Losing It

 If electoral politics was a combat sport, the British election of 2024 would have been a bloodbath. The Conservative Party or Torries, which had run the show for the last 14-years were effectively wiped off the map, as the opposition Labour party ended up with 63 percent of the seats in parliament or 412 of the available 650 seats in the House of Commons. The Labour Party had already reached the mark needed to form a majority (326 seats) way before the Torries passed the 100-seat mark.

 

 It wasn’t just the Labour party that took seats. The traditional third party of British politics, the Liberal Democrats had a good night too and unfortunately, the “reform” party of Nigel Farage, the populist politician who champions the sods who won’t work to bash the people who want to work, also had a pretty good showing.

The nicest thing that could be said of the whole evening, was the fact that the defeated Prime Minister, Mr. Rishi Sunak, gave a very eloquent concession speech, where he graciously acknowledged defeat and took responsibility for the loss. Mr. Sunak came into power as the first Prime Minister of Indian Origin, leaves it as the leader who brought about the party’s worst ever electoral defeat:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPdpemrGmg8

 

 

 While Mr. Sunak’s speech was graceful and eloquent, it couldn’t help erase the fact that his party and government had proved the old adage about elections true – “Opposition parties don’t win elections – Governments lose them.” Mr. Sunak was to all intents and purposes doomed to lose this General Election. Each and every one of his four predecessors had found ways to tank the economy to levels where British people ended up facing choices one associates with third world backwaters rather than citizens of a G7 economy.

Brexit was a form of Jingoistic suicide, where the UK threw away its greatest advantage of being the entry point for foreign investment into the EU. Furthermore, goods and services which had once traveled across national borders with ease, started cramming up at borders.

While Brexit captured the headlines, there was also a slew of austerity measures, which ended up cutting funding from those who needed it most and somehow enriching those who didn’t need it.

Mr. Sunak was not blameless in any events. He was the Chancellor of the Exchequer or the man in charge of the money under Boris Johnson. Whilst he acted to produce measures that helped lessen the impact of Covid, his schemes came about it in such a manner than ended up creating that most wonderful of third world problems – graft.

As a communicator, Mr. Sunak was often out of touch. His wealth was often a subject of controversy and whilst he was graceful enough to acknowledge mistakes during his defeat, one can only say that he might have gained far more sympathy from the public had he acknowledged past mistakes at the start of his tenure.

In a way, the tragedy of Mr. Sunak is that he was a symbol of the good things about the country. He is the son of migrants who made good. He’s been educated in the world-class institutions that not only produced great minds in the UK but from around the world. In his personal life, the man has steady marriage and family life or as my youngest brother said – “remarkably boring.”

Yet, instead of being the “aspirational” story, Mr. Sunak proceeded to pander to some of the worst qualities of his various predecessors. Mr. Sunak was smart enough to see that his predecessor, Ms. Liz Truss was on the verge of tanking the economy with “fantasy economics.” Yet, instead of coming in with a “clean” team, Mr. Sunak proceeded to keep some of Ms Truss’s worst performing members, or specifically returning Ms. Suella Braverman to the Home Office. Instead of getting to the root of the migration problem, an administration filled with children of migrants went to war against people who like to work, thus benefiting illegal people smugglers.

Mr. Sunak had the good fortune of coming in when expectations were low. In fairness, he did calm the bond markets with his reputation for knowing economics. However, instead of trying to undo some of the worst mistakes of his predecessors, Mr. Sunak chose to continue them, thus compounding reasons for the electorate to send his party into the political wilderness and ending his life in politics. Perhaps, now that he’s out of power, Mr. Sunak, could do well to write books acknowledging his mistakes thus creating a legacy.