THERE is an affectionate story that sums up and gives us an immense insight into Rishi Sunak MP, the chief secretary to the Treasury. It is recounted by a former leader of his Conservative party, former foreign secretary and his predecessor in his Richmond, Yorkshire, seat, William, now Lord Hague.
“When he was getting to know the constituency, a few weeks after he was selected, I met up with him for a coffee one morning,” said Lord Hague. “I said, ‘What are you going to do next?’ He said, ‘I’m going to Wensleydale to milk cows.’ I said, ‘What? I was a member for 26 years here, OK so I did visit the farms a lot and asked the farmers about their businesses, but you don’t really have to go milking the cows.’
He said, ‘No, I’m determined to understand what it’s like and how the business works, what the future is for farming, I’m going to put my wellies on and this morning, I’m going milking cows.’ That shows you what sort of person he is. It’s very impressive.”
That ‘impressive’ nature is what most who know him or work with him say about Sunak. Rishi Sunak has achieved more in his 39 years than many of us will in a lifetime. Head boy at the independent boarding school, Winchester College, Oxford university beckoned, as did being a Fulbright Scholar at the prestigious Stanford University.
Sunak worked at Goldman Sachs and hedge funds The Children’s Investment Fund and Theleme. And he obviously takes calculated risks. Consider for a moment, a south Asian putting himself up for an ultrasafe Conservative seat, before one of the most overwhelmingly white constituencies. Lord Hague, whom Sunak succeeded, remembers being surprised.
“It wasn’t expected that somebody like Rishi would be the candidate, by the selection panel of the Conservative Association in Richmond,” he said.
“They did have an open mind which they proved of course. They just evaluated all the candidates on their merit, although they probably had it in their minds that it would be someone from north Yorkshire who already knew about farming, things like that.
Somebody they already knew was probably in their minds, in fact they were refreshingly open minded. So, in one sense it was surprising, in another sense, the Richmond Association have always said they just want the best candidate, and that’s what they’ve done over the decades.” But the former party leader knew the Association had picked a winner the moment the pair met.
“I thought he was so able that they put him in front of the couple of hundred selection people making the selection, he was going to make a big impression, and the talk was, ahead of the meeting, that they’d been impressed with him at the earlier meetings,” he recalled.
“He went through the rounds to get down to the final four potential candidates, and in the larger meeting won that, so they were already talking about him and what a remarkable person he was, and how impressed with him they had been, so it was not a big a shock by the time it happened.
He’s a different sort of person to what they had set out looking for, that’s certainly true.” Once in parliament, Sunak soon made his mark. In January 2018, the then prime minister, Theresa May, appointed him housing junior minister at the ministry for communities and local government.
Others quickly saw his talent, and in July, Sunak became chief secretary to the Treasury, with a seat at the Cabinet table. As he wrote in his local newspaper, Sunak was humbled by the prime minister’s decision to appoint him number two to the chancellor.
“After the call from No 10 and what seemed like a very long walk up Downing Street past the assembled ranks of the media,” he wrote, “I found myself in the famous Cabinet Room with Boris Johnson who asked me to be chief secretary to the Treasury.
I said I was honoured to accept and to serve the country at this defining moment in the nation’s history.” For one Westminster insider, the promotion came as no surprise. “He’s regarded as one of the rising stars, and that’s demonstrated by his meteoric rise from an MP elected in 2015 to attending Cabinet in a matter of four years.
I’m sure there’s a way of measuring whether it is unprecedented, but by any standards, that is a meteoric rise,” they mused. “He clearly has a private sector background, so he clearly understands the world of finance and business.
He is clearly academically gifted, head boy at Winchester, going to Oxford and Stanford, so he comes with impeccable academic credentials. Personality-wise he’s on it, and more recently a test of his ability was to perform in the media.
When he first came out to back Boris in the leadership campaign it coincided with him obviously being more visible. He’s handled himself pretty well against the normal onslaughts ranging from Andrew Neil to the Today programme. The key for him will be being seen as more than a trusted technocrat or a numbers’ man to showing a more-rounded side to him.”
But what is his role and why is it so influential? “Well, chief secretary to the Treasury is one of the most intellectually demanding jobs in government and for most, because it requires an in-depth understanding of every government department,”
explained Lord Hague. “Outside politics, people don’t realise how important this job is. They know about the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Chief secretary to the Controlling the country’s purse strings With impeccable credentials, Sunak’s rise in the Tory Party ranks has been meteoric 24 GG2 Power List | 2020 RISING STAR: Rishi Sunak (left) with Boris Johnson ©Chris J Ratcliffe/ Getty Images PowerList.24-25.indd 2 02/10/2019 14:42:06 Treasury is not as well known.
