Anyone who becomes prime minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland knows that the proverbial ‘first draft of history’ of their time in Downing Street will be written not by journalists but by the indefatigable Anthony Seldon, along with whoever is lucky enough to be brought on board as his coauthor. Sunak at 10 is the latest in a line of books charting the ups and downs of premiers going back to Gordon Brown, the recent rapid turnover of PMs since then meaning this volume is the sixth to appear in just sixteen years.

This one comes out two years after its subject left office, having been written in what Seldon and Tom Egerton call ‘that “Goldilocks” moment when the heat and passion of the events being described have cooled, when almost everyone is free and willing to talk, and when perspective on what happened can be achieved, but before memories fade’. As such, much of it is based on interviews with the key players, be they elected politicians, advisers or officials. It focuses unashamedly on the high politics of a tumultuous period that began with Rishi Sunak, the first politician of colour ever to be appointed British prime minister, being parachuted into the role of chancellor of the exchequer by Dominic Cummings, Boris Johnson’s one-time consigliere, in February 2020 and ended with Sunak’s departure from Downing Street in July 2024, the day after he’d led the Conservative Party to its worst ever general election defeat.

Like the previous books in the series, it aims to provide the reader with an analytical narrative rather than simply a chronological account, pausing now and then to ask and answer questions, make comparisons with previous occupants of the office and tackle particular themes (Sunak’s successful handling of Northern Ireland the one they deem the most consequential) before resuming the story. The authors write with admirable economy, avoidance of cliché and even-handedness.

Overall, some will argue that their treatment of Sunak himself errs on the side of generosity, convinced as they are that, given the difficulties inevitably faced by a ‘late-stage prime minister’, he left the country (though not the Conservative Party) in better shape than he found it. Indeed, even their criticisms are prefaced with praise:

He had many of the qualities a Prime Minister needs: integrity, a powerful intellect, ferocious work ethic, attention to detail and calmness under pressure. His shortcomings became evident at the Treasury, but he’d had no opportunity to rectify them. Several were the flip sides of his strengths. His forensic mastery of detail meant he could lose sight of the big picture. His unforgiving work ethic denied him the chance for recuperative rest so he became exhausted emotionally and intellectually … His innate decency impeded his understanding of those who were venal, disloyal and manipulative … His ascetic lifestyle meant, for all his personal generosity, he could never quite shoot the breeze with MPs over a beer or a bottle of wine. In Cabinet meetings, he appeared aloof; not good at imposing his personality on his colleagues or making them feel loved, the atmosphere was often tense. His stellar career had forged his phenomenal business skills, but not at a chief executive or strategic level … like his successor as PM, Keir Starmer, if to a far lesser degree, he lacked innate political nous and judgement. 

We learn that, while he was ambitious enough to think that one day he might climb Disraeli’s greasy pole, Sunak wasn’t at all sure that, when the chance came after the implosion of Liz Truss’s premiership in October 2022, it was one he wanted to take. Indeed, according to Seldon and Egerton, he ‘knew his aides were keener on his becoming Prime Minister than he had been himself’, while Cabinet secretary Simon Case was told by Oliver Dowden (who later became Sunak’s deputy) that they ‘had to force him into becoming PM for the sake of the country and the party’, Sunak having asked them – not unreasonably – ‘Why should I be beaten up for two years and then beaten in the general election?’

Part of that ambivalence, maybe, stemmed from the fact that beyond his Thatcherite enthusiasm for lower taxes, lower inflation and lower spending, Sunak wasn’t one for what George H W Bush once called ‘the vision thing’ – so much so that when urged by his colleagues in the summer of 2022 to lay out why he wanted to be PM, he apparently replied, ‘Can’t you do it?’

And yet the ship of state really did need steadying after the extended psychodrama that had consumed the Conservative Party since the UK’s vote to leave the European Union in July 2016, and Sunak’s main aim was, first, to convince the country that calm and competent management was back in fashion. In pursuit of that aim, he attempted to run a government that embraced figures from all sides of the Tories’ dysfunctional family – even those who continued to believe (against the evidence, the authors suggest) that he had somehow stabbed Boris Johnson in the back. That meant including the egregiously ambitious and disloyal Suella Braverman, whose support Sunak’s team (possibly mistakenly) had assumed was crucial if he was to prevent Boris Johnson joining the post-Truss leadership contest.

Handing Braverman the Home Office, and doling out other Cabinet posts to all too familiar rather than fresh faces, made it practically impossible for Sunak to signal to the electorate that the party really was under new management. Worse, as the authors rightly stress, he made her promises on immigration policy – in particular on ‘stopping the boats’ – that, it turned out, he couldn’t possibly keep without repudiating a host of conventions, laws and treaties he knew it would be politically and legally unwise to break.

When Sunak at last summoned up the courage to sack Braverman in the autumn of 2023, she and Robert Jenrick (who resigned not long afterwards) were determined to undermine and, if possible, get rid of him. Others remained in his Cabinet but – egged on by inveterate stirrers like Danny Kruger, Dougie Smith and Michael Gove – toyed with challenging Sunak for the top job. They included not just Penny Mordaunt but also, most eye-openingly, his eventual successor as Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch.

Overall, then, Sunak at 10 paints a persuasive portrait of a prime minister who was more sinned against than sinning – and a picture of a Conservative Party that was every bit the nest of vipers that voters, even before Rishi Sunak assumed office, had made up their minds to get rid of.

Originally published at https://literaryreview.co.uk/cant-you-do-it