5min chapter

Democracy Sausage with Mark Kenny cover image

Britain's bad decade?

Democracy Sausage with Mark Kenny

CHAPTER

Comparing Rishi Sunak and Boris Johnson's political styles and discussing Sunak's policy-oriented approach

This chapter delves into the rise of Rishi Sunak, exploring his background as an investment banker and how it has shaped his political career. The hosts compare Sunak to Boris Johnson and delve into his policy-oriented approach and focus on the domestic economic situation.

00:00
Speaker 3
Yeah it's kind of fascinating indeed. So Sophie I wonder if we could turn now to because we have been talking a lot about Brexit but let's talk now about the current political situation. What can Australians infer watching this from afar about the arrival of Rishi Sunak? Is he, you know we know he's a former investment banker, we know he's extremely wealthy. I think he may be the wealthiest man in Westminster. Is that right?
Speaker 1
Yes he's well he is married to a woman who is from one of the wealthiest Indian families, literally billionaires. So it's quite an extraordinary situation.
Speaker 3
And he's depicted, I've seen some people sort of criticising him as a bit of a soulless technocrat. He's different from Boris Johnson in that sense. I mean Johnson's this highly colourful figure and you know obviously I don't need to describe him except to say that you know a polarising figure but those who like him, some of them do so with some reluctance they even disagree with him but they still can't help liking him. Does Sunak have any sort of personality that we've seen emerge in a prime ministerial
Speaker 1
sense? Rishi Sunak and Boris Johnson self-evidently extremely different politicians. Rishi Sunak is certainly more of a policy brain. I think for Boris the question was always about whether or not he could bring together an and sustain a competent team underneath him who would be leading on those sorts of things. And he was the sort of very charismatic public face. Rishi Sunak is a details-oriented policy person who will be very hands-on behind the scenes. He is you know a man of spreadsheets and detail and obviously having come from the treasury. I think one thing that was extremely interesting about his time in number 11 was that you know Rishi Sunak was a you know very ardent brexitere and I think he remains one but you know that we talk about treasury orthodoxy which is what Listras and Quasi-Quarteng sought to
Speaker 3
challenge. Over ten
Speaker 1
years. Yeah indeed very unsuccessfully and the reason for that is that the orthodoxy emerges for a very sound reason which is that you know when you are fundamentally responsible for balancing the books and adding up all the sums that does change the way in which you think about things and normally what it does in the British state is it tempers ideology and certainly his time in number 11 I think what we saw was the development of a kind of logic which it will be very interesting to see how that translates into number 10 because you are operating from a rather different logic there. So certainly in terms of trading relationships for example he understood intellectually that if we were to inject friction into our largest trading relationship that we would need to be absolutely gung-ho and open and relaxed about our engagement with other countries around the world. So I think in terms of some of the debates that were being had around the UK's relationship with China which of course that that sort of real vault fast and the you know this reckoning that Westminster has had around China took place while Rishi was in number 11. I think in some of those cabinet debates around that he tended generally to be on the side of openness whereas others like Liz Truss for example were evidently considerably more openly hawkish but but in the same way that does also play back into the EU relationship because he tended also to avoid conflict and a lot of the sort of I guess this more motive aspects of the political debate he felt were a distraction he is for kind of adult conversations and we have seen that as one of the clearest signals that we have had under his premiership is that the domestic economic situation is clearly something he feels needs a lot of attention and the idea of having spats with our closest neighbors over different issues some of which are very important and some of which are more political and less consequential in each and
Speaker 3
one of those was I think you're referring there to Liz Truss's comments about France which she was asked was France friend or foe at one stage and I think she said she equivocated on
Speaker 1
that somehow.

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