But no chancellor can do their job properly without a good chief secretary to the Treasury, who controls the spending in government, vast sums of money and really has to be able to argue on at least equal term as every secretary of state around the Cabinet table. So, it requires a deep understanding of the country, politics and issues. Of course, the challenge is how to spend money wisely.”
Sunak was given a matter of weeks to devise a plan that his boss would be able to sell to the country while having a backbone of steel. “We’ve already had the announcements, so Rishi has overseen the spending review in record time during August, and the results were announced a couple of weeks ago with more spending on the police, health service, and education, so the big challenge politically is how to spend the money on the right things,” said Lord Hague.
“You have to be tough as chief secretary because you can’t just give in to all your colleagues, otherwise the spending goes through the roof. So, you have to be tough and not worry too much about being popular, and I think he absolutely understands that well.” That political acuity and understanding of Westminster have been obvious. Sunak was one of the first to throw his support behind Johnson in this year’s leadership race.
He could so easily have backed Sajid Javid or Michael Gove, said one Westminster source. “Rishi has nailed his colours to a particular mast, and when he came out, with others, for Boris, that helped Boris enormously, giving him the momentum he needed to go on to win. Rishi could have gone for either Sajid, another south Asian or Michael Gove who brought him into politics.
He also worked not only with Sajid but with Dominic Raab. He had a three-way pull, and he probably chose Boris on the basis of who could win a General Election.” Observers say that Sunak simply loves his current job and thrives on the pressure. “He’s not even 40 yet,” said one Westminster source.
“If you talk to people in parliament, he’s definitely being talked about as prime ministerial material, which is saying something.”
But they warn that Sunak will need to make more of his ‘back story’. “He has interesting back stories. His father and mother ran a pharmacy. So, he comes from a professional family. People will want to understand more about him; where does he come from? What does he believe in? What is he passionate about? Those are the things which will differentiate him ultimately.” But Sunak will face further scrutiny. “People will ask how does someone with his background support Brexit?” said the source.
“On that point he hasn’t really articulated it fully yet, but he’s also come up with positive ways of using Brexit. His idea of creating free trade zones using free ports post-Brexit, for example, could burnish his credentials as someone who is serious about providing solutions to what this country needs.”
Sunak has also another potential star quality that he has not exploited. His father-in-law is the Indian billionaire N. R. Narayana Murthy, co-founder of Infosys. Fortune magazine named Murthy among the 12 greatest entrepreneurs of our time. Perhaps Sunak feels he does not need to trade on his father-in-law’s name, but there is one obvious hurdle. Despite being the only major British political party to have had two female prime ministers, the Conservatives are not seen as welcoming to ethnic minorities.
It is something a Westminster insider believes is shifting. “I think the fact that Sajid is chancellor and was in the final four of the leadership contest paves the way for someone going the whole way,” they said. “To his credit, David Cameron said about seven years ago that the Tories would be the first party to have a British-Indian prime minister.” Lord Hague believes Sunak has real potential.
“I don’t want to ruin his chances by speculating,” he said. “I would put it by saying he could do any job in the government, right up to the top, I think he’s fully capable of doing that, intellectually, politically and personally. And the second thing I would say is that there is every chance the Conservative party will be the first major British political party to have a leader who is black, Asian minority ethnic.”
By nailing his colours to the Johnson mast, Sunak may fall victim to his prime minister’s fate. The prime minister has suffered an unprecedented number of defeats in parliament in such a short time, and that has been reinforced by the damning legal judgement handed down by the Supreme Court in September.
If Johnson fails to keep his word in getting the UK our out of Europe – do or die – by October 31, then is it possible Sunak will suffer? One Westminster source does not think so.
“I think this is where he can play his technocratic, somewhat geeky, reputation to his advantage because clearly, he’s doing the hard lifting,” they argued. “The Treasury has been very complementary about the way he’s handled the recent spending review. By keeping his head down and focusing on the job and navigating these economically choppy waters that might arise from Brexit, are probably enough to get him out of any potential trouble by association.” One thing observers have noticed is that Sunak has not played on his Indian-ness. A source said that he is a vocal and vociferous supporter of England, even when they play India at cricket.
His patriotism to his country, his loyalty to his party and support for his prime minister shine through every time Sunak is on the radio or television. Yet, he also knows that hubris is an enemy to be avoided.
“As I was shown into my new office,” he wrote in his local newspaper when he was appointed chief secretary to the Treasury, “the first thing that caught my eye was the wall of photographs of previous holders of this senior post. Illustrious figures such as Sir John Major and one of my predecessors as MP for Richmond, the late Lord Brittan of Spennithorne. Big boots to fill!” You just get the feeling that for this young, talented and influential British-Indian politician, anything is possible.
