In May 2023, Conservative British weekly magazine The Spectator ran a piece revealing the “guilty pleasures” of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. Allegedly, he likes listening to the music of Michael Bublé, watching Emily in Paris – and reading the novels of Jilly Cooper.
This might seem, on the surface, an uncontroversial choice. Cooper is a stalwart of the British literary scene, awarded an OBE in 2004 and a CBE in 2018 for services to literature. Moreover, her most iconic character, Rupert Campbell-Black – who is reportedly partially based on Queen Camilla’s former husband Andrew Parker-Bowles – is British nationalism made flesh.
