Pictures from Rishi Sunak’s two years in the top job at the Treasury cover his tea preferences, waiting at Wagamama, working from home during the pandemic, relaxing with the family labrador Nova,A VERY SOCIAL
CHANCELLOR
vying to get on the party’s
Westminster seat shortlist.
According to guidance, the
party will remove shortlisting
powers from regional and
local party officials and the
NEC “will be responsible for
approving each stage of the
selection process, including
the election of the selection
committee, timetable, and
shortlist”.
The aim is to improve the
vetting process after nine
candidates were removed
before the 2019 general
election. It does not,
however, apply to sitting MPs
such as Corbyn.
A Labour spokesman said:
“We have publicly set out the
process required for Jeremy
Corbyn to come back into the
Parliamentary Labour Party.
The ball is in his court.”half-term recess. It is
understood that allies are
considering raising the stakes
by securing the support of
left-wing unions.
If they were to support
Corbyn on his own,
the unions would be backing
a non or anti-Labour
candidate, resulting in their
immediate disaffiliation from
the party and the
accompanying loss
of any financial
support.
Unions that
are likely to
see significant
grassrootssupport for such a stance
include Unite, the train
drivers’ union Aslef, the TSSA
representing transport staff
and the CWU for
communication workers. The
Bakers’ Union has already cut
ties and the RMT rail union
did so years ago.
A party insider said:
“Corbyn could yet take the
nuclear option and try and
take the unions with him.”
The development comes
just weeks after Starmer won
a major battle against the
trade unions to shake up the
rules governing how Labour
picks MP candidates. Under
the new rules, the party’s
ruling National Executive
Committee — a key group
now controlled by Starmer
loyalists — has been handed
the power to reject activistsover as leader in spring 2020.
Labour has already
approved a round of mass
redundancies and asked staff
to take a real-terms pay cut
amid the funding crisis.
The party has been left on
the brink of bankruptcy after
having to spend millions
defending legal action on
antisemitism. Its membership
has also fallen by a fifth since
Starmer took over.
There has been growing
speculation that Corbyn may
choose to stand as an
independent at the next
election or even form a
breakaway party.
Rumours are circulating
among left-wing MPs that he
will make a statement about
his future intentions later this
month after parliament
returns from the FebruaryStarmer said there was “no
chance” he would bring back
Corbyn and that his time in
the Labour Party was
effectively over.
Even if Corbyn apologises
for his comments, as was
demanded by Nick Brown,
the former chief whip, it is
understood that the party
would find a pretext for
continuing his suspension.
Any moves to deselect
Corbyn are likely to put the
party on a collision course
with Unite, Labour’s biggest
funder, which has already
announced plans to cut
donations to the party.
Len McCluskey, the
previous leader of Unite, was
a vehement supporter of
Corbyn and reduced Unite’s
financial commitment to
Labour after Starmer tookThe Labour Party is
preparing to deselect Jeremy
Corbyn and replace him with
a new candidate in his safe
London seat.
Discussions have been held
at the top of the party about
how to oust the former leader
from Islington North.
Corbyn, 72, has been
sitting as an independent MP
since October 2020, having
had the whip removed after
saying that allegations of
antisemitism in Labour under
his leadership had been
“dramatically overstated”.
It is understood that he is
committed to standing at the
next general election, either
as an independent or for
Labour. This creates a
headache for party chiefs
who face the prospect of
having to parachute in a new
candidate to contest his seat
at the last minute.
This would give an inbuilt
advantage to Corbyn, who
has been the area’s MP since
1983 and is likely to benefit
from being the incumbent.
There is no mechanism
available to deselect him
other than the trigger
mechanism under which his
local party would have to
vote for a new contest, which
he would then have to lose.
As a popular local MP this will
not pose a threat to him.
However, a senior party
insider said: “We are
determined to bring this to a
head. The current position is
not sustainable.”
A source close to Sir KeirCaroline Wheeler and
Gabriel Pogrund
Jeremy Corbyn
lost the Labour
whip in 2020
but remains a
popular local MP,
having held his
seat since 1983Labour wants Corbyn out of Commons to fury of union paymasters
Tim Shipman
Chief Political Commentator
familiar with Sunak’s thinking, “but he
knows it usually works for Boris.”
Not now.
One cabinet colleague of Sunak said
Johnson’s decision to attack Sir Keir
Starmer over the failure to prosecute
Jimmy Savile was “profoundly stupid”
and there is little reason to think the
chancellor would disagree. “Being hon-
est, I wouldn’t have said it,” was as far as
he went in public.
