Analysis: Confident new Prime Minister Rishi Sunak boosts battered Tories

In an interview with the JC in August, during this year’s first Tory leadership campaign, Mr Sunak said he wanted to increase funding to organisations that defend Jews from antisemitism such as the Community Security Trust, saying he found it “shameful” they were necessary, but “as long as they are needed we will continue to support their work to keep the Jewish community safe”. 

And at an August hustings meeting organised by Conservative Friends of Israel, Mr Sunak said there was a “very strong case” for making the embassy move. He made no specific promise, and Israeli sources said they did not expect him to act. “He just has too much to deal with to risk spending political capital on this,” one former official told the JC. But the fact that it is anywhere near the agenda is significant. 

The new Business Secretary Grant Shapps — a former president of BBYO — is, say friends, “a passionate advocate of the Israeli high-tech start-up nation. He will do all he can to deepen Anglo-Israeli partnerships”. 

In August, as Transport Secretary, Mr Shapps visited Tel Aviv, where he met his Israeli counterpart Merav Michaeli, inspected sites where the city’s new light rail network is currently being built, and signed a memorandum of understanding to share technology and experience. 

Keeping her job as Trade Secretary, Kemi Badenoch is another friend of Israel, who is certain to push for an enhanced UK-Israel trade deal.  

Also still in post is Defence Secretary Ben Wallace, who continues to assign a high value to the Anglo-Israeli relationship in security and intelligence. Concerns about his past contact with the Iranian regime no longer bother most Israeli officials, the JC understands.

What a dizzying few days it has been. For once, former Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson was right: a week really has been a long time in politics.  

Seven days ago, as Liz Truss stumbled her way through her second and last Prime Minister’s Questions on the day before she resigned, the Tories behind her sat scowling and silent, their arms folded, their shoulders hunched.  

Accepting the crown on Monday, Mr Sunak told Tory MPs that they had to “unite or die”. If the cheers that greeted his performance in the debating chamber on Wednesday are anything to go by, it is clear that they have rejected the second of those options very firmly indeed.  

Sometimes, as after the death of a monarch, Britain’s constitutional processes move slowly, with grace and solemnity. When Tories decide they have to replace a prime minister whose selection turns out to have been a terrible mistake, things are different. What might have been a damaging, divisive saga lasting weeks was all over in just five days. 

There were smaller dramas along the way: the re-entry, and then re-withdrawal, of Boris Johnson into national politics; the candidacy of Penny Mordaunt, talked up feverishly by her allies, only to subside. 

But on Monday afternoon, just seconds before Sir Graham Brady, chairman of the 1922 Committee, was set to announce who had cleared the 100-MP nomination barrier candidates required to get on the putative party member ballot, Ms Mordaunt too announced she was withdrawing via a tweet, leaving Mr Sunak unchallenged. 

And thence to the drama of Sir Graham’s announcement followed by Mr Sunak’s first speech as leader to MPs. Afterwards, a steady stream of Tory grandees made plain their euphoria. Here at last, they said, was the man for the job: as former party leader Sir Iain Duncan-Smith told me, “Cometh the hour, cometh the man. We can get back to governing again.” 

As Chancellor, Mr Sunak succeeded as a technocrat. As PM, he has earned his early cheers as a formidable debater. 

If a week is a long time in politics, 27 months — the period that could, in theory, elapse before an election takes place — is a geological age. It may be time to start pricing down the predicted Labour landslide.