Is our next PM really prepared for crisis on all fronts?

Rishi Sunak is not giving up. The Tory leadership hopeful did his best to sound upbeat in an ITV interview on Thursday, telling his childhood hero Andi Peters he was “really excited to keep going” despite dispiriting poll numbers.

The underdog looks increasing like a lost cause. The latest YouGov survey of Conservative members has Liz Truss well out in front (at 66 per cent compared with Sunak’s 34 per cent). A majority of card-carrying Tories say they’ve already voted, so Sunak’s chance of winning over enough undecideds appears to be doomed.

The Truss camp is gleeful about the results, as are the growing number of Tory MPs backing her to be the next prime minister in the hope that some belated brown-nosing might just secure them a job in government.

But as both candidates rush around the country, hopping from bubble to bubble to repeat themselves at Tory hustings events, there is a sense of utter unrealism about life outside the windows of first-class train carriages.

The contenders babble on about tax cuts, getting tough with the EU, and women being women, while the nation is rushing headlong into a series of terrifying crises – spiralling inflation, soaring energy bills, growing NHS waiting lists, overwhelmed food banks and a wave of public-sector strikes.

Is either Truss or Sunak prepared for the multiple emergencies waiting for whichever of them succeeds the demob-happy holidaymaker Boris Johnson in less than three weeks?

October’s energy bill rises will push 13 million people into debt, one leading charity has warned. Food-bank managers say the level of demand now from people being driven into poverty is pushing them to breaking point.

But the candidates have been begrudging about the extra help required this winter, and are apparently unable to imagine the investment needed to fix leaky homes and shift Britain towards a more sustainable supply of clean energy.

NHS waiting lists have soared from 4.4 million before the Covid pandemic to 6.7 million. When he was told at a husting event in Northern Ireland that some hospital patients had been forced to lie on mattresses on the floor, Sunak talked about charging GPs for missed appointments.

There has been the prerequisite “one nation” talk during the campaign, the familiar promise to represent all corners of the UK, but is either candidate really ready to compromise with perceived enemies in the national interest?

Mick Lynch, general secretary of rail union the RMT, has warned that rail strikes could go on “indefinitely”, with union leaders discussing something akin to a general strike. How will the next PM handle the restless unions?

There is also a court battle looming over a second Scottish independence referendum – a spectacle that will require the next PM to handle Nicola Sturgeon’s carefully cultivated PR push with considerable skill. Is either Truss or Sunak really ready for a battle with the SNP leader over the hearts and minds of wavering Scots?

And then there is the self-inflicted fiasco over the Northern Ireland protocol. Both candidates are adamant about pushing on with a bill that could spark a trade war with the EU. Neither Truss nor Sunak has come up with a long-term strategy to draw a line under the endless rows and make Brexit work.

The scale of the task is daunting. It’s worth remembering that the next PM will take over at a time when the unruly Tory party is virtually ungovernable. Unlike Johnson in 2019, neither Truss nor Sunak will be coming to power with the support and goodwill of a large majority of their own MPs.

Billy Connolly used to tell a joke about the strange group of people who want to gain power in parliament: “The desire to be a politician should bar you for life from ever becoming one.”

The clapped-out state of the nation, coming at the clapped-out stage of a Conservative government, makes you wonder about the strange group of two who want to gain power at No 10.