It was a form of words Sunak had used
before, when he was one of the public
faces of the Tory campaign in the 2019.
Then he defended Johnson against claims
of racism in his old writings but drew the
line when asked about him saying
£60 million had been “spaffed up the
wall” on child abuse inquiries.
While there have been reports that
Sunak has considered resignation, it was
not over partygate. In No 10 the closest
they think the chancellor came to jump-
ing was when scientists were pressing
Johnson to lock down again before
Christmas. Sunak was in California,
where he has a home, and was up in the
small hours calling Johnson directly to
say he could not support such a move.
“Rishi knew the rest of the cabinet would
back him,” a source said. One Downing
Street official said: “Sunak and [Lord]
Frost [the former Brexit minister], wereSUNAK’S
HIGH-WIRE ACT
Sunak
despairs
of the
mess next
door
Nobody in No 10 doubts he wants the
top job. But as the chancellor fleshes
out his political beliefs, he is treading a
fine line between loyalty and ambition
the two who
really swayed Boris.”
He is still developing
political brawn. The
moment Johnson’s team saw
him as an independent political
player came during the debate over
development spending in 2020,
where Sunak was determined to cut the
aid budget from 0.7 per cent to 0.5 per
cent of national income to fund the Covid
schemes. He faced a rebellion of 50
Tories, led by the former international
development secretary Andrew Mitchell,
enough to defeat the measure. “Every-
one in No 10 told him he would lose that
vote and should drop it,” said one of
those involved in the discussions.
Sunak spent three weeks on the phone
to MPs, urging aides not to attack Mitchell
and using “charm and persuasion” to win
over 30 rebels. Those wondering if Sunak
has the political skills or the level of oper-
ation needed for a leadership contest will
examine this episode with interest.
Sunak succeeded by promising that
when the economy was on a firmer foot-
ing he would reintroduce 0.7 per cent.
“You can trust me,” he told MPs. In his
budget last October Sunak delivered,
announcing the policy would return in
2024-25. He was contacted by several
MPs who said they had doubted him but
were impressed. The contrast with a
prime minister whose honesty and relia-
bility is openly questioned by colleagues
hardly needs stating.
Last week it was reported Sunak was
writing personal letters to MPs who sup-
ported him in the Commons over his
response to the cost of living crisis
recently — an old trick of Gordon Brown’s
for drumming up allies.He makes
me feel
stupid,
said a
minister
said. “But it is a benchmark no one can
ever meet again.” Sunak is “very calm”
about this, calmer in fact than his team
but also conscious “he has never had the
space to really express himself ”.
The next few months, insiders say, are
an opportunity to “let Sunak be Sunak”,
an adaptation of a slogan from the televi-
sion drama The West Wing.
The chancellor will spell out his politi-
cal philosophy at the end of the month
when he gives the Mais lecture at Bayes
(formerly Cass) Business School in Lon-
don. Since 1978 it has been a rite of pas-
sage for chancellors: Geoffrey Howe,
Nigel Lawson, Ken Clarke, Gordon Brown
and Alistair Darling. The last Tory to give
the lecture was George Osborne, a few
months before he got the job. In it,
Osborne bemoaned: “The public finan-
ces are the worst they have ever been in
peacetime.” Sunak might be tempted to
offer a hollow laugh at that.
Some will, inevitably, see this as the
chancellor setting out his stall for a lead-
ership contest where he would be likely
to face off against Liz Truss, the Thatcher-
ite foreign secretary. But it is also a plat-
form for a politician who has been in top-
level politics only for two years to define
himself beyond the pandemic.
“He’s been doing a lot of stuff under
the bonnet of the economy, which is notretail politics or sexy but is important,” a
source close to Sunak said. His team
point to incentive schemes he has intro-
duced to encourage research and devel-
opment: one gives businesses a 50 per
cent discount on accounting and other
software to help them improve their pro-
ductivity. In his most recent news confer-
ence, Sunak said: “I want a high-wage
economy. The right way to get there is to
drive up productivity. The best way to get
that productivity increase is to have busi-
nesses invest.”
Sunak is also an enthusiast for small-
business bosses to do MBA-style manage-
ment courses, an area where he thinks
Britain is behind its competitors. Aides
say this is the business influence he
picked up at Stanford University in Cali-
fornia, where he did an MBA and met his
wife, Akshata Murthy, daughter of an
Indian IT billionaire. They have two
daughters, Krishna and Anoushka.
