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Farewell, Rishi Sunak, parliament’s Icarus who has finally crash-landed | Aditya Chakrabortty
From overseeing mass fraud to messing up furlough, the chancellor’s mistakes are many. It’s amazing his popularity held so long
When the Times last put Rishi Sunak on the cover of its Saturday magazine, in August 2020, it used a picture that was almost normal. There stood the chancellor behind a green leather chair, wearing a navy suit and purple tie – but Photoshopped above his head was one extra detail: a gold halo, as if to say here is no mere finance minister, but an envoy from God. Back then, lots of people thought the chancellor was simply divine. This was the era of “dishy Rishi”, of pundits gurgling in delight over a professionally curated Instagram feed, of GQ magazine mooning over the 40-something as an “unlikely style hero”. “Are Sunak’s suits really all that good? Or am I being blindsided by those kind eyes and that flawless complexion?”, mused its style director, like a character from a Judy Blume novel. It might have been only two years back, but it feels like an eternity ago.
Bad news now clings to Sunak like burrs to a dog after a walk in the woods. First, the resounding emptiness of last month’s spring statement, even as the country was sliding into a historic social and economic crisis. Then last week’s revelations that his wife doesn’t pay UK tax on her international income and that the chancellor himself held a US green card while living in Downing Street. And on Tuesday, the Metropolitan police slapped him with a fine for attending a birthday party for Boris Johnson. Sunak’s allies are telling journalists he is furious about the police decision, saying he only went to the cabinet room to see the prime minister about something else. This may be true. What is false is the chancellor’s claim that he broke no rules and that he “did not attend any parties”. Just like his boss, he has lied to both the public and parliament.
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