundred people have reportedly been killed this week in the south of Syria in violence involving local fighters, government authorities and Bedouin tribes.

As the violence escalated in the southern province of Sweida, Israel launched airstrikes, including attacks on Wednesday on the defence ministry in Damascus and a target near the presidential palace.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government said it aimed to protect Syrian Druze – part of a small but influential minority that also has followers in Lebanon and Israel.

Clashes between Bedouin and Druze groups further tensions in the Middle East

In a post on X, the US ambassador to Turkey, Tom Barrack, said Israel and Syria had agreed to a ceasefire supported by Turkey, Jordan and others.

“We call upon Druze, Bedouins, and Sunnis to put down their weapons and together with other minorities build a new and united Syrian identity,” Mr Barrack said in a post on X.

The Israeli embassy in Washington and Syrian Consulate in Canada did not immediately comment or respond to requests for comment from the Reuters news agency.

The ceasefire announcement came after the US worked to put an end to the conflict, with secretary of state Marco Rubio saying on Wednesday that steps had been agreed to end a “troubling and horrifying situation”.

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Why is Israel bombing Syria?

After Israel warned it would destroy forces attacking Syrian Druze, Syrian President Ahmed al Sharaa told the minority group in a televised statement on Thursday that “we reject any attempt to drag you into hands of an external party”.

He then claimed Israel has “consistently targeted our stability and created discord among us since the fall of the former regime”.

It comes after the United Nations’ migration agency said earlier on Friday that nearly 80,000 people had been displaced in the region since violence broke out on Sunday.

It also said that essential services, including water and electricity, had collapsed in Sweida, telecommunications systems were widely disrupted, and health facilities in Sweida and Daraa were under severe strain.

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‘Horrific incident’ at sheriff training facility in LA – at least three people dead

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'Horrific incident' at sheriff training facility in LA - at least three people dead

At least three people have been killed after a “horrific incident” at a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department training facility, officials have said.

A spokesperson for the department said there was an explosion at the Biscailuz Center Academy Training in east LA.

The incident was reported at around 7.30am local time (3.30pm UK time).

Aerial footage from local channel KABC-TV suggests the blast happened in a parking lot filled with sheriff patrol cars and box trucks.

The Eugene Biscailuz Center Academy Training in East Los Angeles. Pic: NBC Los Angeles
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The training centre in east LA. Pic: NBC Los Angeles

Attorney general Pam Bondi wrote on X: “I just spoke to @USAttyEssayli about what appears to be a horrific incident that killed at least three at a law enforcement training facility in Los Angeles.

“Our federal agents are at the scene and we are working to learn more.”

California congressman Jimmy Sanchez said the explosion had “claimed the lives of at least three deputies”.

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“My condolences to the families and everyone impacted by this loss,” he said.

Media and law enforcement stage near the site of an explosion at the LA County Sheriff's Special Operations Bureau on Friday, July 18, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Etienne Laurent)
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Media and law enforcement officials near the explosion site. Pic: AP

The attorney general said in a follow-up post that agents from the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are “on the ground to support”.

The mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass, said the LAPD bomb squad has also responded to the scene.

“The thoughts of all Angelenos are with all of those impacted by this blast,” she said.

California Governor Gavin Newsom has been briefed on the incident, his press office said in a post on X.

“The Governor’s Office of Emergency Services is in contact with the Sheriff’s Department and closely monitoring the situation, and has offered full state assistance,” it added.

The cause of the explosion is being investigated.

This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly.

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