His immigrant parents, a GP and a
pharmacist, instilled a work ethic and a
love of family. Sunak works long hours:
typically 7.30am until 11pm, but carves
out time for his daughters. “There’s work
Rishi and dad Rishi,” an aide said. “He’s
totally different around his kids. They are
totally the love of his life.”
Friends say the Stanford connection is
one of two places which has modified his
conventional upper middle-class
upbringing (he was educated at Winches-
ter College).
The other is North Yorkshire, where he
took over the Richmond seat from Will-
iam Hague in 2015. Sunak drinks exclu-
sively Yorkshire tea, is a devotee of the
pork and apple pie from Kitson & Sons
butchers in Northallerton and has picked
up several verbal ticks from his adopted
home. Around No 11 he is often heard to
say “now then” and “job’s a good ’un”.
Despite his recent eminence, he hap-
pily jokes that he is still in Hague’s
shadow. Sunak tells against himself the
story of a recent dinner for another MPwhere the constituency chairman called
him the biggest draw they had had in
years. “The most people since William
Hague,” he confided. “Even there I
couldn’t escape William.”
The location of Sunak’s seat means he
also spends a lot of time in the neighbour-
ing Teesside red-wall constituencies,
which have taken on totemic significance
after voting Tory in 2019 and whose MPs
would be bellwethers in a leadership
contest. The Sunaks go to the cinema in
Darlington and he and his daughters use
a “clip and climb” indoor climbing wall at
the weekends in Stockton. Ben Houchen,
the mayor of Teesside, calls him a “north-
ern chancellor”.
Johnson and Sunak are undeniably dif-
ferent political beasts, the one driven by
his heart, the other by his head; one who
sets a broad direction, the other a details
man. During the pandemic Sunak’s party
trick was challenging the scientists by
questioning the mathematical assump-
tions in their modelling. “Rishi makes me
feel stupid,” said one fellow cabinet
minister, “while absolutely not wanting
to make me feel stupid.”T
he prime minister is suspicious of
his chancellor. When a No 10 aide
once said to Johnson that it was
good he had talented “young lions”
in his cabinet, Johnson’s eyes nar-
rowed and he said: “I want tired old
lions.” And yet the two have a mutual
respect, recognising that the other is
good at things they are not. “Boris often
calls him before he does a broadcast clip
to check the details,” said one who knows
both men. “Rishi will call Boris before his
for the best way of phrasing things.”
They speak one-on-one several times a
day. Their most acute disagreements are
in private. The chancellor despairs of the
chaos that reigns next door and blames it
for the mess Johnson has now got into.
“He couldn’t operate like that, he
couldn’t run meetings like that,” said oneW
hen Boris Johnson
gathered the new inner
core of his team for an
8am meeting last week
there were just three
others present — Steve
Barclay, the Downing
Street chief of staff;
Guto Harri, new
director of communi-
cations, and Rishi Sunak, the chancellor.
Someone had supplied bacon rolls.
Johnson “tucked in enthusiastically”,
joined by Barclay and Harri. Sunak
declined, sparking memories of Ed
Miliband, whose leadership of Labour
never recovered from pictures of him
wrestling with a bacon butty. “Being able
to eat a bacon sarnie is critical for your
advancement prospects in the political
arena,” Harri said. Sunak laughed.
It was a moment that encapsulated the
chancellor’s position: a role in the inner
circle; his ambition to move higher, an
acknowledged fact, but one not yet so
threatening that it cannot be joked about.
It contrasted a prime minister driven by
grand appetites and his political gut with
a slimmer, more ascetic chancellor,
known for riding a Peloton bike and fast-
ing one day a week.
Tomorrow marks the second anniver-
sary of Sunak’s appointment, amid ten-
sions over Johnson’s attendance at lock-
down-busting parties in No 10, Sunak’s
public reluctance to provide unqualified
support and claims from his cabinet col-
leagues that he is “on manoeuvres”.
It is a time, too, when the chancellor is
learning how to evolve from the man who
doled out £400 billion on furlough and
other coronavirus schemes into a politi-
cian focused on recovering the Tory rep-
utation for fiscal discipline.
Sunak’s aides are comparing that dis-
aster response to the Stone Roses’ first
album, a high point that will be difficult to
top. “Furlough was one of the best global
responses to the crisis,” one close aide
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