“Sunak, the Messiah? No, he’s a very naughty, naughty little boy!
October 26, 2022,  

Arup Ganguly in Brit Eye for an Indian Bhai, India, World, TOI

British Indians, across the length and breadth of the U.K., were “cock-a-hoop” yesterday, as one Tory MP put it (who says that anymore?). Indeed, this year’s Diwali delivered a very special gift. Our first brown Prime Minister; the historical significance of the moment was overwhelming for many. The inevitable Ram & Sita memes were doing the rounds like a whirling Dervish (“Dervish”, who says that anymore?) and the queue of Indian parents outside Winchester College, looking to enroll their offspring, has grown exponentially overnight. Poor little Asian kids; becoming a doctor is no longer good enough. However, we would do well to remember that while Lord Ram returned to Ayodhya having soundly vanquished his foes, Rishi Sunak has reached his summit purely through attrition i.e. he hid under a table while all the other candidates either withered away or imploded of their own accord. Moreover, if there had been another nominee and the vote had gone to the membership, it’s quite doubtful that the largely white congregation would have voted for him. Let’s also not forget that it was Rishi and his Brexit pals that created the economic debacle that caused the leadership crisis in the first place.

This is our “Obama moment” someone gushed at me over dinner last night. “Oh Purleeez” I responded. Let’s not get carried away and put Sunak in the same league as a seasoned international statesman like Obama. Sunak, who’s only been a serving MP for the last seven years, has little to no diplomatic credentials nor the gravitas to match. Skills that are critical at present given the heightened geopolitical tensions in Europe and the far east. Rishi is a chancer by comparison. Also, importantly, Obama won a general election and wears full length, big boy trousers unlike our leader.

As for calling out the gaping chasms in his predecessor’s mini budget, a lobotomized apricot could see the problems with embarking on an unfunded programme of huge tax cuts. No one was surprised that Liz Truss didn’t have a Scooby Doo (clue) about public finances, so it’s hardly something to hang one’s hat on.

Moreover, it was the Tory Party’s ill-conceived Brexit project, built on fables and lies, that precipitated the UK’s financial woes in the first place. Anyone who hasn’t figured out that leaving the largest free trading bloc in the world was only going to lead one way, having already knocked around 5% off our GDP (by some estimates), needs to wake up. Brexit was always about creating enough dislocation to create excess gains for the elite few at the expense of the majority. Rishi Sunak was and is a hardcore champion of that Brexit agenda.

As a result of the last few weeks of economic turmoil, caused almost completely by the battle for supremacy within the Tory Party (three different PM’s in the last three months), Sunak will now have to embark on a programme of tax hikes and severe public spending cuts. This on top of the burgeoning energy costs and climbing interest rates only spells more misery for the average family. Yet the government still refuses to tax those who are making super profits at this time – the energy companies.

Rishi has to get Brexit “really” done i.e. fix the highly contentious and potentially flammable Irish border issue, get inflation under control and bring interest rates back down, bag some significant international trade deals, not kill the public sector through a programme of austerity while still reducing government borrowing, get immigration under control (to keep the party hard liners happy), reduce regional economic disparities (so called “level up”) and unite the party which has been left deeply fractured by endless internal battles. That’s just the in-tray on day one. All the while, Boris Johnson (still fantasizing about rising awkwardly like a rather odd shaped phoenix from the burnt remnants of his political career) will be waiting in the wings, plotting and attempting to destabilise the Sunak government; not to mention the opposition party who are way ahead in the polls and baying for a general election now.

There’s no doubt that Rishi is the best qualified candidate the Tories have at this moment (the best of a bad bunch if you will) and his appointment, certainly in the short term, will give financial markets a much needed breather from all the recent volatility. However, if “Rishi Rich” fails, we could see GBP fall below the US Dollar, the UK losing whatever global status and influence it has left (both politically and economically), the price of goods and services continue to rise, potential social unrest and the country heading to a general election and yet another PM sooner rather than later. That’ll be it for another non-white PM for a while. It will also prove an existential moment for the Tories who will probably be sent into exile for a generation and deservedly so. From the Empire to Brexit chaos, a three-hundred year, right wing programme of greed is finally coming to a conclusion, one way or another.

Arup Ganguly has spent 27 years in the global banking sector and currently sits on the boards of several companies in the tech and finance space. Arup has been a guest columnist