Rishi Sunak is officially Prime Minister after meeting the King at Buckingham Palace. The 42-year-old was named the new Conservative Party leader after Liz Truss resigned following a chaotic 45 days in office.
There's plenty for the new PM to sort out in his first few days on the job, not least the state of his own party, but there should be at least one thing he will be hoping to do that his predecessor never managed to achieve. Truss never got round to ringing First Minister Mark Drakeford, despite every other recent Prime Minister calling Wales' leader on the day they took office. Even King Charles managed to ring devolved leaders within 24 hours of his mother dying. Keep up to date with the latest political news from WalesOnline by signing up to our newsletter.
When we asked 10 Downing Street why the former PM had not called Drakeford, a UK government spokesperson suggested that she had no intention of contacting him directly, despite being "clear on her ambition to attract investment into Wales, and to work closely with the First Minister to drive economic growth". Her predecessor, Boris Johnson, infuriated many in Wales by failing to make it clear that rules and policies he was announcing did not apply to Wales. And there has been anger at the conscious decision to deprive Wales of any funding from the £96bn HS2 project.
Following Truss's resignation, the Welsh Labour leader lambasted the "complete and utter failure" of her government, saying that "everyone in the country [is] now having to pay the price". In a statement, he added: "The complete lack of leadership is preventing decisions and actions from being taken to deal with the many challenges we are facing and help people over what is going to be a very difficult winter. Unfortunately the deep and intractable divisions within the government means that any successor put forward will face the same set of challenges. A general election is now the only way to end this paralysis.”
Following Sunak's appointment as Tory leader, the First Minister congratulated him, saying he hoped the pair would be "able to work constructively together to support people through these difficult times, in a way that your predecessors didn't allow". Sunak is the fourth UK PM since Drakeford took office in December 2018. So, with all eyes now on the new Prime Minister, how quickly did he pick up the phone and give Drakeford a call? Taking inspiration from a now-very famous lettuce, we set up a timer to see exactly how long it would take him.
And Sunak came through. By Tuesday evening, the First Minister had tweeted to say he had spoken to the new Prime Minister, adding: "Tonight, I spoke to @10DowningStreet. A chance to congratulate the Prime Minister and discuss the importance of working together as four nations to address the urgent challenges we face as a United Kingdom."
Mr Sunak said: "Good to speak to @PrifWeinidog and @NicolaSturgeon this evening. I emphasised our duty to work closely together to respond to the shared challenges we face, so that collectively we can deliver for the people of the United Kingdom."
So by our calculations, that meant out timer rolled for around 10 and a half hours until Sunak picked up the phone at the end of a presumably very long day picking his new cabinet. Phew.
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