When Sunak emerged as chief secretary to the Treasury in 2019, the promise of his easy-going competence was a useful contrast to the maladministration of Boris Johnson. That survived up to the point, post-Covid, when he lost out to Liz Truss thanks in part to his association with the fall of his former boss, and the Tory members’ predilection for anarchy. His eventual rise to the PM was
essentially by default, the least dangerous figure to fix the plumbing after Truss trashed the joint.
