8 From Truss to Sunak in six days
Contents
Overview
1 From Truss to Sunak in six days
Thursday 20th October to Thursday 27th October
The chances on Wednesday 19th October
The new specially designed rules for choosing the party leader
2 Prime ministers: time in office
3 Prime minister and cabinet: the representation of social groups
4 Opinion polls
Overview
This short chapter charts the events of six days which started with Liz Truss’s resignation as leader of the Conservative Party. This was followed by a high-speed four-day leadership contest. The sole candidate, Rishi Sunak, won the leadership, became prime minister, formed a cabinet and experienced his first Prime Minister’s Question Time.
It had not been clear that Sunak would be the only candidate. It had looked as if Johnson might try to come back as prime minister. Also Penny Mordaunt withdrew at the very last minute. The process had been designed to make sure that there would be a result very quickly.
So the man who had lost to Truss just seven weeks previously was now Prime Minister. The man who had lost to Johnson in 2019 is now Chancellor. Of the new occupants of No. 10 and No. 11, one is of Asian origin and one is white British – and one spouse was born in India and the other spouse was born in China.
Truss’s seven weeks in office is compared with the length in office of previous prime ministers since Neville Chamberlain in 1937.
The opinion polls showed the Labour lead at around 30%. Keir Starmer’s ratings continued to be higher than Conservative leaders’- although the poll at the end of the week suggested Sunak had slightly reduced the gap.
It seemed possible that a tempestuous period in British politics might be at an end.
1 From Truss to Sunak in six days
Thursday 20th October to Thursday 27th October
Support for Kwasi Kwarteng’s mini-budget and for Prime Minister Liz Truss fell away and she resigned as leader of the Conservative Party on Thursday 20th October 2022 – indicating that she would stay on as prime minister until a replacement was found.
It is the 1922 Committee of the Conservative Party (MPs) that organises the election of a new leader. In this instance they wanted a speedy process: candidates would have to achieve the support of 100 MPs by 2pm on Monday 24th October. Rishi Sunak soon achieved this threshold. Boris Johnson returned to the fray and claimed to have passed the threshold but subsequently decided to withdraw from the contest on Sunday 23rd. Penny Mordaunt failed to achieve the threshold and withdrew at the last minute.
On Monday 24th October 2022 it was announced that Rishi Sunak was the only candidate and hence was the new leader of the party. On Tuesday 25th October 2022 King Charles III accepted the resignation of Liz Truss and invited Rishi Sunak to be the new Prime Minister - the third Prime Minister this year.
Appointing his cabinet, Sunak retained Jeremy Hunt as Chancellor and James Cleverly as Foreign Secretary and reinstated Suella Braverman as Home Secretary. One third of ministers kept their jobs and new appointments resulted in a cabinet giving a broader representation of the spectrum of views in the party.
The first cabinet meeting and the first Prime Minister’s Question Time were on Wednesday 26th.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-politics-63402006
The front-page headlines for the past week were:
21 Johnson weighs return to power as Truss quits No 10. Liz Truss resigns after just forty-four days. Former PM preparing to take on Sunak and Mordaunt in fresh leadership race
22 Johnson ‘will prove fatal’. Hague warns of Tory death spiral and calls former PM’s return worst idea in 46 years
23 -
24 Sunak set for No 10 as Johnson quits race. Ex-PM blames lack of unity among candidates
25 Sunak tells Tories: unite or die. After coronation by MPS, next prime minister warns that failure to heal rifts would ‘finish’ party.
26 I’ll fix mistakes, vows Sunak as he brings in continuity cabinet. New PM takes swipe at Truss’s record. One third of ministers keep their jobs. Gove and Raab return to top roles.
27 Sunak: better education can be our silver bullet. Push for ‘world-class’ vocational training – and more subjects under British baccalaureate.
…
BBC politics
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/politics
27 “Sunak will not go to key climate summit next month.”
The chances on Wednesday 19th October
Rishi Sunak and Penny Mordaunt are seen as contenders. Jeremy Hunt has ruled himself out. Will Boris Johnson stand just seven weeks after resigning his premiership? The chances of the following becoming next prime minister are:
Rishi Sunak 50%
Penny Mordaunt 31%
Boris Johnson 18%
Ben Wallace 8%
Kemi Badenoch 2%
[Suella Braverman]
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-politics-63309400
The new specially designed rules for choosing the party leader
The rules were designed specifically for the election of a successor to Liz Truss and intended to produce a speedy outcome.
