Has Rishi Sunak’s rising star made him the target of ‘malign forces’ in the Conservative Party?

The popular chancellor is tipped as a future leader but may need to learn the art of political survival in meantime

Rishi Sunak
(Image credit: Toby Melville/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)

When Rishi Sunak moved into 11 Downing Street, he could have walked down Whitehall without anyone but the most plugged in Westminster-watchers recognising him.

Yet just five months, in July, a YouGov poll found that he was the most popular chancellor since Gordon Brown before the 2008 financial crisis hit. A total of 59% of Britons approved of Sunak’s efforts to mitigate the economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic, with The Independent branding him “the most popular politician in the country”.

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Joe Evans is the world news editor at TheWeek.co.uk. He joined the team in 2019 and held roles including deputy news editor and acting news editor before moving into his current position in early 2021. He is a regular panellist on The Week Unwrapped podcast, discussing politics and foreign affairs. 

Before joining The Week, he worked as a freelance journalist covering the UK and Ireland for German newspapers and magazines. A series of features on Brexit and the Irish border got him nominated for the Hostwriter Prize in 2019. Prior to settling down in London, he lived and worked in Cambodia, where he ran communications for a non-governmental organisation and worked as a journalist covering Southeast Asia. He has a master’s degree in journalism from City, University of London, and before that studied English Literature at the University of Manchester.