As Margaret Thatcher knew, a PM’s success depends on wise advice – and Sunak should look to his backbenches to find it
Rishi Sunak needs help. Most prime ministerial decisions are no-brainers, as in reversing a mini-budget or sacking a Jacob Rees-Mogg. Others are strictly personal. These have recently included whether to return Suella Braverman to the Home Office, allow Gavin Williamson into the cabinet, or not to go to Cop27. They have damaged Sunak’s claim to “integrity and accountability” and are widely regarded as needing urgent reversal, as has already happened over Cop27.
When Sunak arrived in Downing Street he brought with him a cohort of aides who could have come from central casting. They are young, sneakered, tieless image-makers, and fiercely loyal to him. They are products of today’s Westminster, a monastic enclosure of special advisers, thinktanks and lobby groups isolated from the world outside. They have created Brand Rishi as a video hero, a cliched politician of the metaverse. Thus the Braverman and Williamson decisions are interpreted as merely the results of an algorithm for a balanced cabinet.
Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist
