A QUESTION floats around the media: why is Rishi Sunak so bad? The obvious follow-up question — why did someone so bad at politics become Britain’s actual top politician — gets asked less.

It’s difficult for the Westminster media to ask, because any answer suggests the Westminster system itself is rotten, and the political press is part of that system. This means the enigma of Sunak is discussed, but never explained.
 
Rosa Prince on the Politico website gave a good expression of what is now the received wisdom of the pundits, saying the PM’s D-Day debacle was: “Yet another sign that Sunak is just really, really bad at politics.” She says “Sunak is just a really bad politician,” with “off-kilter political antennae.”
 
So why did someone so “bad” at politics want to become PM, and how did anyone let him?
 
The first question seems easy to answer. Top banking and finance folk think of themselves as “Masters of the Universe.” Sunak followed the Establishment route for a well-funded clever lad, from a top public school to Oxford and Stanford to banking with Goldman Sachs and then hedge funds.

Because he married into the super-rich Murthy family, a simple career in banking was a bit pointless: he had reason and opportunity to try his hand at politics.
 
It’s like a modern version of the old aristocratic tradition to ensure the ruling class run everything: have one son running the family business, one joins the church and one goes to the army. Sunak could “have a try” at politics without facing any financial risk. He could be an MP and have a Penthouse in Santa Monica, so why not?

Sunak even paid for a private “presentation coach” to become an MP. Last year the Independent revealed Sunak paid wanna-be-an-MP coach Graham Davies who helped him get selected.

Davies then “helped him with his maiden speech and various other speeches in the House of Commons and of course, as he got into the Cabinet, with conference speeches [for] Tory Party conference, and perhaps most crucially, debating techniques for the debates on television during the last general election”
 
Sunak became an MP by hiring a political “personal trainer.” He did a turn as PM in the way another rich bright-young-thing might slum it in an NGO before returning to the City — which says something about our political system.
 
Self-belief and cash shouldn’t be enough for someone “bad at politics” to advance in politics, but the Tory Party also believes bankers are “masters of the universe.” However shallow and coached, Sunak had access to the top of the party. It helped that the party itself was in crisis, turning to ever more flawed leaders to keep its unpopular policies afloat.

Sunak became Chancellor because an equally right-wing but less shallow banker, Sajid Javid, was too big a figure for Boris Johnson to tolerate. Having been appointed as Johnson’s yes-man, Sunak climbed up the ladder largely because Johnson, and then Liz Truss, exploded. He didn’t have to win an election, he just had to look less ludicrous than the Tory chancers who were self-destructing.
 
The Tories’ ever-more unconvincing ways to pretend their recipe of cuts, privatisation and handouts to their corporate mates would, in fact, deliver “levelling up,” “new hospitals” or “growth” meant they went through corrupt or cranky leaders until we are left with Sunak.

The rot in the Tory Party explains why Sunak became Prime Minister, but he had other help. Sunak was helped by the innate urge of the Westminster media to suck up to Prime Ministers, especially Tories or centrists. The same media that now says he is rubbish said he was great.
 
So when Sunak became PM, Rachael Sylvester wrote in the Times that this showed “the grown-ups are back in charge.” These grown-ups were putting aside the “childish things” of overly ideological Toryism and replacing them with Sunak’s “pragmatic approach driven by the economic realities of the markets.”

Fellow right-wing pundit Iain Martin said: “At last, here was the return to something approaching competent statecraft and dignified speechmaking.” The “grown-ups” praise was made across the right and centre: Dan Hodges and Julia Hartley-Brewer praised his “grown-up” politics, Piers Morgan called him a “grown-up” while centrist liberal James O’Brien has said, “It does look as if a grown-up is back in the building.”
 
Even when criticising Sunak, centrists pulled punches. Ben Judah, who is now David Lammy’s adviser, wrote in August 2023 that “Sunak seemed like a breath of fresh air, a solid manager and a respectable and respectful captain for a Britain that appeared” to be “adrift” when elected, even if he had been a bit disappointing since.
 
Sunak was also, according to Bloomberg, a “details man, poring over spreadsheets and mastering the intricacies of economic policy.” This “details man” claim also spread across the media.
 
Sunak had already been puffed up when he was chancellor. In 2021 the BBC produced an OTT video of Sunak praise, with contributions from Spectator editor Katy Balls calling him “someone who is very bright and very smart,” adding “everyone tells you how lovely he is.”

Guardian political editor Pippar Crerar said Sunak was “very personable and a man of the people.” The BBC also produced another video with a cartoon Sunak made into Superman. The BBC continually praised his introduction of the Covid “furlough,” a measure pressed upon him that he disliked, and glossed over his signature Covid plan “eat out to help out” which spent a lot of money to exacerbate the pandemic.
 
Now Sunak is clearly on the way out, much of the Westminster media that reflexively praised him as they do other top Tories now suddenly notice his flaws and pronounce him “bad at politics.”

If Britain’s top surgeon was found to be really bad at using a scalpel, if Britain’s top pilot kept crashing planes, the press would immediately say: “How did they get here, what is wrong with the system of regulation and inspection that it didn’t stop them.” As the media poses as the system of regulation and inspection in politics, they can’t examine their own failure.

Follow Solomon Hughes on X @SolHughesWriter.