Rishi Sunak chases easy headlines on migrant boats at his political peril

This is not a problem that can be legislated away the solution lies in the countries from which migrants come

- Philip Collins

RISHI Sunak inherited a political position from Liz Truss that was probably hopeless — but if he has any hope at all, he has two. The first hope, which it is not in his gift to control, is that the economy might turn in time and that he might take some of the political credit for that, if there is any. The second hope, which should occupy all his time between now and the general election, is that he starts to use the privilege of office and starts fixing a few problems.

This is more than a demand that the Prime Minister should do something. It is about the definition of a political character. Mr Sunak is a relative novice who is hard to place politically. For the minority of the initiated who have read his Mais Lecture from when he was the chancellor, Mr Sunak is a dry Thatcherite in economics. Quite where he stands on most other issues — apart from Brexit, for which he was a surprising enthusiast — is less clear.

As a consequence, and because time is short, the Prime Minister’s best chance of drawing a political character is to establish himself as the pragmatic man who gets things done. This has the virtue of contrasting him nicely with his ideological predecessor in Truss and the cavalier premier before that, Boris Johnson. It also steals the character sketch that Sir Keir Starmer was planning to draw.