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Sunak needs to make Chequers trip count

RISHI Sunak is taking his Cabinet to Chequers, the Prime Minister’s grace-and-favour country retreat, for what a spokesperson says will be a “focus on the five priority areas” Sunak announced in his New Year’s speech.

But the problems that bedevilled him at Prime Minister’s Questions — the tax affairs of party chair Nadhim Zahawi, among other things — have not gone away. Indeed, more is to come, with Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab said to be the subject of formal bullying complaints by at least 24 civil servants.

Sunak points to due process as the reason he has not acted sooner. But the Prime Minister risks feeding a self-reinforcing narrative, one that the Labour Party is all too happy to fuel, that he is weak.

With Britain’s economy stuttering along, rolling crises across public services and a deal with the EU on the Northern Ireland Protocol seemingly forever out of reach, voters will be looking for a leader who can grasp the nettle — and the opportunities for the future.

The flaw behind away days, like romantic long weekends, is that the same problems await when you come home.

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2023-01-26T08:00:00.0000000Z

2023-01-26T08:00:00.0000000Z

https://eveningstandard.pressreader.com/article/281749863486658

Evening Standard Limited