Rishi Sunak is making it up as he goes along – and is therefore likely to become prime minister

Rishi Sunak drove his Rolls-Royce Treasury machine into the House of Commons this week and made an illegal U-turn in the chamber, in broad daylight, then carried on as if nothing had happened. He will definitely be the next prime minister.  

He came to the despatch box to announce that he had got the Winter Economy Plan wrong, and 10 days before it was to come into effect, he was going to change it. What he didn’t say was that the Labour Party had pointed out the flaws in it, so he was going to put them right. Instead, he explained that he believed in consensus and stood ready to work with all MPs, so he was grateful to a number of his colleagues – he named a list of Conservative MPs in Greater Manchester constituencies who have votes in the next Tory leadership election – for making helpful suggestions to improve his original plan, and “as we have throughout this crisis, we will listen and respond to people’s concerns as the situation demands”.

He backdated help for businesses hit by local coronavirus restrictions to August; increased the level of support for part-time workers and the self-employed; and reduced the contribution required from employers. It was a stunning performance.  

Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, was certainly stunned, saying – in effect – that if the prime minister had made that announcement the day before, he could have reached an agreement with him.

Anneliese Dodds, replying to Sunak in the Commons, rightly pointed out that she had demanded all these changes, and that the extra help for businesses was only forthcoming now that London was being hit by restrictions – whereas Manchester had been struggling with them for months. But because Sunak was now doing the right thing, and backdating the help for Manchester, she was reduced to complaining that he “could have done much more if he had acted sooner”. In other words: “I can’t lay a glove on him; he will definitely be prime minister.”

The closer they are to Keir Starmer, the more Labour people deny that they are thinking that far ahead, but their thinking seems to be infused by the assumption that they will be fighting a Sunak-led Tory party at the next election.  

I am not sure this is what Boris Johnson thinks. He sat next to Sunak, 1.5 metres away, as the chancellor delivered the statement, looking genuinely delighted with his neighbour’s performance. 

What a performance it was. I watched it from the press gallery, and have to say that even in a socially distanced chamber, I haven’t seen someone command the House like that since Tony Blair. In many ways, Sunak is nothing special. He is a plain speaker, no jokes, no elaborate metaphors. The statement was short, laid out the new measures clearly, with spare rhetorical touches – “people are not on their own”. He was well prepared, and did bipartisan reasonableness well, even while attacking Labour’s plan for a “damaging, blunt, national lockdown” that would “roll on with no clear end in sight”.  

He was rewarded with praise from Chris Bryant, the Labour MP: “I’m not going to quibble; I think all of this is good and I’m delighted that it’s being announced today.” And with obsequious fawning from Matt Vickers, the new Tory MP, who used to work for Sunak in his Richmond, Yorks, constituency association: “I thank the myth, the man, the legend who is my right honourable friend for this life-saving support for businesses in my patch.”

Bryant asked the sharpest question, which was how much the new measures would cost. “I cannot give him a precise figure,” replied the chancellor, “because these are demand-led schemes.” That revealed quite how extraordinary these times are: that the Treasury is prepared to announce a plan without knowing how much it will cost.  

It is the right approach. Sunak has abandoned the idea of a Budget this autumn and has wisely scrapped the idea of drawing up spending plans for the next three years, aiming to set out a plan for the year ahead that will no doubt be torn up and rewritten several times by this time next year. As he put it: “I will never make any apology for acting fast as the moment demands and as the health situation evolves.” Which is the most elegant way of saying, “I’m making it up as I go along,” but it also makes him an awkward target for the opposition to hit.  

The conventional wisdom is that Sunak’s armour of invincibility will start to disintegrate as unemployment rises and hard public spending choices have to be made. I think this may be overdone. The Marcus Rashford campaign for free school meals over the holidays may be a harbinger of trouble to come, and the government’s resistance to spending a relatively small amount of money is puzzling. But the voters understand the principle that public borrowing cannot be limitless. Under Starmer’s new management, Labour, too, will hold back from simply demanding more spending. “We don’t accept the argument that the government has opened the floodgates so anything goes,” one shadow cabinet minister told me.

If Sunak can continue to explain to people in his clear, Blairite, teacherly way, why difficult choices have to be made – and shows the ideological flexibility to U-turn when necessary – I can see him taking enough of his exceptional popularity with him to emerge from the recession as the obvious successor.  

I think Boris Johnson will last longer than most people seem to expect; but if the Conservatives need a new leader by the time of the next election, they have one.