Rishi Sunak has walked the path of life arm in arm with good fortune. He was brought up in a stable home by parents with high aspirations for their children. He was schooled at Winchester, one of England’s most prestigious private establishments, and became head boy there. He graduated from Oxford with a first and was a Fulbright scholar at Stanford. He made money at Goldman Sachs, filled his boots with more moolah at other jobs in finance and married the daughter of a billionaire. When he decided on a career switch into politics, he wasn’t required, as many wannabe parliamentarians are, to demonstrate his commitment by first fighting an unwinnable constituency. He bagged a safe Conservative seat at the first time of asking. He was an MP at the age of 34 and chancellor before he turned 40. And then the wheel of fortune turned against him. He was promoted to Number 10 at the worst point of the political cycle to become prime minister.
I don’t say this to elicit sympathy for the Tory leader. He wanted the job so much he ran for it twice. I am drawing attention to one of his biggest problems, perhaps the largest of the many that confront him. Historical precedent suggests that Mr Sunak is destined to join the sorry club of prime ministers who have been dubbed the “tail-end Charlies”. That label was applied by the late Roy Jenkins, a historian of politics as well as a practitioner of it, to describe the “incredibly strong pattern” of failure among prime ministers coming to office when their party has already been dominant for a long period. Membership includes the Earl of Rosebery (Liberal, 1894-95), Neville Chamberlain (Conservative, 1937-40), Alec Douglas-Home (Conservative, 1963-64), Jim Callaghan (Labour, 1976-79), John Major (Conservative, 1990-97) and Gordon Brown (Labour, 2007-10).
