Cut your losses short and let your winners run. It’s the oldest cliche on Wall Street, and, at heart, Rishi Sunak is more of a banker than a politician. So, in retrospect, perhaps we should have guessed how he would react to the current collapse in the Conservative party’s share price.
His bet on turning the country around hasn’t worked out, so he’s unwinding his position; dumping his stocks and getting out. On Wednesday, Sunak had the air of a man who is tired of waiting for the inevitable and would rather get it over with. What he doesn’t seem to have realised – although judging by their seasick expressions as they lined up behind him, plenty of his cabinet ministers have – is how much politics is not like banking. Cutting and running now, against the reported advice of the Tories’ election guru, Isaac Levido, is a tacit admission that things are not going to get better; that, if anything, they are likely to get worse. And just like that, he has effectively turned his campaign into a public admission of failure.