Candidates needed the backing of 100 MPs by Monday to enter the race. There were 357 Conservative MPs. So there could be at most only three candidates.
If only one candidate has the requisite backing then they become PM.
If there are only two candidates (in the beginning or after elimination) then Conservative MPs vote (an indicative vote) and then party members vote online.
If there are three candidates then Conservative MPs vote and the lowest candidate is eliminated.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-62068930
2 Prime ministers: time in office
Rishi Sunak is the third prime minister within the space of seven weeks. But that of course is only another way of saying that the second prime minister’s period in office was extremely short. Instead let us look further back at the tenure in office of previous prime ministers:
Neville Chamberlain 1937-1940; Winston Churchill 1940-1945; Clem Attlee 1945-1951; Winston Churchill 1951-1955; Anthony Eden 1955-1957; Harold Macmillan 1957-1963; Alec Douglas-Hume 1963-1964; Harold Wilson 1964-1970; Edward Heath 1970-1974; Harold Wilson 1974-1976; Jim Callaghan 1976-1979; Margaret Thatcher 1979-1990; John Major 1990-1997; Tony Blair 1997-2007; Gordon Brown 2007-2010; David Cameron 2010-2016;Theresa May 2016-2019; Boris Johnson 2019-2022; Liz Truss 2022-2022; Rishi Sunak 2022-,
The durations in office are 3, 5, 6, 4, 2, 6, 1, 6, 4, 2, 3, 11, 7, 10, 3, 6, 3, 3, 0, ?, completed years respectively (with Conservative tenures in bold).
https://www.gov.uk/government/history/past-prime-ministers
The recent period has not been exceptional in terms of the duration of office of a prime minister – apart from the seven weeks tenure by Liz Truss. Also the recent run of 6, 3, 3, 0 and ? is quite similar to the run of 4, 2, 6 and 1 in 1951-1964 when in 1955 no lesser figure than Winston Churchill handed over to Anthony Eden.
[Aside: the 1955 general election was the last in which the Conservatives won the majority share of the votes in Scotland.]
Since 1922, a leader of the Conservative Party has been formally elected, even when the party is in opposition. Originally, the party leader was appointed opaquely by other high-ranking members of the party. This process was gradually democratized in the late 20th century; in 1965, the appointment was linked to a vote by party MPs, and in 1998, the process was opened to all party members to decide between the last two candidates selected by parliamentarians.[2][3]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leader_of_the_Conservative_Party_(UK) ;
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn01366/ ;
https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN01366/SN01366.pdf ;
3 Prime minister and cabinet: the representation of social groups
Boris Johnson is a white man. All UK prime ministers have been white men with just three exceptions: Margaret Thatcher, Theresa May and Liz Truss.
Rishi Sunak is the first ever UK prime minister of Asian origins, first ever British Asian, first ever Hindu. At 42 he is the youngest prime minister for two hundred years – since Pitt the Younger (aged 24) in 1804. (Tony Blair was 43.) He is second only to Pitt the Younger in the lowest amount of time as an MP before becoming PM: 7 years 5 months.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Pitt_the_Younger
Appointing his cabinet, Sunak retained Jeremy Hunt as Chancellor and James Cleverly as Foreign Secretary and reinstated Suella Braverman as Home Secretary. One third of ministers kept their jobs and new appointments resulted in a cabinet giving a broader representation of the spectrum of views in the party.
However women are less well represented:
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/oct/26/anger-low-proportion-women-rishi-sunak-uk-cabinet
4 Opinion polls
October 24th 2022. The following YouGov finding is somewhat misleading in that constituencies do not vote for the “best prime minister” in a general election.
“MRP: Starmer wins ‘best prime minister’ in 389 seats to Sunak’s 127”
October 25th 2022. Sunak has continued to improve his favourability score somewhat. He is somewhat behind Starmer and Labour and far ahead of Johnson/Truss and his party.
October 18th to 25th 2022
The Labour lead in the past week (percentages)
Conservatives 22; 14-26
Labour 53; 50-57
Labour lead 34; 25-39
Twelve polls: Dates conducted 18-25 October 2022.
Notes:
.(i) since the summer Lib Dems and Greens have dropped a few percentage points most of it probably going to Labour.
.(ii) Last week: “with Conservatives on 24%, surely they can’t go much lower?”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_United_Kingdom_general_election
October 27th 2022
The YouGov poll this week shows an improvement for the Conservatives compared with last week: “new PM gets poll bounce” 27, 4. Do other polls show the same improvement? Will the improvement still be there next week?